Читать книгу Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work - Ernest Alfred Vizetelly - Страница 9

Dam and Reservoir of the Zola Canal.—Photo by Martinet & Jouven.

Apart from the plain, but very characteristic of the region, were the Infernet gorges, near which François Zola planned one of his huge reservoirs. There one found "a narrow defile between giant walls of rock which the blazing sun had baked and gilded. Pines had sprung up in the clefts. Plumes of trees, appearing from below no larger than tufts of herbage, fringed the crests and waved above the chasm. This was a perfect chaos. With its many sudden twists, its streams of blood-red soil, pouring from each gash in its sides, its desolation and its solitude, disturbed only by the eagles hovering on high, it looked like some spot riven by the bolts of heaven, some gallery of hell."[14]

There were also the villages, whose houses, at times, were mere hovels of rubble and boards, some squatting amid muck-heaps, and dingy with woeful want; others more roomy and cheerful, with roofs of pinkish tiles. Strips of garden, victoriously planted amid stony soil, displayed plots of vegetables enclosed by quickset hedges. Much of the aridity of the region had arisen from the ruthless deforesting of the hills; formerly the falling leaves had spread rich vegetable soil over the mountain flanks, there had been good pasture for sheep where barren crags alone were left, and the climate, equalised by the moisture of the woods, had been less abrupt and violent in its changes.[15] Yet, in Zola's youth, as now, "wherever there was the smallest spring, the smallest brook, the glowing land still burst into powerful vegetation, and a dense shade prevailed, with paths lying deep and delightfully cool between plane trees, horse-chestnuts, and elms, all growing vigorously."[16]

Those various scenes were a delight to Zola and his friends. "They craved for the open air, the broad sunlight, the sequestered paths in the ravines. They roamed the hills, rested in green nooks, returned home at night through the thick dusk of the highways. In winter they relished the cold, the frosty, gaily echoing ground, the pure sky, and the sharp atmosphere. In summer they always assembled beside the river—the willow-fringed Arc—for the water then became their supreme passion, and they spent whole afternoons bathing, swimming, paddling, and stretching themselves to dry on the fine sun-warmed sand. In the autumn they became sportsmen—inoffensive ones, for there is virtually no game, scarcely even a rabbit, in the district, and at the most one might bring down an occasional petty-chap, fig-pecker, or some other small bird. But if, now and again, they fired a shot, it was chiefly for the pleasure of making a noise, and their expeditions always ended in the shade of a tree, where they lay on their backs, chatting freely of their preferences."[17]

A little later, when Zola's young muse essayed her flight, he recalled those days of Provence, singing:

"O Provence, des pleurs s'échappent de mes yeux

Quand vibre sur mon luth ton nom mélodieux. …

O région d'amour, de parfum, de lumière,

Il me serait bien doux de t'appeler ma mère. …

Autour d'Aix, la romaine, il n'est pas de ravines,

Pas de rochers perdus au penchant des collines,

Dans la vallée en fleur pas de lointains sentiers,

Où, l'on ne puisse voir l'empreinte de mes pieds. …

Écolier échappé de la docte prison,

Et jetant aux échos son rire et sa chanson,

Adolescent rêveur poursuivant sous tes saules

La nymphe dont il croit voir blanchir les épaules,

Jusqu'aux derniers taillis j'ai couru tes forêts,

O Provence, et foulé tes lieux les plus secrets.

Mes lèvres nommeraient chacune de tes pierres,

Chacun de tes buissons perdus dans tes clairières.

J'ai joué si longtemps sur tes coteaux fleuris,

Que brins d'herbe et graviers me sont de vieux amis."[18]

Those rambles undoubtedly helped to rouse a sense of poetry in Zola and his companions. Besides providing themselves with provisions—at times a small joint of raw mutton and some salad plants, which they cooked or dressed in the wilds—they carried books, volumes of the poets, in their pockets or their bags. One year, 1856, Victor Hugo reigned over them like an absolute monarch. They were conquered by the majesty of his compositions, enraptured by his powerful rhetoric. His dramas haunted them like splendid visions. After being chilled by the classic monologues which they were compelled to learn by heart at the college, they felt warmed, transported into an orgy of quivering ecstacy, when they lodged passages of "Hernani" and "Ruy Blas" in their minds. Many a time, on the river-bank, after bathing, they acted some scenes together.[19] Indeed, they knew entire plays, and on the way home, in the twilight, they would adapt their steps to the rhythm of those lines which were sonorous like trumpet-blasts. But a day came when one of them produced a volume of Alfred de Musset's poems, the perusal of which set their hearts quivering. From that hour their worship for Hugo received a great blow, his lines fled from their memories, and Musset alone reigned over them. He became their constant companion in the hollows, the grottoes, the little village inns where they rested; and, again and again, they read "Rolla" or the "Nights," aloud.[20]

Thus their young natures awoke to love. Cézanne and Baille were then about eighteen years of age, Zola was seventeen. But their aspirations remained full of ideality. There were a few brief, uncertain attempts at love-making, nipped in the bud by circumstances. Already, before the time we have now reached, Zola, or his musically minded friend Marguery, or perhaps both, had nursed a boyish flame for the fair-haired daughter of a local haberdasher, and had serenaded her in company, the former with his clarionet, the latter with a cornet-à-piston, until one evening the indignant parents emptied their water-jugs over them. Later Zola dreamt of encountering "fair beings in his rambles, beautiful maidens, who would suddenly spring up in some strange wood, charm him for a whole day, and melt into air at dusk."[21] And at last a young girl, Gratienne, flits by in the moonlight near the Clos des Chartreux, with her heavy tresses of raven hair resting on her young white neck;[22] but even she remains little more than a vision, and as yet, neither into Zola's life nor his friends' does woman, the real creature of flesh and blood, really enter, to achieve that work of disillusion by which she almost invariably destroys the youthful ecstacy which she, or her semblance, has inspired. Ninon, the Ninon of the "Contes"[23], comes later. As yet she is only dreamt of, though the name by which she is to be known to the world is already suggested by an old gravestone in the cemetery, with only the word "Nina" remaining of its time-worn inscription:

"Ami, te souviens-tu de la tombe noircie,

Tout au bord d'une allée, à demi sous les fleurs,

Qui nous retint longtemps, et nous laissa rêveurs?

Le marbre en est rongé par les vents et la pluie.

Elle songe dans l'herbe et, discrête, se tait,

Souriante et sereine au blond soleil de mai.

"Elle songe dans l'herbe, et, de sa rêverie,

La tombe, chastement, à ceux qui passent là,

Ne livre que le nom effacé de NINA.

. …

Ami, te souviens-tu, nous la rêvâmes belle,

Et depuis, bien souvent, sans jamais parler d'elle,

Nos regards se sont dit, dans un dernier regret:

'Si je l'avais connue, oh! Ninette vivrait!'"[24]

But serious trouble was now impending in Zola's home. While he studied at the college, while his heart opened and his mind expanded, the position of his mother and grandparents gradually became desperate. All the savings, even the Auberts' funds, were exhausted; the lawsuits still dragged on, entailing heavy costs, which drained the home of all resources. Already in 1855, the rent in the Rue Bellegarde proving too heavy, it became necessary to take a cheaper lodging on the Cours des Minimes. Then, early in 1857, that also was found too dear, and two little rooms were rented at the corner of the Rue Mazarine. They overlooked the Barri[25], a lane-like chemin-de-ronde encompassing the old town, with small and sordid houses on one hand, and the crumbling ramparts on the other.

Here black ruin fell upon the Zolas and the Auberts. The aged but active grandmother toiled to the very last, managing the household, raising money on goods and chattels, resisting the wolf at the door with all the energy of despair. Bit by bit, every superfluous article of furniture was sold; remnants of former finery were carried to the wardrobe dealers, to obtain the means of purchasing daily bread and paying Émile's college fees. As for the lawsuits, they remained in abeyance from lack of funds. And blow following blow, poor Madame Aubert could at last resist no longer, but sickened and died. That happened in November, 1857. During the previous month Émile Zola had returned to the college, entering the second class. Towards Christmas his despairing mother started, alone, for Paris, to implore the help of some of the personages who had formerly favoured her husband. The old and almost helpless Monsieur Aubert remained at Aix with his young grandson, who, after an anxious period of suspense, received in February a letter from his mother, running much as follows:

"It is no longer possible to continue living at Aix. Sell the little furniture that is left. You will in any case obtain sufficient money to enable you to take third-class tickets to Paris for yourself and your grandfather. Manage it as soon as possible. I shall be waiting for you."

Young Émile acted in accordance with those instructions, but he could not tear himself away from Aix and his friends without making with the latter a farewell excursion to Le Tholonet and the barrage of the canal reservoir planned by his father. When he at last took the train with old M. Aubert, his heart was heavy at the thought that he might never see Provence again. But in that respect his fears were not realised.

On reaching Paris, he found his mother residing at No. 63 Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, near the Luxembourg palace. She had obtained some assistance from friends, one of whom, Maître Labot[26], recommended Émile to Désiré Nisard, the critic and historian, famous for having tried to demonstrate that there were two moralities, and Nisard speedily procured him a free scholarship at the Lycée or college of St. Louis. This was by Madame Zola's express wish, for, however great might be her misfortunes, she desired that her son might continue his studies.

But Paris now seemed a horrible place to the youthful Émile. All was gloom there. Orsini, Pieri, and Rudio had attempted the life of Napoleon III outside the opera-house a few weeks previously, and a kind of terror prevailed under the iron rule of General Espinasse and the new Law of Public Safety. Zola regretted the hills and the sun of Provence, the companionship of Baille and Cézanne; he felt lost among his new school-fellows, four hundred in number, and his poverty and shabbiness increased his bitterness of spirit, for the lads attending St. Louis were all more fortunately circumstanced than himself. That Lycée, which then faced the Rue de la Harpe—the transformation of the old Quartier Latin by the tracing of the Boulevard St. Michel being as yet uneffected—ranked third among the great colleges of Paris; and among those who had sat on its benches were the second Dr. Baron Corvisart, Gounod the composer, Egger the Hellenist and poet, Havet the Latinist and historian of early Christianity, and Nettement, whose account of French literature under the Restoration is still worthy of perusal. Other pupils, before Zola's time, were Henri Rochefort the erratic journalist and politician, Charles Floquet the advocate, who became prime minister of France; Dr. Tripier, one of the pioneers in the application of electricity to medicine, and the well-known General de Galliffet. Many of the professors also were able men who rose to eminence, and in such a college one might have thought that Zola would have made decisive progress.

As it happened, he not only got on badly with his school-fellows—who on account of the southern accent he had acquired in Provence nicknamed him the "Marseillese,"—but, yielding to a brooding spirit, he neglected his lessons. It was only in French composition that he occasionally distinguished himself. One day, it appears, when the allotted subject was "Milton dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his daughter," he treated it so ably that the professor, M. Levasseur—the eminent historian of the French working classes—publicly complimented him. Truth to tell, he now read a great deal, even in class time, still devouring the poets, but finding a delight also in Rabelais, Montaigne, and other prose authors. And he carried on an interminable correspondence with his friends in Provence, at times addressing them in verse, at others launching into discussions on philosophy, morals, and æsthetics. It was now, too, that he wrote his tale, "La Fée Amoureuse," which was therefore the earliest of his "Contes à Ninon," in which volume it afterwards appeared. Thus, in spite of his declared preference for a scientific career, his literary bent was steadily asserting itself.

At the end of his school year his only award was a second prize for French composition. Nevertheless, his mother, having scraped a little money together, allowed him to go to Provence for the vacation, which he spent with Baille and Cézanne. But on coming back to Paris in October he fell ill with a mucous fever of such severity that more than once a fatal issue was feared. When, after a period of convalescence, he returned to St. Louis, there entering the rhetoric class, two months had been lost and he still felt weak. Thus, though his new master, M. Lalanne, commended some of his work, notably his compositions, his progress was not great, particularly as his mind turned so frequently to Provence and his friends there, and hesitated between the scientific avocations of his choice and an increasing ambition to become a poet. When, however, the school year ended in August, 1859, his mother's position being as precarious as ever, he resolved to make an effort. He would skip the philosophy class and at once offer himself as a candidate for the degree of bachelor in sciences—that, or a corresponding degree in letters, being a necessary passport for eventual admission into the recognised professions or the government service.

The result of Zola's attempt was singular. In his written examination he proved very successful, his name appearing second on the list, but in the ensuing vivâ-voce examination, after securing good marks in physics, chemistry, and natural history, fair ones in pure mathematics, algebra, and trigonometry, he collapsed in literature and modern languages. He post-dated Charlemagne's death by five hundred years, scandalised the examiner by a romantic interpretation of one of La Fontaine's fables, and virtually confessed his utter ignorance of German. Thus his mark was zero; and though, it would seem, the examiners in sciences interceded in his favour with the examiner in belles lettres, the latter remained obdurate and would not modify the mark. Zola was therefore "sent back," for it was not allowable that a bachelor in sciences should be absolutely nul en littérature.[27]

Several years previously Alexandre Dumas fils had been "ploughed" for the very same reason. Two distinguished men of Zola's own generation, Alphonse Daudet and François Coppée, also failed to secure bachelors' degrees; yet, like Zola himself, they became eminent writers. Of course it is impossible to found any valid argument for or against degrees on a few isolated instances. It may be doubted, perhaps, whether they are any great recommendation to the literary man who is a dramatist or a novelist or a poet. But Zola's literary aspirations did not enter into his scheme when he offered himself for examination; he merely wished to secure a certificate, as it were, qualifying him for employment in one of the semi-scientific branches of the government service. In that respect his failure was a severe disappointment, particularly to his mother, who had set all her hopes upon him, and was distressed to find that the promise of his college days at Aix remained unfulfilled. At the same time, mother-like, she blamed the examiners more than she blamed him, and once more she provided him with enough money to spend the summer vacation in Provence.[28] A week after he had been "ploughed" at the Sorbonne, Zola was again roaming the hills, in a blouse and hob-nailed boots, accompanied by his usual intimates.

There was also no little writing of poetry on Zola's part during those holidays, the influence of Musset still being in the ascendant, as is shown by a piece entitled "Rodolpho," in which one can further detect the change which Parisian life, particularly that of the Quartier Latin, where he had his home, was now effecting in the youth who had awoke, in Provence, to little more than ideal love. Musset likewise inspires some verses entitled "Vision," also dating from this time; but a perusal of the "Contes de La Fontaine," a book which no discipline seems able to keep out of French colleges, plainly suggested "Le Diable ermite," in which the good Abbé's erotic style was imitated only too successfully. Another piece, entitled "Religion," shows that the young versifier, the former winner of prizes for "religious instruction," was already losing his faith under the influence, no doubt, of Parisian surroundings. In this effort he is found calling on the Deity to manifest himself in order that he may believe in him, asking the why and the wherefore of things, and displaying a grim consciousness of the wretchedness of mankind. There are lines in this poem of his twentieth year which suggest the Zola of the last stage:

"Hélas! que tout est noir dans la vallée humaine!

Les hommes en troupeaux se parquent dans la plaine,

Vivant sur des égouts, qu'entoure un mur croulant."

As his vacation drew to a close, Zola once more bestirred himself, and, after consultation with his friends, decided to make another attempt to secure the diploma which would prove an "open sesame" to regular employment. But he did not care to face the Paris examiners again, he preferred to try those of Marseilles, thinking, perhaps, that they might prove more indulgent. So, taking up his books to refresh his memory, he lingered in Provence till November. At Marseilles, however, even his comparative success in Paris was denied him. He failed with his preliminary papers and was not even summoned for the vivâ-voce examination. That defeat was decisive. When he returned to Paris he found his mother cast down by it; the friends who helped her had lost all faith in his ability. It was useless for him to return to the Lycée. In another four months he would be twenty years of age, he must no longer remain a burden on others, it was time for him to earn his own living. But how was he to do so? The outlook was gloomy indeed.

[1] "Le Père d'Émile Zola," p. 212 et seq.; "La Vérité en Marche," p. 295 et seq.

[2] Ibid., p. 306.

[3] Société du Canal Zola: deeds drawn by Maître Baudier, Notary in Paris.

[4] Paul Alexis' "Émile Zola: Notes d'un Ami," 2d edition, Paris, 1882, p. 130. É. Zola's "Une Page d'Amour," Paris, 1878, pp. 20, 21.

[5] "La Vérité en Marche," p. 241.

[6] Among his works, which in the first instance generally appeared as feuilletons in Paris newspapers, were "Eugénie Lamour," "Francis et Mariette," "Les Mariages Jaunes," and "Evariste Planchu, Mœurs vraies du Quartier Latin," the last named being perhaps his best book.

[7] "Palmarès du Collège d'Aix," 1853 et seq.

[8] P. Alexis, l. c., p. 21.

[9] An accessit is a distinction conferred, in French colleges, on the three pupils who come nearest to a prize winner.

[10] Zola's "L'Œuvre," Chap. II.

[11] "If it is good King René whom you seek, you will find him at this time walking in his chimney … the narrow parapet yonder; it extends between these two towers, has an exposure to the south, and is sheltered in every other direction. Yonder it is his pleasure to walk and enjoy the beams of the sun on such cool mornings as the present. It nurses, he says, his poetical vein."—Scott's "Anne of Geierstein," Chap. XXIX.

[12] Zola's "Le Docteur Pascal."

[13] "Le Docteur Pascal."

[14] Ibid.

[15] "The Athenæum," No. 3686, June 18, 1898, p. 785.

[16] "Le Docteur Pascal."

[17] Zola's "Documents Littéraires," p. 88 (abbreviated).

[18] Zola's "L'Aérienne" (1860) in Alexis, l. c., p. 265 et seq.

[19] Zola's "Nos Auteurs Dramatiques," p. 42.

[20] "Documents Littéraires," p. 90.

[21] "L'Œuvre," Chap. II.

[22] Zola's Verses, "À mes Amis" (Lycée St. Louis, 1858).

[23] Zola's first book, inspired largely by memories of Provence, and issued in Paris in 1864.

[24] Zola's "Nina," 1859. Readers of "La Fortune des Rougon" (which Zola wrote some ten years later) will remember that the old tombstone figures also in that work, in which the inscription is given as "Here lieth … Marie … died … ," the finger of time having effaced the rest. There is, however, an evident connection between the names Nina and Ninon, and perhaps they suggested Nana.

[25] From the mediæval Latin, barrium (Ducange).

[26] See ante, p. 27.

[27] Alexis, l. c., pp. 40, 41.

[28] It seems probable that he had already spent his Easter holidays there that year; for some of his verses, "Ce que je veux," are dated Aix, May, 1859. See Alexis, l. c., p. 297.