CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
List of Illustrations
Comedie D'amour Series
Émile Zola
Jeanne's Illness
Malignon Appoints a Rendezvous With Juliette
The Meeting of Hélène and Henri
[Illustration]
ZOLA AND HIS WRITINGS
Émile Zola was born in Paris, April 2, 1840. His father was Francois
Zola, an Italian engineer, who constructed the Canal Zola in Provence.
Zola passed his early youth in the south of France, continuing his
studies at the Lycée St. Louis, in Paris, and at Marseilles. His sole
patrimony was a lawsuit against the town of Aix. He became a clerk in
the publishing house of Hachette, receiving at first the modest
honorarium of twenty-five francs a week. His journalistic career,
though marked by immense toil, was neither striking nor remunerative.
His essays in criticism, of which he collected and published several
volumes, were not particularly successful. This was evidently not his
field. His first stories, _Les Mystères de Marseilles_ and _Le Voeu
d’Une Morte_ fell flat, disclosing no indication of remarkable talent.
But in 1864 appeared _Les Contes à Ninon_, which attracted wide
attention, the public finding them charming. _Les Confessions de
Claude_ was published in 1865. In this work Zola had evidently struck
his gait, and when _Thérèse Raquin_ followed, in 1867, Zola was fully
launched on his great career as a writer of the school which he called
“Naturalist.” _Thérèse Raquin_ was a powerful study of the effects of
remorse preying upon the mind. In this work the naturalism was
generally characterized as “brutal,” yet many critics admitted that it
was absolutely true to nature. It had, in fact, all the gruesome
accuracy of a clinical lecture. In 1868 came _Madeleine Ferat_, an
exemplification of the doctrine of heredity, as inexorable as the
“Destiny” of the Greek tragedies of old.
And now dawned in Zola’s teeming brain the vast conception of a
“Naturalistic Comedy of Life.” It was to be Balzac “naturalized,” so to
speak. The great cycle should run through the whole gamut of human
passions, foibles, motives and interests. It should consist of human
documents, of painstaking minuteness of detail and incontrovertible
truth.
The idea of destiny or heredity permeates all the works of this
portentously ambitious series. Details may be repellant. One should not
“smell” a picture, as the artists say. If one does, he gets an
impression merely of a small blotch of paint. The vast canvas should be
studied as a whole. Frailties are certainly not the whole of human
nature. But they cannot be excluded from a comprehensive view of it.
The “_Rougon-Macquart_ series” did not carry Zola into the Academy. But
the reputation of Moliere has managed to survive a similar exclusion,
and so will the fame of Zola, who will be bracketed with Balzac in
future classifications of artistic excellence. For twenty-two years,
from _La Fortune des Rougon_, in 1871, to _Docteur Pascal_ in 1893, the
series continued to focus the attention of the world, and Zola was the
most talked about man in the literature of the epoch. _La Fortune des
Rougon_ was introductory. _La Curée_ discussed society under the second
Empire. _Le Ventre de Paris_ described the great market of Paris. _La
Conquete de Plassans_ spoke of life in the south of France. _La Faute
de l’Abbé Mouret_ treated of the results of celibacy. _Son Excellence
Eugene Rougon_ dealt with official life. _L’Assommoir_ was a tract
against the vice of drunkenness. Some think this the strongest of the
naturalist series. Its success was prodigious. In this the marvellous
talent of Zola for minute description is evinced. _Une Page d’Amour_ (A
Love Episode) appeared in 1878. Of _Nana_, 1880, three hundred thousand
copies were quickly sold. _Pot-Bouille_ portrayed the lower
_bourgeoisie_ and their servants. _Au Bonheur des Dames_ treated of the
great retail shops. _La Joie de Vivre_ came in 1884. _Germinal_ told of
mining and the misery of the proletariat. _L’Oeuvre_ pictured the life
of artists and authors. _La Terre_ portrayed, with startling realism,
the lowest peasant life. _Le Reve_, which followed, was a reaction. It
was a graceful idyl. _Le Reve_ was termed “a symphony in white,” and
was considered as a concession to the views of the majority of the
French Academy. _La Bete Humaine_ exhausted the details of railway
life. _L’Argent_ treats of financial scandals and panics. _La Debacle_,
1892, is a realistic picture of the desperate struggles of the
Franco-Prussian war. _Le Docteur Pascal_, 1893, a story of the
emotions, wound up the series. Through it all runs the thread of
heredity and environment in their influence on human character.
But Zola’s work was not finished. A series of three romances on cities
showed a continuance of power. They are _Lourdes_, _Rome_, and _Paris_.
After the books on the three cities Zola planned a sort of tetralogy,
intended to sum up his social philosophy, which he called the “Four
Gospels.” _Feconditie_ is a tract against race suicide. The others of
this series are entitled _Travail_, _Verite_ and _Justice_, the latter
projected but not begun.
The attitude which Zola took in reference to the wretched Dreyfus
scandal will add greatly to his fame as a man of courage and a lover of
truth. From this filthy mess of perjury and forgery Zola’s intrepidity
and devotion to justice arise clear and white as a lily from a
cesspool.
Several of Zola’s books have been dramatized.
Zola died suddenly at his home in Paris, in September, 1902. He
received a public funeral, Anatole France delivering an oration at the
grave. There is every indication that Zola’s great reputation as an
artist and philosopher will increase with the passing of the years.
C. C. STARKWEATHER.
A LOVE EPISODE
CHAPTER I.
The night-lamp with a bluish shade was burning on the chimney-piece,
behind a book, whose shadows plunged more than half the chamber in
darkness. There was a quiet gleam of light cutting across the round
table and the couch, streaming over the heavy folds of the velvet
curtains, and imparting an azure hue to the mirror of the rosewood
wardrobe placed between the two windows. The quiet simplicity of the
room, the blue tints on the hangings, furniture, and carpet, served at
this hour of night to invest everything with the delightful vagueness
of cloudland. Facing the windows, and within sweep of the shadow,
loomed the velvet-curtained bed, a black mass, relieved only by the
white of the sheets. With hands crossed on her bosom, and breathing
lightly, lay Hélène, asleep—mother and widow alike personified by the
quiet unrestraint of her attitude.
In the midst of the silence one o’clock chimed from the timepiece. The
noises of the neighborhood had died away; the dull, distant roar of the
city was the only sign of life that disturbed those Trocadero heights.
Hélène’s breathing, so light and gentle, did not ruffle the chaste
repose of her bosom. She was in a beauteous sleep, peaceful yet sound,
her profile perfect, her nut-brown hair twisted into a knot, and her
head leaning forward somewhat, as though she had fallen asleep while
eagerly listening. At the farther end of the room the open door of an
adjoining closet seemed but a black square in the wall.
Still there was not a sound. The half-hour struck. The pendulum gave
but a feeble tick-tack amid the general drowsiness that brooded over
the whole chamber. Everything was sleeping, night-lamp and furniture
alike; on the table, near an extinguished lamp, some woman’s handiwork
was disposed also in slumber. Hélène in her sleep retained her air of
gravity and kindliness.
Two o’clock struck, and the stillness was broken. A deep sigh issued
from the darkness of the closet. There was a rustling of linen sheets,
and then silence reigned again. Anon labored breathing broke through
the gloom. Hélène had not moved. Suddenly, however, she started up, for
the moanings and cries of a child in pain had roused her. Dazed with
sleep, she pressed her hands against her temples, but hearing a stifled
sob, she leaped from her couch on to the carpet.
“Jeanne! my Jeanne! what ails you? tell me, love,” she asked; and as
the child remained silent, she murmured, while running towards the
night-light, “Gracious Heaven! why did I go to bed when she was so
ill?”
Quickly she entered the closet, where deep silence had again fallen.
The feeble gleam of the lamp threw but a circular patch of light on the
ceiling. Bending over the iron cot, she could at first make out
nothing, but amidst the bed-clothes, tossed about in disorder, the dim
light soon revealed Jeanne, with limbs quite stiff, her head flung
back, the muscles of her neck swollen and rigid. Her sweet face was
distorted, her eyes were open and fixed on the curtain-rod above.
“My child!” cried Hélène. “My God! my God! she is dying.”
Setting down the lamp, Hélène touched her daughter with trembling
hands. The throbbing of the pulse and the heart’s action seemed to have
died away. The child’s puny arms and legs were stretched out
convulsively, and the mother grew frantic at the sight.
“My child is dying! Help, help!” she stammered. “My child! my child!”
She wandered back to her room, brushing against the furniture, and
unconscious of her movements; then, distracted, she again returned to
the little bed, throwing herself on her knees, and ever appealing for
help. She took Jeanne in her arms, rained kisses on her hair, and
stroked her little body, begging her to answer, and seeking one
word—only one word—from her silent lips. Where was the pain? Would she
have some of the cooling drink she had liked the other day? Perhaps the
fresh air would revive her? So she rattled on, bent on making the child
speak.
“Speak to me, Jeanne! speak to me, I entreat you!”
Oh, God! and not to know what to do in this sudden terror born of the
night! There was no light even. Then her ideas grew confused, though
her supplications to the child continued—at one moment she was
beseeching, at another answering in her own person. Thus, the pain
gripped her in the stomach; no, no, it must be in the breast. It was
nothing at all; she need merely keep quiet. Then Hélène tried to
collect her scattered senses; but as she felt her daughter stark and
stiff in her embrace, her heart sickened unto death. She tried to
reason with herself, and to resist the yearning to scream. But all at
once, despite herself, her cry rang out
“Rosalie, Rosalie! my child is dying. Quick, hurry for the doctor.”
Screaming out these words, she ran through dining-room and kitchen to a
room in the rear, where the maid started up from sleep, giving vent to
her surprise. Hélène speeded back again. Clad only in her night-dress
she moved about, seemingly not feeling the icy cold of the February
night. Pah! this maid would loiter, and her child would die! Back again
she hurried through the kitchen to the bedroom before a minute had
elapsed. Violently, and in the dark, she slipped on a petticoat, and
threw a shawl over her shoulders. The furniture in her way was
overturned; the room so still and silent was filled with the echoes of
her despair. Then leaving the doors open, she rushed down three flights
of stairs in her slippers, consumed with the thought that she alone
could bring back a doctor.
After the house-porter had opened the door Hélène found herself upon
the pavement, with a ringing in her ears and her mind distracted.
However, she quickly ran down the Rue Vineuse and pulled the door-bell
of Doctor Bodin, who had already tended Jeanne; but a servant—after an
interval which seemed an eternity—informed her that the doctor was
attending a woman in childbed. Hélène remained stupefied on the
footway; she knew no other doctor in Passy. For a few moments she
rushed about the streets, gazing at the houses. A slight but keen wind
was blowing, and she was walking in slippers through the light snow
that had fallen during the evening. Ever before her was her daughter,
with the agonizing thought that she was killing her by not finding a
doctor at once. Then, as she retraced her steps along the Rue Vineuse,
she rang the bell of another house. She would inquire, at all events;
some one would perhaps direct her. She gave a second tug at the bell;
but no one seemed to come. The wind meanwhile played with her
petticoat, making it cling to her legs, and tossed her dishevelled
hair.
At last a servant answered her summons. “Doctor Deberle was in bed
asleep.” It was a doctor’s house at which she had rung, so Heaven had
not abandoned her! Straightway, intent upon entering, she pushed the
servant aside, still repeating her prayer:
“My child, my child is dying! Oh, tell him he must come!”
The house was small and seemed full of hangings. She reached the first
floor, despite the servant’s opposition, always answering his protest
with the words, “My child is dying!” In the apartment she entered she
would have been content to wait; but the moment she heard the doctor
stirring in the next room she drew near and appealed to him through the
doorway:
“Oh, sir, come at once, I beseech you. My child is dying!”
When the doctor at last appeared in a short coat and without a
neckcloth, she dragged him away without allowing him to finish
dressing. He at once recognized her as a resident in the next-door
house, and one of his own tenants; so when he induced her to cross a
garden—to shorten the way by using a side-door between the two
houses—memory suddenly awoke within her.
“True, you are a doctor!” she murmured, “and I knew it. But I was
distracted. Oh, let us hurry!”
On the staircase she wished him to go first. She could not have
admitted the Divinity to her home in a more reverent manner. Upstairs
Rosalie had remained near the child, and had lit the large lamp on the
table. After the doctor had entered the room he took up this lamp and
cast its light upon the body of the child, which retained its painful
rigidity; the head, however, had slipped forward, and nervous
twitchings were ceaselessly drawing the face. For a minute he looked on
in silence, his lips compressed. Hélène anxiously watched him, and on
noticing the mother’s imploring glance, he muttered: “It will be
nothing. But she must not lie here. She must have air.”
Hélène grasped her child in a strong embrace, and carried her away on
her shoulder. She could have kissed the doctor’s hand for his good
tidings, and a wave of happiness rippled through her. Scarcely,
however, had Jeanne been placed in the larger bed than her poor little
frame was again seized with violent convulsions. The doctor had removed
the shade from the lamp, and a white light was streaming through the
room. Then, opening a window, he ordered Rosalie to drag the bed away
from the curtains. Hélène’s heart was again filled with anguish. “Oh,
sir, she is dying,” she stammered. “Look! look! Ah! I scarcely
recognize her.”
The doctor did not reply, but watched the paroxysm attentively.
“Step into the alcove,” he at last exclaimed. “Hold her hands to
prevent her from tearing herself. There now, gently, quietly! Don’t
make yourself uneasy. The fit must be allowed to run its course.”
They both bent over the bed, supporting and holding Jeanne, whose limbs
shot out with sudden jerks. The doctor had buttoned up his coat to hide
his bare neck, and Hélène’s shoulders had till now been enveloped in
her shawl; but Jeanne in her struggles dragged a corner of the shawl
away, and unbuttoned the top of the coat. Still they did not notice it;
they never even looked at one another.
[Illustration]
At last the convulsion ceased, and the little one then appeared to sink
into deep prostration. Doctor Deberle was evidently ill at ease, though
he had assured the mother that there was no danger. He kept his gaze
fixed on the sufferer, and put some brief questions to Hélène as she
stood by the bedside.
“How old is the child?”
“Eleven years and six months, sir,” was the reply.
Silence again fell between them. He shook his head, and stooped to
raise one of Jeanne’s lowered eyelids and examine the mucus. Then he
resumed his questions, but without raising his eyes to Hélène.
“Did she have convulsions when she was a baby?”
“Yes, sir; but they left her after she reached her sixth birthday. Ah!
she is very delicate. For some days past she had seemed ill at ease.
She was at times taken with cramp, and plunged in a stupor.”
“Do you know of any members of your family that have suffered from
nervous affections?”
“I don’t know. My mother was carried off by consumption.”
Here shame made her pause. She could not confess that she had a
grandmother who was an inmate of a lunatic asylum.[*] There was
something tragic connected with all her ancestry.
[*] This is Adelaide Fouque, otherwise Aunt Dide, the ancestress of the
Rougon-Macquart family, whose early career is related in the “Fortune
of the Rougons,” whilst her death is graphically described in the pages
of “Dr. Pascal.”
“Take care! the convulsions are coming on again!” now hastily exclaimed
the doctor.
Jeanne had just opened her eyes, and for a moment she gazed around her
with a vacant look, never speaking a word. Her glance then grew fixed,
her body was violently thrown backwards, and her limbs became distended
and rigid. Her skin, fiery-red, all at once turned livid. Her pallor
was the pallor of death; the convulsions began once more.
“Do not loose your hold of her,” said the doctor. “Take her other
hand!”
He ran to the table, where, on entering, he had placed a small
medicine-case. He came back with a bottle, the contents of which he
made Jeanne inhale; but the effect was like that of a terrible lash;
the child gave such a violent jerk that she slipped from her mother’s
hands.
“No, no, don’t give her ether,” exclaimed Hélène, warned by the odor.
“It drives her mad.”
The two had now scarcely strength enough to keep the child under
control. Her frame was racked and distorted, raised by the heels and
the nape of the neck, as if bent in two. But she fell back again and
began tossing from one side of the bed to the other. Her fists were
clenched, her thumbs bent against the palms of her hands. At times she
would open the latter, and, with fingers wide apart, grasp at phantom
bodies in the air, as though to twist them. She touched her mother’s
shawl and fiercely clung to it. But Hélène’s greatest grief was that
she no longer recognized her daughter. The suffering angel, whose face
was usually so sweet, was transformed in every feature, while her eyes
swam, showing balls of a nacreous blue.
“Oh, do something, I implore you!” she murmured. “My strength is
exhausted, sir.”
She had just remembered how the child of a neighbor at Marseilles had
died of suffocation in a similar fit. Perhaps from feelings of pity the
doctor was deceiving her. Every moment she believed she felt Jeanne’s
last breath against her face; for the child’s halting respiration
seemed suddenly to cease. Heartbroken and overwhelmed with terror,
Hélène then burst into tears, which fell on the body of her child, who
had thrown off the bedclothes.
The doctor meantime was gently kneading the base of the neck with his
long supple fingers. Gradually the fit subsided, and Jeanne, after a
few slight twitches, lay there motionless. She had fallen back in the
middle of the bed, with limbs outstretched, while her head, supported
by the pillow, inclined towards her bosom. One might have thought her
an infant Jesus. Hélène stooped and pressed a long kiss on her brow.
“Is it over?” she asked in a whisper. “Do you think she’ll have another
fit?”
The doctor made an evasive gesture, and then replied:
“In any case the others will be less violent.”
He had asked Rosalie for a glass and water-bottle. Half-filling the
glass with water, he took up two fresh medicine phials, and counted out
a number of drops. Hélène assisted in raising the child’s head, and the
doctor succeeded in pouring a spoonful of the liquid between the
clenched teeth. The white flame of the lamp was leaping up high and
clear, revealing the disorder of the chamber’s furnishings. Hélène’s
garments, thrown on the back of an arm-chair before she slipped into
bed, had now fallen, and were littering the carpet. The doctor had
trodden on her stays, and had picked them up lest he might again find
them in his way. An odor of vervain stole through the room. The doctor
himself went for the basin, and soaked a linen cloth in it, which he
then pressed to Jeanne’s temples.
“Oh, madame, you’ll take cold!” expostulated Rosalie as she stood there
shivering. “Perhaps the window might be shut? The air is too raw.”
“No, no!” cried Hélène; “leave the window open. Should it not be so?”
she appealed to the doctor.
The wind entered in slight puffs, rustling the curtains to and fro; but
she was quite unconscious of it. Yet the shawl had slipped off her
shoulders, and her hair had become unwound, some wanton tresses
sweeping down to her hips. She had left her arms free and uncovered,
that she might be the more ready; she had forgotten all, absorbed
entirely in her love for her child. And on his side, the doctor, busy
with his work, no longer thought of his unbuttoned coat, or of the
shirt-collar that Jeanne’s clutch had torn away.
“Raise her up a little,” said he to Hélène. “No, no, not in that way!
Give me your hand.”
He took her hand and placed it under the child’s head. He wished to
give Jeanne another spoonful of the medicine. Then he called Hélène
close to him, made use of her as his assistant; and she obeyed him
reverently on seeing that her daughter was already more calm.
“Now, come,” he said. “You must let her head lean against your
shoulder, while I listen.”
Hélène did as he bade her, and he bent over her to place his ear
against Jeanne’s bosom. He touched her bare shoulder with his cheek,
and as the pulsation of the child’s heart struck his ear he could also
have heard the throbbing of the mother’s breast. As he rose up his
breath mingled with Hélène’s.
“There is nothing wrong there,” was the quiet remark that filled her
with delight. “Lay her down again. We must not worry her more.”
However, another, though much less violent, paroxysm followed. From
Jeanne’s lips burst some broken words. At short intervals two fresh
attacks seemed about to convulse her, and then a great prostration,
which again appeared to alarm the doctor, fell on the child. He had
placed her so that her head lay high, with the clothes carefully tucked
under her chin; and for nearly an hour he remained there watching her,
as though awaiting the return of a healthy respiration. On the other
side of the bed Hélène also waited, never moving a limb.
Little by little a great calm settled on Jeanne’s face. The lamp cast a
sunny light upon it, and it regained its exquisite though somewhat
lengthy oval. Jeanne’s fine eyes, now closed, had large, bluish,
transparent lids, which veiled—one could divine it—a sombre, flashing
glance. A light breathing came from her slender nose, while round her
somewhat large mouth played a vague smile. She slept thus, amidst her
outspread tresses, which were inky black.
“It has all passed away now,” said the doctor in a whisper; and he
turned to arrange his medicine bottles prior to leaving.
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Hélène, approaching him, “don’t leave me yet; wait
a few minutes. Another fit might come on, and you, you alone, have
saved her!”
He signed to her that there was nothing to fear; yet he tarried, with
the idea of tranquillizing her. She had already sent Rosalie to bed;
and now the dawn soon broke, still and grey, over the snow which
whitened the housetops. The doctor proceeded to close the window, and
in the deep quiet the two exchanged a few whispers.
“There is nothing seriously wrong with her, I assure you,” said he;
“only with one so young great care must be taken. You must see that her
days are spent quietly and happily, and without shocks of any kind.”
“She is so delicate and nervous,” replied Hélène after a moment’s
pause. “I cannot always control her. For the most trifling reasons she
is so overcome by joy or sorrow that I grow alarmed. She loves me with
a passion, a jealousy, which makes her burst into tears when I caress
another child.”
“So, so—delicate, nervous, and jealous,” repeated the doctor as he
shook his head. “Doctor Bodin has attended her, has he not? I’ll have a
talk with him about her. We shall have to adopt energetic treatment.
She has reached an age that is critical in one of her sex.”
Recognizing the interest he displayed, Hélène gave vent to her
gratitude. “How I must thank you, sir, for the great trouble you have
taken!”
The loudness of her tones frightened her, however; she might have woke
Jeanne, and she bent down over the bed. But no; the child was sound
asleep, with rosy cheeks, and a vague smile playing round her lips. The
air of the quiet chamber was charged with languor. The whilom
drowsiness, as if born again of relief, once more seized upon the
curtains, furniture, and littered garments. Everything was steeped
restfully in the early morning light as it entered through the two
windows.
Hélène again stood up close to the bed; on the other side was the
doctor, and between them lay Jeanne, lightly sleeping.
“Her father was frequently ill,” remarked Hélène softly, continuing her
answer to his previous question. “I myself enjoy the best of health.”
The doctor, who had not yet looked at her, raised his eyes, and could
scarcely refrain from smiling, so hale and hearty was she in every way.
She greeted his gaze with her own sweet and quiet smile. Her happiness
lay in her good health.
However, his looks were still bent on her. Never had he seen such
classical beauty. Tall and commanding, she was a nut-brown Juno, of a
nut-brown sunny with gleams of gold. When she slowly turned her head,
its profile showed the severe purity of a statue. Her grey eyes and
pearly teeth lit up her whole face. Her chin, rounded and somewhat
pronounced, proved her to be possessed of commonsense and firmness. But
what astonished the doctor was the superbness of her whole figure. She
stood there, a model of queenliness, chastity, and modesty.
On her side also she scanned him for a moment. Doctor Deberle’s years
were thirty-five; his face was clean-shaven and a little long; he had
keen eyes and thin lips. As she gazed on him she noticed for the first
time that his neck was bare. Thus they remained face to face, with
Jeanne asleep between them. The distance which but a short time before
had appeared immense, now seemed to be dwindling away. Then Hélène
slowly wrapped the shawl about her shoulders again, while the doctor
hastened to button his coat at the neck.
“Mamma! mamma!” Jeanne stammered in her sleep. She was waking, and on
opening her eyes she saw the doctor and became uneasy.
“Mamma, who’s that?” was her instant question; but her mother kissed
her, and replied: “Go to sleep, darling, you haven’t been well. It’s
only a friend.”
The child seemed surprised; she did not remember anything. Drowsiness
was coming over her once more, and she fell asleep again, murmuring
tenderly: “I’m going to by-by. Good-night, mamma, dear. If he is your
friend he will be mine.”
The doctor had removed his medicine-case, and, with a silent bow, he
left the room. Hélène listened for a while to the child’s breathing,
and then, seated on the edge of the bed, she became oblivious to
everything around her; her looks and thoughts wandering far away. The
lamp, still burning, was paling in the growing sunlight.