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Authors: Émile Zola
Complete Works of Emile Zola (23 page)
The night was clear, I saw far into the blue sky. Marie, now stiffened, slept heavily; the sheet thrown over her had long folds, sharp and hard. I thought of the annihilation of the flesh, I thought that we had great need of faith, we who live in the hope of to-morrow and who know not what to-morrow may bring forth. If I had had a God in Heaven, whose protecting arm I had felt about me, I should not, perhaps, have yielded to the vertigo of a wretched passion. I should always have had consolations, even in the midst of my tears; I should have employed my excessive love in prayer, instead of not being able to bestow it upon any one and feeling it stifle me. I had abandoned myself, because I had faith in myself only and had lost all my strength. I do not regret having obeyed my reason, having lived in freedom, having had respect only for the true and the just. But, nevertheless, when the fever seizes upon me, when I tremble with weakness, I am tilled with fear, I become a child; I would prefer to be controlled by the Divine will, to efface myself, to allow God to act in me and for me.
Then, I thought of Marie, asking myself where was her soul at this hour. In the great realm of nature, without doubt. I indulged in the dream that each soul is merged in the grand whole, that dead humanity is but an immense breath, a single spirit. Upon earth we are separated, we are ignorant of each other, we weep at our inability to unite ourselves; beyond life there is a complete penetration, a marriage of all with all, a single and universal love. I looked at the sky. I seemed to see in the calm and quiet stretch of blue the soul of the world, the eternal soul made up of all the others. Then, I experienced a great delight, I had shot ahead of my cure, I had arrived at pardon and faith. Brothers, my youth still smiled upon me. I thought that some day we would be reunited all four — Marie and Jacques, Laurence and myself; we will understand each other, we will pardon each other; we will love each other without having to hear the sobs of our bodies, and we will experience a supreme peace in exchanging those tendernesses which we could not give each other when we lived in the flesh.
The thought that there is a misunderstanding upon earth, and that everything is explained in the other world, consoled me. I said to myself that I would wait for death in order to love. I stood near the window, in the presence of the sky, in the presence of Marie’s corpse, and, little by little, a gentle coolness, a limitless hope, came to me from that dead young girl and the dreamy space.
The candies had burned out. The silence in the chamber grew heavier and heavier, and the darkness increased. Pâquerette still slept. Jacques had not moved.
Suddenly he arose, he stared around him in terror. I saw him lean over the corpse and kiss it on the forehead. The cold flesh sent a shiver through him.
Then, he noticed me. He came to me, hesitated, and then offered me his hand.
I looked at this man whom I could not comprehend, who seemed to me as obscure as Laurence. I did not know whether he had lied to me or whether he had wished to save me. This man had struck my heart a heavy blow. But I had recovered hope, I had pardoned. I took his hand and pressed it.
Then, he went away, thanking me with a look.
In the morning, I found myself beside Marie’s bed, on my knees, still weeping, but my tears were mild, softened. I wept over this poor girl whom death had carried off in her spring, ignorant of the kisses of love.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCLUSION.
BROTHERS, I am coming to you. I set out tomorrow for the country, for Provence. I wish to draw a new youth from our broad horizons, from our pure and glowing sunbeams.
My pride has led me to aim at too lofty a mark. I believed myself ripe for the struggle, while in reality I was but a weak and inexperienced child. Perhaps, I shall always remain a child.
I rely upon your friendship, on my remembrances. Near you, I will recall the days of the past, I will quiet myself, I will succeed in curing my heart. We will go into the plains, on the shady bank of the river; we will resume the life we led when we were sixteen, and I will then forget the terrible year through which I have just passed. I will return to those days of ignorance and hope, when I knew nothing of reality and when I dreamed of a better earth. I will become young again, believing; I will recommence life with new dreams.
Oh! I feel all the thoughts of my youth return to me in a body, filling me with strength and hope. Everything had disappeared amid the gloom into which I had entered — you and the world, my daily toil and my future glory. I lived only for a single idea: to love and to suffer. To-day, amid my tranquility, I feel awakening, one by one, those thoughts which I recognize and to which I extend a hearty welcome, with a softened soul. I was blind, but now I see clearly” within me; the evil is torn away, I find the world as I left it, broad for youthful courage, luminous, full of applause. I will resume my labor, recover my strength, struggle in the name of my faith, in the name of my tenderness.
Make a place for me beside you, brothers, let us live in the pure air, in the fields sparkling with sunbeams, in our pure love. Let us prepare ourselves for life by loving each other, by going hand in hand in freedom beneath the blue sky. Wait for me, and make Provence sweeter, more encouraging, to receive me and restore me my childhood.
Last night, when at the window, in the presence of Marie’s corpse, I purified myself with faith, I saw the sky, full of gloom, whiten at the horizon. All night long I had had before my eyes the black stretch of space, pricked by the yellow light of the stars; I had vainly sounded the infinity of the sombre gulf, growing terrified at the immense calmness, at the unfathomable depths. This calmness and these depths were lighted up; the darkness quivered and slowly rolled back, allowing its mysteries to be seen; the fear inspired by the gloom gave place to the hope inspired by the growing brightness. The whole sky grew inflamed, little by little; it acquired rosy tints as soft as smiles; it bathed in the pale light, sparkling with faint brilliancy. And, alone in the presence of this tearing away of the night, of this slow and majestic birth of the day, I felt in my heart a young, invincible strength, an immense hope.
Brothers, it was the dawn.
THE END
THE DEAD WOMAN’S WISH
Translated by Count C. de Soissons
By 1866 Zola was contributing regularly to the journal
L’Événement
, offering his second novel,
Le Vœu d’une morte
, which appeared as a serial in September. Due to poor sales, Villemessant, the editor of the newspaper, suspended publication at the end of the first part. The second part was never to be written. It is a racy Parisian tale, which introduces what would later become one of Zola’s most enduring themes: the perversion of money.
Jean Delaunay de Villemessant, ( 1810-1879) — Zola’s first editor
CONTENTS
A FOREWORD
READERS of Emile Zola during the last three decades will not find this work in the least like those which practically made his name as a realist. These books — the large series of histories of particular families, were written after the success of “Therese Raquin” in 1867; indeed they began to appear after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Many of the “studies,” however much we may admire the craftsmanship, were revolting in the extreme and exposed the most abominable and debasing side of ‘the baser part of human nature — French — and detailed immorality and worse in their blackest aspects. It was through his association with the Naturalist School that Zola adopted “
Les Rougon-Macquart”
style of human, and many think perverted, analysis, when he identified himself in the later years of the Empire with Flaubert, Daudet, the de Goncourts, and Turgeniff. Previously, when quite a young man — he was born in 1840 by the way — when he failed both as essayist and critic, as well as in the dramatic world, he wrote most charming short stories, and his delicate talent was shown in the
Contes à Ninon
, issued in 1864, and again in
Nouveaux Contes à Ninon
in 1874; with other collections of his youthful and optimistic days, published later under the titles of
Le Capitaine Burle
,
Nats Micoulin,
and the beautiful
Attaque du Moulin.
The present work, “A Dead Woman’s Wish,”
Le Vœu (Tune Morte
— so admirably translated by the Count de Soissons — belongs to the happy period of his life. It is a splendid study of real character — of human nature at its best and noblest — the dying woman, the youth Daniel to whom she makes her last confession and desires, are beautiful creations; while in strong contrast are the selfish husband M. de Rionne, his sister, and her donkey of a spouse as obstinate as a pig and almost as ignorant. But the whole small gallery of
dramatis persona
are drawn direct from life with a fine yet sympathetic hand and a keen insight into the goodness, the badness, and the follies and foibles of his fellow-creatures. Jeanne is a victim of her surroundings, but she is truly presented and in the end proves what good qualities she possessed had they been properly and purely developed. The “Paris Sketches” at the end of this volume show undoubted indications of Zola’s later methods and outlook. They are forerunners of what was longing to fix itself in his mind. These stories are quite French — and Paris at that — including
“
A Dead Woman’s Wish,” and they must be read from that point of view. Once you grasp the French character and the conditions of life on the other side of the channel, then you will fully appreciate and enjoy this early work of the giant Zola.
S. J. A F.
PROLOGUE
TOWARDS the end of 1831, in the
Semaphore
of Marseilles, the following paragraph might have been read: —
“Last night a great fire destroyed several houses in the little village of St. Henri. The glare of the flames, whose reflection reddened the sea, was seen from this town, and all who happened to be on the Edoumè rocks were enabled to be present at a spectacle at once frightful and sublime.
“Exact details have not yet reached us. Several remarkable instances of bravery are, however, recorded. To-day we are only able to record one heart-stirring incident of this catastrophe.
“The flames spread so rapidly in the lower rooms of one house that it was impossible to give the least help to the inmates. These miserable people were heard uttering piercing cries of terror and distress. Suddenly a woman was seen at one of the windows, holding a young child in her arms. From below, it was noticed that her dress had caught fire. With terror-stricken face and dishevelled hair she stared wildly in front of her, as if smitten with madness.
“The flames ran rapidly along her skirts, and soon she was a blaze of light. Closing her eyes and pressing the child tightly to her breast, she hurled herself frantically through the window. When the people rushed to lift them up they found that the mother’s skull was crushed, but the child still lived. It stretched out its little hands and cried, as if it wished to escape from the fearful pressure of the dead woman’s arms.
“We are informed that this child, having no relations whatever in the world, has just been adopted by quite a young girl, whose name is unknown to us, but who belongs to the nobility of the neighbourhood. Such an action has no need of praise. It speaks for itself.”
CHAPTER I
THE room was dimly lit by the faint glimmer of twilight.
The window curtains partly drawn aside, allowed the higher branches of the trees to be seen, all tinted red by the last rays of the sun. Below on the Boulevard des Invalides children were playing, and the shrill sound of their laughter floating upward fell soft and pleasing.