A Zola Dictionary Part 1

A Zola Dictionary.

by J. G. Patterson.

PREFATORY NOTE

In the preparation of my Introduction I have, of course, relied for information on the recognized Biographies of Zola, namely _Notes d'un Ami_, by Paul Alexis (Paris, Charpentier); _Emile Zola, A biographical and Critical Study_, by R. H. Sherrard (London, Chatto & Windus, 1893); _Emile Zola, Novelist and Reformer_: An account of his Life and Work, by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (London, John Lane, 1904). Reference has also been made to Mr. Arthur Symons' _Studies in Prose and Verse_, and to articles in the _Fortnightly Review_ by Mr. Andrew Lang, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ by Mr. Henry James, and in the _Contemporary Review_ by M. Edouard Rod, as well as to articles in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and in the _Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains_.

By kind permission of Messrs. Chatto & Windus it has been possible to include the diagram of the Rougon-Macquart Genealogical Tree, which appears in the Preface to their edition of _Doctor Pascal_, and to make use of their translations in the preparation of the Dictionary.

In compiling the latter, Zola's own words have been adopted so far as possible, though usually they have required such condensation as to make direct quotation difficult. This difficulty was increased by the fact that occasional use was made of different translations of the same book, and that frequent references to the original were found necessary.

The Synopses of the Plots of the novels are arranged in the order in which the books should be read, as indicated by their Author in _Le Docteur Pascal_, and confirmed by his biographer, Mr. E. A. Vizetelly.

EDINBURGH, May, 1912. J. G. P.

INTRODUCTION

Emile Zola was born at Paris on 2nd April, 1840. His father, Francois Zola, was a man whose career up to that time had not been a success, though this was not due to any lack of energy or ability. Zola _pere_ was of mixed nationality, his father being an Italian and his mother a Greek, and it is not unlikely that his unrest and want of concentration were due to the accident of his parentage. When quite a young man, Francois fought under the great Napoleon, after whose fall he became a civil engineer. He spent some time in Germany, where he was engaged in the construction of the first tramway line in Europe, afterwards visiting Holland and possibly England. Failure seems to have accompanied him, for in 1831 he applied for and obtained an appointment, as lieutenant in the Foreign Legion in Algeria. His career in Africa was, however, of short duration; some irregularities were discovered, and he disappeared for a time, though ultimately he came forward and made up his accounts, paying the balance that was due. No prosecution took place, and resignation of his commission was accepted. Nothing more was heard of the matter till 1898, when his son Emile identified himself with the cause of Dreyfus, and in the campaign of calumny that followed had to submit to the vilest charges against the memory of his father.

The old dossier was produced by the French Ministry of War, the officials of which did not hesitate to strengthen their case by the forgery of some doc.u.ments and the suppression of others. In view of these proved facts, and of the circ.u.mstance that Francois Zola, immediately after his resignation from the Foreign Legion, established himself as a civil engineer at Ma.r.s.eilles and prepared a scheme for new maritime docks there, and that in connection with this scheme he visited Paris repeatedly, obtaining private audiences with the King and interviewing statesmen, it must be held that the charges against him were of a venial nature, in no way warranting the accusations brought forward by the War Office nearly seventy years later to cast discredit on his son. Nothing came of the Ma.r.s.eilles harbour scheme, and the same fate attended subsequent plans for the fortification of Paris. Zola _pere_, who by this time had married, then turned his attention to a proposal to supply water to the town of Aix, in Provence, by means of a reservoir and ca.n.a.l. He removed thither with his wife and child, and after many delays and disappointments ultimately signed an agreement for the construction of the works. Even then further delays took place, and it was not till three years later that the work could be commenced. But the engineer's ill fortune still attended him, for one morning while he was superintending his workmen the treacherous mistral began to blow, and he took a chill, from the effects of which he died a few days afterwards.

The young widow, with her son Emile, then a child of seven, was left in poor circ.u.mstances, her only fortune being a claim against the munic.i.p.ality of Aix. Fortunately her parents had some means, and came to her a.s.sistance during the years of fruitless struggle to establish the rights of her dead husband. Emile had up to this time been allowed to run wild, and he had spent most of his time out of doors, where he acquired a love of the country which he retained in later years. Even when he was sent to school he was backward, only learning his letters with difficulty and showing little inclination for study. It was not till 1852, when he was twelve years sold, that his education really began. By this time he was able to realize his mother's financial position, and to see the sacrifices which were being made to send him as a boarder to the _lycee_ at Aix. His progress then became rapid, and during the next five years he gained many prizes. Throughout all these years the struggle between Madame Zola and the munic.i.p.ality had gone on, each year diminishing her chance of success. In the end her position became desperate, and finding it impossible to continue to reside at Aix, the little family removed to Paris in 1858. Fortunately Emile was enabled by the intervention of certain friends of his late father to continue his studies, and became a day pupil at the Lycee St. Louis, on the Boulevard St. Michael. For some reason he made little progress there, and when he presented himself for his _baccalaureat_ degree he failed to pa.s.s the examination. A later attempt at the University of Ma.r.s.eilles had the same result. As this examination is in France the pa.s.sport to all the learned professions, Zola's failure to pa.s.s it placed him in a serious position. His mother's resources were by this time entirely exhausted, and some means of support had to be sought without delay. After many attempts, he got a place as clerk in a business house at a salary of twenty-six pounds a year, but the work proved so distasteful that after two months of drudgery he threw it up. Then followed a period of deep misery, but a period which must have greatly influenced the work of the future novelist. Wandering the streets by day and, when he could find money to buy a candle, writing poems and short stories by night, he was gaining that experience in the school of life of which he was later to make such splendid use. Meantime his wretchedness was deep. A miserable lodging in a garret, insufficient food, inadequate clothing, and complete absence of fire may be an incentive to high endeavour, but do not render easy the pathway of fame. The position had become all but untenable when Zola received an appointment in the publishing house of M. Hachette, of Paris, at a salary beginning at a pound a week, but soon afterwards increased.

During the next two years he wrote a number of short stories which were published later under the t.i.tle _Contes a Ninon_. The book did not prove a great success, though its undoubted ability attracted attention to the writer and opened the way to some journalistic work. About this time he appears to have been studying Balzac, and the recently published _Madame Bovary_ of Flaubert, which was opening up a new world not only in French fiction, but in the literature of Europe. He had also read the _Germinie Lacerteux_ of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, on which he wrote an appreciative article, and this remarkable book cannot have been without its influence on his work. The effect was indeed immediate, for in 1865 he published his next book, _La Confession de Claud_, which showed strong traces of that departure from conventional fiction which he was afterwards to make more p.r.o.nounced. The book was not a financial success, though it attracted attention, and produced many reviews, some favourable, others merciless. Influenced by the latter, the Public Prosecutor caused inquiries regarding the author to be made at Hachette's, but nothing more was done, and it is indeed doubtful if any successful prosecution could have been raised, even at a period when it was thought necessary to indict the author of _Madame Bovary_.

Zola's employers had, however, begun to look askance at his literary work; they may have considered that it was occupying too much of the time for which they paid, or, more probably, they were becoming alarmed at their clerk's advanced views both on politics and literary art. As Zola afterwards explained the matter, one of the partners said to him, "You are earning two hundred francs a month here, which is ridiculous.

You have plenty of talent, and would do better to take up literature altogether. You would find glory and profit there." The hint was a direct one, and it was taken. The young author was again thrown upon his own resources, but was no longer entirely unknown, for the not unfavourable reception of his first book and the violent attacks on his second had given him a certain position, even though it may to some extent have partaken of the nature of a _succes de scandale_. As he wrote at the time, he did not mean to pander to the likes or the dislikes of the crowd; he intended to force the public to caress or insult him.

Journalism was the avenue which now appeared most open, and Zola got an appointment on the staff of a newspaper called _L'Evenement_, in which he wrote articles on literary and artistic subjects. His views were not tempered by moderation, and when he depreciated the members of the _Salon_ in order to exalt Manet, afterwards an artist of distinction, but then regarded as a dangerous revolutionary, the public outcry was such that he was forced to discontinue publication of the articles.

He then began a second story called _Le Vaeu d'une Morte_ in the same newspaper. It was intended to please the readers of _L'Evenement_, but from the first failed to do so, and its publication was stopped before it was half completed. Soon afterwards _L'Evenement_ was incorporated with the _Figaro_, and Zola's connection with it terminated. A time of hardship again began, and during the year 1867 the wolf was only kept from the door by unremitting toil of the least agreeable kind. In the midst of his difficulties Zola wrote two books simultaneously, one supremely good and the other unquestionably bad. The one was _Therese Raquin_, and the other _Les Mysteres de Ma.r.s.eille_. The latter, which was pure hack-work, was written to the order of the publisher of a Ma.r.s.eillaise newspaper, who supplied historical material from researches made by himself at the Ma.r.s.eilles and Aix law courts, about the various _causes celebres_ which during the previous fifty years had attracted the most public attention. These were to be strung together, and by an effort of legerdemain combined into a coherent whole in the form of a novel. Zola, desiring bread, undertook the task, with results that might have been antic.i.p.ated.

_Therese Raquin_ is a work of another kind, for into it Zola put the best that was in him, and elaborated the story with the greatest care.

It is a tale of Divine Justice, wherein a husband is murdered by his wife and her lover, who, though safe from earthly consequence, are yet separated by the horror of their deed, and come to hate each other for the thing they have done. The book is one of remarkable power, and it is interesting to note that in the preface to it Zola first made use of the word _naturalisme_ as describing that form of fiction which he was afterwards to uphold in and out of season. A violent attack in the _Figaro_ gave opportunity for a vigorous reply, and the advertis.e.m.e.nt so obtained a.s.sisted the sales of the book, which from the first was a success. It was followed by _Madeleine Ferat_, which, however, was less fortunate. The subject is unpleasant, and its treatment lacks the force which made _Therese Raquin_ convincing.

Up to this time Zola's life had been a steady struggle against poverty.

He was terribly in earnest, and was determined to create for himself a place in literature; to accomplish this end he counted no labour too arduous, no sacrifice too great. His habits were Spartan in their simplicity; he was a slave to work and method, good equipment for the vast task he was next to undertake. He had long been an earnest student of Balzac, and there is no doubt that it was the example of the great _Comedie Humaine_ which inspired his scheme for a series of novels dealing with the life history of a family during a particular period; as he described it himself, "the history natural and social of a family under the Second Empire." It is possible that he was also influenced by the financial success of the series of historical novels written by Erckmann-Chatrian, known as the _Romans Nationaux_. It was not, however, the past about which he proposed to write; no period was more suitable for his purpose than that in which he lived, that Second Empire whose regime began in blood and continued in corruption. He had there, under his own eyes and within his personal knowledge, a suitable _mise-en-scene_ wherein to further develop those theories of hereditary influence which had already attracted his attention while he was writing _Madeleine Ferat_. The scheme was further attractive in as much as it lent itself readily to the system of treatment to which he had applied the term _naturalisme_, to distinguish it from the crudities of the realistic school. The scientific tendency of the period was to rely not on previously accepted propositions, but on observation and experience, or on facts and doc.u.ments. To Zola the voice of science conveyed the word of ultimate truth, and with desperate earnestness he set out to apply its methods to literary production. His position was that the novelist is, like the scientist, an observer and an experimentalist combined. The observer, he says, gives the facts as he has observed them, fixes the starting-point, lays the solid ground on which his characters are to walk and his phenomena to develop. Then the experimentalist appears and starts the experiment, that is to say, he makes the personages in a particular story move, in order to show that the succession of events will be just what the determinism of phenomena together with study demand that they should be. The author must abstain from comment, never show his own personality, and never turn to the reader for sympathy; he must, as Mr. Andrew Lang has observed, be as cold as a vivisectionist at a lecture. Zola thought the application of this method would raise the position of the novel to the level of a science, and that it would become a medium for the expression of established truths. The fallacy of the argument has been exposed by more than one critic. It is self-evident that the "experiments" by the novelist cannot be made on subjects apart from himself, but are made by him and in him; so that they prove more regarding his own temperament than about what he professes to regard as the inevitable actions of his characters. The conclusion drawn by a writer from such actions must always be open to the retort that he invented the whole himself and that fiction is only fiction. But to Zola in the late sixties the theory seemed una.s.sailable and it was upon it that he founded the whole edifice of _Les Rougon-Macquart_. The considerations then that influenced Zola in beginning a series of novels connected by subject into one gigantic whole were somewhat various. There was the example of Balzac's great _Comedie Humaine_; there was the desire of working out the theories of heredity in which he had become interested; there was the opportunity of putting into operation the system which he had termed _naturalisme_; and there was also the consideration that if he could get a publisher to agree to his proposals he would secure a certain income for a number of years. His original scheme was a series of twelve novels to be written at the rate of two a year, and he entered into a contract with a publisher named Lacroix, who was to pay him five hundred francs a month as an advance. M. Lacroix would, however, only bind himself to publish four out of the twelve novels. The arrangement could not be carried out, and at the end of three years only two volumes of the Rougon-Macquart series had been published, while Zola found that he had become indebted to the publisher for a very considerable sum.

The first novel of the series was begun in 1869, but was not published till the winter of 1871, delay having occurred on account of the war with Germany. Zola was never a rapid writer, and seems to have regulated his literary production with machinelike uniformity. As his friend and biographer Paul Alexis writes: "Only four pages, but four pages every day, every day without exception, the action of the drop of water always falling on the same place, and in the end wearing out the hardest stone. It seems nothing, but in course of time chapters follow chapters, volumes follow upon volumes, and a whole life's work sprouts, multiplies its branches, extends its foliage like a lofty oak, destined to rise high into the air and to remain standing in the forest of human productions."

His literary creed at the time he began the Rougon-Macquart series may be conveniently summed up in a few words from an article which he had only a month before written in the _Gaulois_: "If I kept a school of morals," he says, "I would hasten to place in the hands of my pupils _Madame Bovary_ or _Germinie Lacerteux_, persuaded that truth alone can instruct and fortify generous souls."

In _La Fortune des Rougon_, then, Zola set out to plant the roots of the great family tree which was to occupy his attention during the next twenty years of his life. His object was to describe the origin of the family which he had selected for dissection in his series, and to outline the various princ.i.p.al characters, members of that family. Mr.

Andrew Lang, writing on this subject in the _Fortnightly Review_, points out that certain Arab tribes trace their descent from a female Dog, and suggests that the Rougon-Macquart family might have claimed the same ancestry. Adelaide Fouque came of a race of peasants who had long lived at Pla.s.sans, a name invented by Zola to conceal the ident.i.ty of Aix, the town in Provence where his youth had been spent. She was highly neurotic, with a tendency to epilepsy, but from the point of view of the naturalistic novelist she offered many advantages. When a mere girl she married a man named Rougon, who died soon afterwards, leaving her with a son named Pierre, from whom descended the legitimate branch of the family. Then followed a liaison with a drunken smuggler named Macquart, as a result of which two children were born, the Macquarts. Adelaide's original neurosis had by this time become more p.r.o.nounced, and she ultimately became insane. Pierre married and had five children, but his financial affairs had not prospered, though by underhand methods he had contrived to get possession of his mother's property, to the exclusion of her other children. Then came the _Coup d'Etat_ of 1851, and Pierre, quick to seize his opportunity, rendered such services to the Bonapartist party as to lay the foundation of the family fortune, a foundation which was, however, cemented with treachery and blood. It was with these two families, then, both descended from a common ancestress, and sometimes subsequently united by intermarriage, that the whole series of novels was to deal. They do not form an edifying group, these Rougon-Macquarts, but Zola, who had based his whole theory of the experimental novel upon the a.n.a.logy of medical research, was not on the outlook for healthy subjects; he wanted social sores to probe. This is a fact much too often overlooked by readers of detached parts of the series, for it should always be kept in mind that the whole was written with the express purpose of laying bare all the social evils of one of the most corrupt periods in recent history, in the belief that through publicity might come regeneration. Zola was all along a reformer as well as a novelist, and his zeal was shown in many a bitter newspaper controversy. It has been urged against him that there were plenty of virtuous people about whom he could have written, but these critics appear to forget that he was in a sense a propagandist, and that it was not his _metier_ to convert persons already in the odour of sanct.i.ty.

_La Fortune des Rougon_ was not particularly successful on its publication, but in view of the fact that the war with Germany was barely concluded no surprise need be experienced. Zola's financial position was, however, by the arrangement with his publisher now more secure, and he felt justified in marrying. This he did, and settled down into the quiet bourgeois existence in which his life was spent.

The next book was _La Curee_, a study of the mushroom society of the Second Empire. The subject--the story of Phaedra adapted to modern environment--is unpleasant and the treatment is daring; but despite a slight _succes de scandale_, its reception by the public was no more favorable than that of _La Fortune des Rougon_.

_La Curee_ was followed by _Le Ventre de Paris_, which reached a second edition. It contained some excellent descriptive writing, but was severely attacked by certain critics, who denounced it as the apotheosis of gluttony, while they resented the transference of a pork butcher's shop to literature and took particular exceptions to a certain "symphony of cheeses."

Next came _La Conquete de Pla.s.sans_, an excellent story, to be followed by _La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret_, one of Zola's most romantic books, and the first to attain any considerable success. He next wrote _Son Excellence Eugene Rougon_, in which he dealt with the political side of the Second Empire and sketched the life of the Imperial Court at Compiegne. For this task he was not particularly well equipped, and the book was only moderately successful. Then came _L'a.s.sommoir_, and with it fame and fortune for the writer. It is a terrible story of working-cla.s.s life in Paris, a study of the ravages wrought by drink.

Again to quote Mr. Andrew Lang, "It is a dreadful but not an immoral book. It is the most powerful temperance tract that ever was written. As M. Zola saw much of the life of the poor in his early years, as he once lived, when a boy, in one of the huge lodging-houses he describes, one may fear that _L'a.s.sommoir_ is a not untruthful picture of the lives of many men and women in Paris."

In order to heighten the effect, Zola deliberately wrote the whole of _L'a.s.sommoir_ in the argot of the streets, sparing nothing of its coa.r.s.eness and nothing of its force. For this alone he was attacked by many critics, and from its publication onwards an unexampled controversy arose regarding the author and his methods. Looking backwards it is difficult to see why such an outcry should have arisen about such a masterpiece of literature, but water has flowed beneath many bridges since 1877, and, largely by the influence of Zola's own work, the limits of convention have been widely extended. At the time, however, the work was savagely attacked, and to the author the basest motives were a.s.signed, while libels on his own personal character were freely circulated. Zola replied to these attacks in a manner so calm and so convincing that quotation may be permitted. "It would be well," he said, "to read my novels, to understand them, to see them clearly in their entirety, before bringing forward the ready-made opinions, ridiculous and odious, which are circulated concerning myself and my works. Ah!

if people only knew how my friends laugh at the appalling legend which amuses the crowd! If they only knew how the blood-thirsty wretch, the formidable novelist, is simply a respectable bourgeois, a man devoted to study and to art, living quietly in his corner, whose sole ambition is to leave as large and living a work as he can. I contradict no reports, I work on, and I rely on time, and on the good faith of the public, to discover me at last under the acc.u.mulation of nonsense that has been heaped upon me." This statement is absolutely in accordance with fact, and when it is realized that the writer of the Rougon-Macquart novels was merely a hard-working, earnest man, filled with a determination to complete the vast task which he had planned, and not to be turned from his ideas by praise or blame, it will go far to promote a better understanding of his aims and methods. It is necessary too, as has already been said, that the various novels forming the Rougon-Macquart series be considered not as separate ent.i.ties, but as chapters of one vast whole.

_L'a.s.sommoir_ was an immediate success with the public, and the sales were unusually large for the time, while now (1912) they amount to one hundred and sixty-two thousand copies in the original French alone.

In 1878 Zola published _Une Page d'Amour_, the next volume of the series, a simple love story containing some very beautiful and romantic descriptions of Paris. Then followed _Nana_, to which _L'a.s.sommoir_ was the prelude. _Nana_ dealt with the vast demimonde of Paris, and while it was his greatest popular success, was in every sense his worst book. Of no subject on which he wrote was Zola more ignorant than of this, and the result is a laboured collection of scandals acquired at second-hand.

Mr. Arthur Symons, in his _Studies in Prose and Verse_, recounts how an English paper once reported an interview in which the author of _Nana_, indiscreetly questioned as to the amount of personal observation he had put into the book, replied that he had once lunched with an actress of the Varietes. "The reply was generally taken for a joke," says Mr. Symons, "but the lunch was a reality, and it was a.s.suredly a rare experience in the life of a solitary diligence to which we owe so many impersonal studies in life." The sales of the book were, however, enormous, and Zola's financial position was now a.s.sured.

Publication of the Rougon-Macquart series went steadily on.

_Pot-Bouille_ a story of middle-cla.s.s life, was followed by its sequel _Au Bonheur des Dames_, a study of life in one of the great emporiums which were beginning to crush out the small shopkeepers of Paris. _La Joie de Vivre_, that drab story of hypochondria and self-sacrifice, was succeeded by _Germinal_, the greatest, if not the only really great, novel of labour that has ever been written in any language. After _Germinal_ came _L'Oeuvre_, which deals with art life in Paris, and is in part an autobiography of the author. We now come to _La Terre_ around which the greatest controversy has raged. In parts the book is Shakespearian in its strength and insight, but it has to be admitted at once that the artistic quality of the work has been destroyed in large measure by the gratuitous coa.r.s.eness which the author has thought necessary to put into it. Even allowing for the fact that the subject is the brutishness and animality of French peasant life, and admitting that the picture drawn may be a true one, the effect had been lessened by the fact that nothing has been left to the imagination. On the other hand there has, since Shakespeare, been nothing so fine as the treatment of Pere Fouan, that peasant King Lear, by his ungrateful family. It has been urged that Zola overdid the horrors of the situation and that no parent would have been so treated by his children. By a singular chance a complete answer to this objection may be found in a paragraph which appeared in the _Daily Mail_ of 18th April, 1911. A few days before, a peasant woman in France had entered her father's bedroom and struck him nine times on the head with an axe, afterwards going home to bed. The reason for the crime was that the old man two years previously had divided his property between his two daughters on condition that they paid him a monthly allowance. His elder daughter was always in arrear with her share of the pension, and, after constant altercations between father and daughter, the latter extinguished her liability in the manner indicated. Now this tragedy in real life is the actual plot of _La Terre_, which was written twenty-four years before it occurred.

In accordance with the author's usual plan, whereby a heavy book was followed by a light one, _La Terre_ was succeeded by _Le Reve_, a work at the other extreme of the literary gamut. As _La Terre_ is of the earth, earthy, so is _Le Reve_ spiritual and idyllic, the work of a man enamoured of the refined and the beautiful. It has indeed been described as the most beautiful work written in France during the whole of the nineteenth century.

_La Bete Humaine_, the next of the series, is a work of a different cla.s.s, and is to the English reader the most fascinating of all Zola's novels. It deals with human pa.s.sions in their elemental forms, with a background of constant interest in the railway life of Western France.

The motives are always obvious and strong, a criticism which can by no means be invariably applied to French fiction.

Next appeared _L'Argent_, which is the sequel to _La Curee_ and deals with financial scandals. It was inspired by the failure of the Union Generale Bank a few years before, and is a powerful indictment of the law affecting joint-stock companies. To _L'Argent_ there succeeded _La Debacle_, that prose epic of modern war, more complete and coherent than even the best of Tolstoi. And to end all came _Le Docteur Pascal_, winding up the series on a note of pure romance.

Regarded as a literary tour de force the work is only comparable to the _Comedie Humaine_. It occupied nearly twenty-five years in writing, consists of twenty volumes containing over twelve hundred characters, and a number of words estimated by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly at two million five hundred thousand.

There can be little doubt that Zola's best work was expended on the Rougon-Macquart series. With its conclusion his zeal as a reformer began to outrun his judgment as an artist, and his later books partake more of the nature of active propaganda than of works of fiction. They comprise two series: _Les Trois Villes_ (Lourdes, Paris, Rome) and _Les Quatre Evangiles_, of which only three (Fecondite, Travail, and Verite) were written before the author's death. Politics had begun to occupy his attention, and from 1896 onwards he increasingly interested himself in the Jewish question which culminated in the Dreyfus case. His sense of justice, always keen, was outraged by the action of the authorities and on 13th January, 1898, he published his famous letter, beginning with the words _J'accuse_, a letter which altered the whole course of events in France. It is difficult now to realize the effect of Zola's action in this matter; he was attacked with a virulence almost unexampled, a virulence which followed him beyond the grave. Four years later, on the day after his death, the Paris correspondent of _The Times_ wrote: "It is evident the pa.s.sions of two or three years ago are still alive. Many persons expressed their joy with such boisterous gestures as men indulge in on learning of a victory, and some exclaimed savagely, 'It is none too soon.' The unseemliness of this extraordinary spectacle evoked no retort from the pa.s.sers-by." The feeling of resentment is still alive in France, and it is necessary to take it into account in the consideration of any estimates of his literary work by his own countrymen. It is a mistake to attribute Zola's campaign for the rehabilitation of Dreyfus to mere l.u.s.t of fame, as has been freely done. He certainly was ambitious, but had he wished to gain the plaudits of the crowd he would not have adopted a cause which was opposed by the majority of the nation. As a result of the agitation, he was obliged to leave France and take refuge in England, till such time as a change of circ.u.mstances enabled him to return.

On 29th September, 1902, the world was startled to learn that Emile Zola had been found dead in his bedroom, suffocated by the fumes of a stove, and that his wife had narrowly escaped dying with him. A life of incessant literary labour had been quenched.

The reputation of Zola has suffered, it is to be feared, in no small degree from the indiscretions of his friends. In England he was introduced to the notice of the reading public by Mr. Henry Vizetelly, who between 1884 and 1889 published a number of translations of his novels. The last of these was _The Soil_, a translation of _La Terre_, which aroused such an outcry that a prosecution followed, and Mr.

Vizetelly was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Without raising any question as to the propriety of this prosecution, it is difficult to avoid pointing out that Mr. Vizetelly was singularly ill advised not to have taken into account the essential differences between English and French literature, and not have seen that the publication of this particular book in its entirety was an impossibility under existing conditions. It is regrettable also that Mr. Vizetelly, who though a gentleman of the highest character, was no doubt anxious to make the most possible out of his venture, did not duly appreciate that the word "Realistic," which was blazoned on the covers of the various books issued by him, was in the early eighties invariably interpreted as meaning p.o.r.nographic. Presumably nothing was further from Mr.

Vizetelly's wish--his defence at the trial was that the books were literature of the highest kind--but it is unquestionable that the format was such as to give the impression indicated, an impression deepened by the extremely Gallic freedom of the ill.u.s.trations. There can be little doubt that had the works been issued in an un.o.btrusive form, without ill.u.s.trations, they would have attracted less attention of the undesirable kind which they afterwards received. The use of the term "Realistic" was the more remarkable as Zola had previously invented the word _Naturalisme_ to distinguish his work from that of the Realistic school. But if Zola's reputation in England suffered in this way, it is right to refer here to the debt of grat.i.tude to Mr. E. A. Vizetelly under which the English public now lies. Some time after the prosecution of his father, Mr. Vizetelly began to publish, through Messrs. Chatto & Windus, a series of versions of Zola's works. The translations were admirably done, and while it was found necessary to make certain omissions, the task was so skilfully accomplished that in many cases actual improvement has resulted. These versions are at present the chief translations of Zola's works in circulation in this country; but while their number has been added to from time to time, it has not been found possible to include the whole of the Rougon-Macquart series. In 1894-5, however, the Lutetian Society issued to its members a literal and unabridged translation of six of the novels, made by writers of such eminence as Havelock Ellis, Arthur Symons, and Ernest Dowson. These are the only translations of these works which are of any value to the student, but they are unfortunately almost un.o.btainable, as the entire edition was restricted to three hundred copies on hand-made paper and ten on j.a.panese vellum.

A charge not unfrequently brought against Zola is that he was a somewhat ignorant person, who required to get up from textbooks every subject upon which he wrote. Now there seems to be little doubt that it was in the first instance due to the indiscretion of his biographer, M. Paul Alexis, that this charge has arisen. Impressed by the vast industry of his friend, M. Alexis said so much about "research" and "doc.u.ments"

that less friendly critics seized the opportunity of exaggerating the importance of these. Every novelist of any consequence has found it necessary to "cram" his subjects, but says little about the fact. James Payn, for instance, could not have written his admirable descriptions of China in _By Proxy_ without much reading of many books, and Mr.

Rudyard Kipling has not been blamed for studying the technicalities of engineering before he wrote _The Ship that found Herself_. It is open to question even whether Mr. Robert Hichens acquired his intimate knowledge of the conditions of life in Southern Europe and Northern Africa entirely without the a.s.sistance of Herr Baedeker. Zola undoubtedly studied his subjects, but far too much has been made of the necessity for his doing so. His equipment for the task he undertook was not less complete than that of many another novelist, and, like d.i.c.kens, he studied life in that school of a "stony-hearted stepmother," the streets of a great city.

Zola's literary method may be described as a piling up of detail upon detail till there is attained an effect portentous, overwhelming. He lacked, however, a sense of proportion; he became so carried away by his visions of human depravity, that his characters developed powers of wickedness beyond mortal strength; he lay under an obsession regarding the iniquities of mankind. In dealing with this it was unfortunately his method to leave nothing to the imagination, and herein lies the most serious blemish on his work. There is undoubtedly much coa.r.s.eness in some of his books, and the regrettable feature is that it is not only unnecessary, but in some cases actually lessens the effect at which he aimed. It is doubtful whether he was possessed of any sense of humour.

Mr. Andrew Lang says that his lack of it was absolute, a darkness that can be felt; Mr. R. H. Sherrard, on the other hand, indicates that his work "teems with quiet fun." On the whole, truth seems to lie with Mr.

Lang. M. and Madame Charles Badeuil, in _La Terre_ may seem d.i.c.kensian to an English reader, but there is always the Gallic point of view to be reckoned with, and it is doubtful if Zola did not regard these persons merely as types of a virtuous bourgeoisie.

It was in the treatment of crowds in motion that Zola chiefly excelled; there is nothing finer in literature than the march of the strikers in _Germinal_ or the charges of the troops in _La Debacle_. Contrast him with such a master of prose as George Meredith, and we see how immensely strong the battle scenes in _La Debacle_ are when compared with those in _Vittoria_; it is here that his method of piling detail on detail and horror on horror is most effectual. "To make his characters swarm," said Mr. Henry James in a critical article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ (August, 1903), "was the task he set himself very nearly from the first, that was the secret he triumphantly mastered."

"Naturalism" as a school had a comparatively brief existence--Zola himself departed largely from its principles after the conclusion of the Rougon-Macquart series--but its effects have been far-reaching on the literature of many countries. In England the limits of literary convention have been extended, and pathways have been opened up along which later writers have not hesitated to travel, even while denying the influence of the craftsman who had cleared the way. It is safe to say that had _L'a.s.sommoir_ never been written there would have been no _Jude the Obscure_, and the same remark applies to much of the best modern fiction. In America, Frank Norris, an able writer who unfortunately died before the full fruition of his genius had obviously accepted Zola as his master, and the same influence is also apparent in the work of George Douglas, a brilliant young Scotsman whose premature death left only one book, _The House with the Green Shutters_, as an indication of what might have sprung from the methods of modified naturalism.

M. Edouard Rod, an able critic, writing in the _Contemporary Review_ (1902), pointed out that the influence of Zola has transformed novel writing in Italy, and that its effect in Germany has been not less p.r.o.nounced. The virtue of this influence on German letters was undoubtedly great. It made an end of sentimentality, it shook literature out of the sleepy rut into which it had fallen and forced it to face universal problems.

One must regret for his own sake that Zola was unable to avoid offending those prejudices which were so powerful in his time. The novelist who adopts the method of the surgeon finds it necessary to expose many painful sores, and is open to the taunt that he finds pleasure in the task. On no one did this personal obloquy fall more hardly than on Zola, and never with less reason. It may be that he acc.u.mulated unseemly details and risky situations too readily; but he was an earnest man with a definite aim in view, and had formulated for himself a system which he allowed to work itself out with relentless fatality. The unredeemed baseness and profligacy of the period with which he had to deal must also be borne in mind. As to his personal character, it has been fitly described by M. Anatole France, himself a distinguished novelist.

Zola, said he, "had the candour and sincerity of great souls. He was profoundly moral. He has depicted vice with a rough and vigorous hand.

His apparent pessimism ill conceals a real optimism, a persistent faith in the progress of intelligence and justice. In his romances, which are social studies, he attacks with vigorous hatred an idle, frivolous society, a base and noxious aristocracy. He combated social evil wherever he encountered it. His work is comparable only in greatness with that of Tolstoi. At the two extremities of European thought the lyre has raised two vast cities. Both are generous and pacific; but whereas Tolstoi's is the city of resignation, Zola's is the city of work."