Finally, in 1884, M. Zola published a fourth collection, named, after
the first of the series, _Naïs Micoulin_. This volume contained in
all six stories, each of considerable extent. I do not propose to
dwell at any length on the contents of this book, partly because
they belong to the finished period of naturalism, and seem more like
castaway fragments of the _Rougon-Macquart_ epos than like independent
creations, but also because they clash with the picture I have sought
to draw of an optimistic and romantic Zola returning from time to time
to the short story as a shelter from his theories. Of these tales, one
or two are trifling and passably insipid; the Parisian sketches called
“Nantas” and “Madame Neigon” have little to be said in favour of their
existence. Here M. Zola seems desirous to prove to us that he could
write as good Octave Feuillet, if he chose, as the author of _Monsieur
de Camors_ himself. In “Les Coquillages de M. Chabre,” which I confess
I read when it first appeared, and have now re-read, with amusement,
we see the heavy M. Zola endeavouring to sport as gracefully as M. de
Maupassant, and in the same style. The impression of buoyant Atlantic
seas and hollow caverns is well rendered in this most unedifying story.
“Naïs Micoulin,” which gives its name to the book, is a disagreeable
tale of seduction and revenge in Provence, narrated with the usual
ponderous conscientiousness. In each of the last mentioned the
background of landscape is so vivid that we half forgive the faults of
the narrative.
The two remaining stories in the book are more remarkable, and one of
them, at least, is of positive value. It is curious that in “Le Mort
d’Olivier Bécaille” and “Jacques Damour” M. Zola should in the same
volume present versions of the Enoch Arden story, the now familiar
episode of the man who is supposed to be dead, and comes back to find
his wife re-married. Olivier Bécaille is a poor clerk, lately arrived
in Paris with his wife; he is in wretched health, and has always been
subject to cataleptic seizures. In one of these he falls into a state
of syncope so prolonged that they believe him to be dead, and bury him.
He manages to break out of his coffin in the cemetery, and is picked up
fainting by a philanthropic doctor. He has a long illness, at the end
of which he cannot discover what has become of his wife. After a long
search, he finds that she has married a very excellent young fellow, a
neighbour; and in the face of her happiness, Olivier Bécaille has not
the courage to disturb her. Like Tennyson’s “strong, heroic soul,” he
passes out into the silence and the darkness.
The exceedingly powerful story called “Jacques Damour” treats the same
idea, but with far greater mastery, and in a less conventional manner.
Jacques Damour is a Parisian artisan, who becomes demoralised during
the siege, and joins the Commune. He is captured by the Versailles
army, and sentenced to penal servitude in New Caledonia, leaving a wife
and a little girl behind him in Paris. After some years, in company
with two or three other convicts, he makes an attempt to escape. He,
in fact, succeeds in escaping, with one companion, the rest being
drowned before they get out of the colony. One of the dead men being
mistaken for him, Jacques Damour is reported home deceased. When, after
credible adventures, and at the declaration of the amnesty, he returns
to Paris, his wife and daughter have disappeared. At length he finds
the former married to a prosperous butcher in the Batignolles, and he
summons up courage, egged on by a rascally friend, to go to the shop
in midday and claim his lawful wife. The successive scenes in the shop,
and the final one, in which the ruddy butcher, sure of his advantage
over this squalid and prematurely wasted ex-convict, bids Félicie take
her choice, are superb. M. Zola has done nothing more forcible or
life-like. The poor old Damour retires, but he still has a daughter to
discover. The finale of the tale is excessively unfitted for the young
person, and no serious critic could do otherwise than blame it. But, at
the same time, I am hardened enough to admit that I think it very true
to life and not a little humorous, which, I hope, is not equivalent
to a moral commendation. We may, if we like, wish that M. Zola had
never written “Jacques Damour,” but nothing can prevent it from being
a superbly constructed and supported piece of narrative, marred by
unusually few of the mechanical faults of his later work.
Since 1884 M. Zola, more and more absorbed in the completion of his
huge central edifice, has not found time to build many arbours or
pavilions in his literary garden. No one can possibly say what such
an active and forcible talent, still in the prime of life, will or
will not do in the future. But it is very probable that the day of his
sentimental short stories is over, and that those who like the oddity
of studying a moonlight-coloured Zola are already in full possession of
the materials for so doing.