Complete Works of Emile Zola (2 page)
Read Complete Works of Emile Zola Online
Authors: Émile Zola
Inside the Hachette publishing house, c. 1880
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIX.
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.
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 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. Tomorrow, 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.
CHAPTER II.
A POET’S LONGINGS.
YOU are irritated by my lack of courage, you accuse me of coveting velvet and bronze, of not accepting the holy poverty of the poet. Alas! I love broad curtains, candelabra, marble upon which the chisel has left the impress of its powerful caresses. I love everything that shines, everything that has beauty, grace and richness. I need princely dwellings, or, rather, the fields with their carpets of fresh and perfumed moss, their draperies of leaves, their wide horizons of light. I prefer the luxury of God to the luxury of men.
Pardon, brothers, for silk is so soft, lace so light; the sun laughs so gayly in gold and crystal!
Let me dream; have no fear for my pride. I wish to hear your strong and cheering words, to embellish my mansarde with gayety, to illuminate it with noble thoughts. If I feel too lonely, I will create for myself an ideal sweetheart who, responsive to my call, will run to kiss me on the forehead after the accomplishment of my task. If the floor be cold, if I have no bread, I will forget winter and hunger in feeling my heart warm. In one’s twentieth year it is easy to be the artisan of one’s joy.
The other night, the voice of the winds was melancholy, my lamp was dying, my fire was extinguished; sleeplessness had troubled my mind, pale phantoms were wandering about me in the gloom. I was afraid, brothers, I felt myself weak, I shed tears. The first ray of dawn drove off the nightmare. Now, the obstacle is no longer in me. I accept the struggle.
I wish to live in a desert, hearing only my heart, seeing only my dream. I desire to forget men, to question myself and reply. Like a young wife whose bosom quivers with a mother’s anxiety, the poet, when he thinks an idea awakening in him, should have an hour of ecstasy and reflection. He runs to shut himself up with his dear burden, fears to believe in his good fortune, interrogates his soul, hopes and doubts in turn. Then, when a sharper pain tells him that God has made his mind fruitful, for long months he shuns the crowd, giving himself entirely to the love of the masterpiece which Heaven has confided to him.
Let him hide himself, and enjoy like a miser the anguish of production; to-morrow, in his pride, ha will come forth to demand caresses for the fruit of his mind.
I am poor; I should live alone. My pride would suffer from commonplace consolations, my hand wishes to press only those of my equals. I am ignorant of the world, but I feel that Want is so cold she must freeze the hearts around her, and that, being the sister of Vice, she is timid and ashamed when she is noble. I carry my head aloft and do not mean to lower it.
Poverty and Solitude, be you then my guests. Be my guardian angels, my muses, my companions with harsh but encouraging voices. Make me strong, give me the science of living, tell me the cost of my daily bread. May your vigorous caresses, so sharp that they seem like wounds, force me towards the good and the just. I will relight my lamp during these winter nights, and I will feel you both beside me, icy and silent, bending over my table, dictating to me the hard truth. When, weary of gloom and silence, I put by my pen and curse you, your melancholy smiles will, perhaps, make me doubt my dreams. Then your serene and sad peace will render you so beautiful that I will take you for my sweethearts. Our loves shall be as serene and deep as you; the lovers of sixteen will envy the bitter pleasure of our fruitful kisses.