Imperfect as the rendering may be, I think that the above passage will show that M. Zola was already possessed of a large amount of his acknowledged realistic power at the early date I have mentioned. I should also have liked to quote a rather amusing story of a priggish Philistine who ate violets with oil and vinegar, strongly peppered, but considerations of space forbid; so I will pass to another passage, which is of more interest and importance. Both French and English critics have often contended that although M. Zola is a married man, he knows very little of women, as there has virtually never been any
The light was rising, and as I stood there before that footway
transformed into a bed of flowers my strange night-fancies gave
place to recollections at once sweet and sad. I thought of my last
excursion to Fontenay-aux-Roses, with the loved one, the good
fairy of my twentieth year. Springtime was budding into birth, the
tender foliage gleamed in the pale April sunshine. The little
pathway skirting the hill was bordered by large fields of violets.
As one passed along, a strong perfume seemed to penetrate one and
make one languid.
from the sweet odour of the flowers. A whiteness hovered over the
country-side, little insects buzzed in the sunshine, deep silence
fell from the heavens, and so low was the sound of our kisses that
not a bird in all the hedges showed sign of fear. At a turn of the
path we perceived some old bent women, who with dry, withered
hands were hurriedly gathering violets and throwing them into
large baskets. She who was with me glanced longingly at the
flowers, and I called one of the women. 'You want some violets?'
said she. 'How much? A pound?'
God of Heaven! She sold her flowers by the pound! We fled in deep
distress. It seemed as though the country-side had been
transformed into a huge grocer's shop. . . . Then we ascended to
the woods of Verrieres, and there, in the grass, under the soft,
fresh foliage, we found some tiny violets which seemed to be
dreadfully afraid, and contrived to hide themselves with all sorts
of artful ruses. During two long hours I scoured the grass and
peered into every nook, and as soon as ever I found a fresh violet
I carried it to her. She bought it of me, and the price that I
exacted was a kiss. . . . And I thought of all those things, of
all that happiness, amidst the hubbub of the markets of Paris,
before those poor dead flowers whose graveyard the footway had
become. I remembered my good fairy, who is now dead and gone, and
the little bouquet of dry violets which I still preserve in a
drawer. When I returned home I counted their withered stems: there
were twenty of them, and over my lips there passed the gentle
warmth of my loved one's twenty kisses.
And now from violets I must, with a brutality akin to that which M. Zola himself displays in some of his transitions, pass to very different things, for some time back a well-known English poet and essayist wrote of the present work that it was redolent of pork, onions, and cheese. To one of his sensitive temperament, with a muse strictly nourished on sugar and water, such gross edibles as pork and cheese and onions were peculiarly offensive. That humble plant the onion, employed to flavour wellnigh every savoury dish, can assuredly need no defence; in most European countries, too, cheese has long been known as the poor man's friend; whilst as for pork, apart from all other considerations, I can claim for it a distinct place in English literature. A greater essayist by far than the critic to whom I am referring, a certain Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House, has left us an immortal page on the origin of roast pig and crackling. And, when everything is considered, I should much like to know why novels should be confined to the aspirations of the soul, and why they should not also treat of the requirements of our physical nature? From the days of antiquity we have all known what befell the members when, guided by the brain, they were foolish enough to revolt against the stomach. The latter plays a considerable part not only in each individual organism, but also in the life of the world. Over and over again-I could adduce a score of historical examples-it has thwarted the mightiest designs of the human mind. We mortals are much addicted to talking of our minds and our souls and treating our bodies as mere dross. But I hold -it is a personal opinion-that in the vast majority of cases the former are largely governed by the last. I conceive, therefore, that a novel which takes our daily sustenance as one of its themes has the best of all
It should be observed that the work does not merely treat of the provisioning of a great city. That provisioning is its
From this quotation from Mr. Sherard's pages it will be gathered that M. Zola had a distinct social aim in writing this book. Wellnigh the whole social question may, indeed, be summed up in the words 'food and comfort'; and in a series of novels like 'Les Rougon-Macquart,' dealing firstly with different conditions and grades of society, and, secondly, with the influence which the Second Empire exercised on France, the present volume necessarily had its place marked out from the very first.
Mr. Sherard has told us of all the labour which M. Zola expended on the preparation of the work, of his multitudinous visits to the Paris markets, his patient investigation of their organism, and his keen artistic interest in their manifold phases of life. And bred as I was in Paris, a partaker as I have been of her exultations and her woes they have always had for me a strong attraction. My memory goes back to the earlier years of their existence, and I can well remember many of the old surroundings which have now disappeared. I can recollect the last vestiges of the antique