CLAUDE'S CONFESSION.
BY
ÉMILE ZOLA.
AUTHOR Of "NANA," "L'ASSOMMOIR," "THE GIRL IN SCARLET," "HELENE,"
"POT-BOUILLE," "THERESE RAQUIN," "THE MYSTERIES OF MARSEILLES,"
"MAGDALEN FERAT," "A MAD LOVE: OR, THE ABBE AND HIS COURT,"
"THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON,"
"LA BELLE LISA; OR, THE PARIS MARKET GIRLS,"
"ALBINE; OR, THE ABBE'S TEMPTATION."
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY GEORGE D. COX.
"Claude's Confession," by Émile Zola, is one of the most exciting and
naturalistic romances that great author has ever produced. It is founded
on his own life, and he himself, under the name of Claude, figures as
the hero. The book is a deep and searching analysis of human feelings,
and surely the miseries of student life in the Paris Quartier Latin were
never set forth in such vivid and startling fashion as in its pages.
Claude, Laurence, Marie, Jacques and Pâquerette play parts in a dark
drama of blasted youth and dissipation truly Parisian in all its
characteristics, and the interest excited in these personages and their
eventful careers is simply overwhelming. The plot is well handled, and
all the incidents possess dramatic intensity. The description of the
public ball is a bit of lurid word-painting which Zola has never
surpassed, while that of the trip of Claude and Laurence to the country
in the spring sparkles with romantic and poetic beauty. Marie's death
and the dénouement are depicted in a style that is powerful in the
highest degree. "Claude's Confession" is one of the strongest books
imaginable, and will certainly fascinate all who take it up.
PHILADELPHIA:
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
306 CHESTNUT STREET.
CLAUDE'S CONFESSION.
BY ÉMILE ZOLA.
DEDICATION
TO MY FRIENDS, P. CÉZANNE AND J. B. BAILLE.
You knew, my friends, the wretched youth whose letters I now publish.
That youth is no more. He wished to become a man amid the wreck and
oblivion of his early days.
I have long hesitated about giving the following pages to the public. I
doubted my right to lay bare a body and a heart; I questioned myself,
asking if it was allowable to divulge the secret of a confession. Then,
when I re-read the panting and feverish letters, hanging together by a
mere thread, I was discouraged; I said to myself that readers would,
doubtless, accord but a cold reception to such a delirious and excited
publication. Grief has but one cry: the work is an incessant complaint.
I hesitated as a man and as a writer.
At last, I thought, one day, that our age has need of lessons and that I
had, perhaps, in my hands, the means of curing a few wounded hearts.
People wish poets and novelists to moralize. I knew not how to mount the
pulpit, but I possessed the work of blood and tears of a poor soul--I
could, in my turn, instruct and console. Claude's avowals had the
supreme precept of sobs, the high and pure moral of the fall and the
redemption.
I then saw that these letters were such as they should be. I have no
idea how the public will accept them, but I have faith in their
frankness, even in their fury. They are human.
Hence, my friends, I resolved to publish this book. I took my decision
in the name of truth and the general good. Besides, looking above the
masses, I thought of you: it would please me to relate to you again the
terrible story which has already filled your eyes with tears.
This story is bare and true even to crudity. The delicate may not like
it, but it will teach them a lesson they cannot fail to profit by. I
have not felt at liberty to cut out a single line, being certain that
these pages are the complete expression of a heart in which there was
more light than darkness. They were written by a nervous and loving
youth, who gave himself entirely to them amid the quivering of his flesh
and the bounds of his soul. They are the morbid manifestation of a
special temperament, which had a bitter need of the real and the false
but sweet hopes of a dream. The whole book is a struggle between
illusion and reality. If Claude's strange love affair should make people
judge him severely, they will pardon him at the dénouement, when he
lifts himself up, younger and stronger, relying upon God.
There was an apostle in Claude. He tells us of his desolated youth,
shows us his wounds and cries aloud what he has suffered that his
brethren may avoid like sufferings. These are evil times for hearts
which resemble his.
I can in a word characterize his work, accord him the highest praise
that I desire as an artist, and, at the same time, reply to all the
objections that may be made:
Claude's aspirations were too lofty.
ÉMILE ZOLA.
CONTENTS
Chapter
I. A MANSARDE IN THE LATIN QUARTER
II. A POET'S LONGINGS
III. THE YOUNG HARVEST-GIRL
IV. TEMPTATION
V. PAQUERETTE
VI. DESPAIR
VII. LAURENCE
VIII. A MISSION FROM ON HIGH
IX. THE COURSE OF REFORMATION
X. THE EMBROIDERY STRIP
XI. ON THE WAY TO THE BALL
XII. THE PUBLIC BALL
XIII. AN ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY
XIV. JACQUES AND MARIE
XV. BITING POVERTY
XVI. REMINISCENCES
XVII. CLAUDE'S LOVE
XVIII. JACQUES' SUPPER
XIX. A TRIP TO THE COUNTRY
XX. A BITTER AVOWAL
XXI. A HORRIBLE PROPOSITION
XXII. THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL
XXIII. PRACTICAL ADVICE
XXIV. SAD REFLECTIONS
XXV. THE FAIR
XXVI. AT MARIE'S BEDSIDE
XXVII. MARIE'S DEATH
XXVIII. LAURENCE'S DEPARTURE
XXIX. CONCLUSION
CLAUDE'S CONFESSION.
BY ÉMILE ZOLA.
AUTHOR Of "NANA," "L'ASSOMMOIR," "THE GIRL IN SCARLET," "HELENE,"
"POT-BOUILLE," "THERESE RAQUIN," "THE MYSTERIES OF MARSEILLES,"
"MAGDALEN FERAT," "A MAD LOVE: OR, THE ABBE AND HIS COURT,"
"THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON,"
"LA BELLE LISA; OR, THE PARIS MARKET GIRLS,"
"ALBINE; OR, THE ABBE'S TEMPTATION."
CHAPTER I
A MANSARDE IN THE LATIN QUARTER
Winter is here: the air in the morning becomes fresher, and Paris puts
on her mantle of fog. This is the season of social soirées. Chilly lips
search for kisses; lovers, driven from the country, take refuge beneath
the mansardes, and, huddling together before the hearth, enjoy, amid the
noise of the rain, their eternal spring.
As for me, I live in sadness: I have the winter without the spring,
without a sweetheart. My garret, away up a damp staircase, is large and
irregular; the corners lose themselves in the gloom, the bare and
slanting walls make of the chamber a sort of corridor which stretches
out in the form of a bier. The wretched furniture, the narrow planks,
ill fitted and painted a horrible red color, crack funereally when they
are touched. Shreds of faded damask hang from the canopy of the bed, and
the curtainless window opens upon a huge black wall, never changing and
always repulsive.
In the evening, when the wind shakes the door and the walls are dimly
outlined by the flame of my lamp, I feel a sad and icy weariness press
upon me. I pause before the expiring fire on the hearth, before the ugly
brown roses on the wall paper, before the faïence vases in which the
last flowers have faded, and I imagine I hear everything complain of
solitude and poverty. This complaint is heart-rending. The entire
mansarde demands of me laughter, the riches of its sisters. The hearth
exacts a huge, joyous blaze; the vases, forgetting the snow, sigh for
fresh roses; the very air speaks to me of flaxen hair and white
shoulders.
I listen and cannot help feeling sorrowful. I have no chandelier to
suspend from the ceiling, no carpet to hide the irregular and broken
planks. And, when my chamber refuses to smile save upon a beautiful
white curtain, upon plain but shining furniture, I grow more sorrowful
still because I cannot satisfy it. Then it seems to me more deserted and
miserable than ever: the wind comes in colder gusts, the gloom grows
denser; the dust gathers in heaps on the floor, the wall paper tears
showing the plaster. There is a general pause, and, in the silence, I
hear the sobs of my heart.
Brothers, do you remember the days when life for us was a dream? We had
friendship, we had visions of love and glory. Do you recall those cool
evenings in Provence, when, as the stars came out, we sat down in the
furrows still glowing with the heat of the sun? The crickets chirped;
the harmonious breath of summer nights enveloped our chat. All three of
us let our lips say what our hearts thought, and, in our simplicity, we
adored queens, we crowned ourselves with laurels. You told me your
dreams, I told you mine. Then, we deigned to come back to earth. I
confided to you my plan of life, consecrated to toil and struggles.
Feeling the wealth of my mind, I was pleased at the idea of poverty. You
were ascending, like me, the stairway of the mansardes, you hoped to
nourish yourselves on high thoughts; in your ignorance of the reality,
you seemed to believe that the artist in his sleepless night gains the
bread of the morrow.
At other times, when the flowers were sweeter, the stars more radiant,
we caressed visions of loveliness. Each of us had his sweetheart.
Yours--do you recollect?--brown and laughing girls, were queens of the
harvest and vintage; they played about, decked with ears of grain and
bunches of grapes, and ran along the paths, carried away in the whirl of
their turbulent youth. Mine, pale and blonde, had the royalty of the
lakes and clouds; she walked languidly, crowned with verbenas, seeming
at each step about to quit the earth.
Do you remember, brothers, that last month we went thus to dream amid
the fields and draw the courage of man from the holy faith of the child?
I was weary of dreaming, I thought myself strong enough for reality.
Five weeks have passed since I left our broad district, fertilized by
the hot breath of the south. I grasped your hands, said adieu to our
favorite field, and was the first to go in search of the crown and the
sweetheart reserved by God for our twentieth year.
"Claude," you said to me at the moment of departure, "you are about to
begin the struggle. To-morrow, we shall not be beside you as formerly,
imparting to you hope and courage. You will find yourself alone and
poor, having only recollections to people and gild your solitude. The
way is rough, people tell us. Go, however, since you thirst for life.
Remember your plans: be firm and loyal in action, as you were in your
dreams; live in the garrets, eat your dry bread, smile at want. As a
man, do not jeer at the ignorance of the child, but accept the hard
labor of the grand and the beautiful. Suffering elevates a man, and
tears are dried one day when one has greatly loved. Have courage and
wait for us. We will console you and scold you from here. We cannot
follow you now, for we do not possess your strength; our dream is yet
too seductive for us to change it for reality."
Scold me, brothers, and console me. I am only commencing to live, and I
am already very sad. Ah! how joyous was the mansarde of our dreams! How
the window sparkled in the sunshine, and how poverty and solitude
rendered life there studious and peaceful! Want had for us the luxury of
light and smiles. But do you know how ugly a real mansarde is? Do you
know how cold one is when one is alone, without flowers, without white
curtains upon which to rest the eyes? Light and gayety pass by without
entering, fearing to venture amid the gloom and silence.
Where are my fields and my brooks? Where are my setting suns, which
gilded the tops of the poplars and changed the rocks into sparkling
palaces? Have I deceived myself, brothers? Am I only a lad who would be
a man before his time? Have I had too great confidence in my strength,
and should I still be dreaming beside you?
The day is breaking. I have passed the night before my extinguished
fire, looking at my poor walls and relating to you my first sufferings.
A wan light illuminates the roofs, a few flakes of snow fall slowly from
the pale, sad sky. The awakening of great cities is tumultuous. I hear,
coming up to me, those street murmurs which resemble sobs.
No; this window refuses me the sunlight, this floor is damp, this
mansarde is deserted. I cannot love, I cannot work here.