My Impressions of Zola

English Illustrated Magazine, 1 February 1894, pages 477-489, 6,573 words

Illustrated with captioned pictures:

1. M. Zola’s House at Médan
2. M. Emile Zola’s Latest Portrait (Taken on his visit to England by Russell and Sons, Baker Street.)
3. M. Zola in His Walking Costume at Médan
4. M. Zola’s Bedroom at Médan
5. In the Study at Médan
6. M. Zola’s Dining Room
7. Autograph Letter from M. Zola

I have been asked to write an intimate and personal article about my friend Emile Zola. It surely will not be difficult for me to find matter for such an article. Zola said only the other day, "It is sixteen years [1878] since we met for the first time.” A long tract of friendship, interspersed with appointments, casual meetings, visits, and whole days spent together in literary and familiar conversation. My mind roves with pleasure over this long tract of friendship, seeking a starting-point, seeking essential days. I remember two which I suppose are essential, since my mind goes to them naturally. I remember them very well. They are as if printed on my mind. Why not describe them?

Manet had introduced me to Zola at the bal de l’Assommoir. I was dressed as a Parisian workman in a blouse and a casquette, and was engaged to dance with Gervaise. Zola often refers to this meeting. He seems to remember it very distinctly, although not a word was spoken. We bowed and passed on. Time, place, and costume were against an easy exchange of ideas. So a few weeks after I went to Medan to call on him.

Medan was then an unknown village on a hill-side — a few hamlets and a square church tower. Zola had just gone to live there. He had bought a cottage from the peasants, and was rebuilding it by degrees. The great study which overlooks the low-lying, silvery-green meadows, through which the Oise flows, was just finished. He had, even at that time, begun to collect the massive furniture to which his natural taste runs. Madame Zola led the way up some tortuous staircases, opened a door, and left me to find the master if I could. At first I thought I should not succeed. I peeped about the heavy furniture, wondered at the lectern, and finally discovered the master lying on a sofa by the window, correcting proofs. He waved his hand to me to be seated. "Dear me,” I thought, "this is a little chilling;" and at the same moment I remembered that I had heard that Zola knew at once if he were talking to a fool or a man of wit, that he did not tolerate a fool for above a minute; at the end of that time he was dismissed with short words. “Heavens! I haven’t said a word, and he has already found out that I am a fool.” But there was the seat. I had to sit down. I glanced at the terrible master who lay on the sofa, his glasses on his nose, reading me, I thought, through and through. I sat striving to collect my thoughts. The necessity of some commonplace remark frightened me. If Homer and Shakespeare were suddenly introduced they would have to begin with remarks about the weather, or the pleasure they had both taken in each other’s works. But not feeling myself to be either I trembled as I gabbled through the inevitable compliments. He received my compliments coldly; so coldly that my flesh began to creep, and I felt that there could be no longer any doubt in his mind that I was a fool.

Zola was not then what he is now, a gracious, kindly man, in the habit of receiving every one who chooses to call on him, and answering all sorts of questions. He was then the iconoclast, the idol-breaker, a sort of bear who hid himself in a cave and cursed the universe, who bade all comers begone, and was personally known only to half a dozen friends. Zola did not then know how to receive commonplace compliments, and I shall never forget the frigid indifference with which he received mine. From the fearless attacks on the Academy and the best-established reputations which I used to read in the Voltaire; from the large-heartedness of his appreciations, and sympathy for all that was new, I had imagined a quick responsive nature, kind to excess, with hands extended in benevolent gesture to all who wanted help. Nothing could be more opposed to my imaginings than the reality which lay on the sofa, fixing his glasses from time to time on his short and strangely square-cut nose. I expected every moment that I should be asked to leave. I had tried flattery; it had failed; it fell like water on granite, and in febrile eagerness I sought for some subject of conversation that might interest him.

The power that the circulating libraries exercised on literature pestered my mind a good deal at that time, and I made post haste for it, seizing the first transitional phrase, heedless of the ruts and difficulties with which the way was beset."Shall I be turned out before I get there?” I asked myself. Enfin I had got there before the terrible man on the sofa had rung for the servant; and in a great hurry I explained the position of the novelist in England, and was soon rewarded, by signs of awakening interest on the granite, stoical face. "Ah! he’s beginning to see that I am not such a fool after all.” In the course of my explanation I was lucky to drop some remarks disparaging Protestantism as an artistic influence. The effect was magical. "What you say,” said the great man, "is extremely interesting. I have written an article on the influence of Protestantism on art — it will appear tomorrow in the Figaro. Protestantism has never produced great art. Milton is the one great Protestant writer; the Elizabethans Shakespeare and Jonson lived before Protestantism had taken hold of the national spirit, the genius of the nation,” and so on.

The conversation then became friendly and pleasant. Zola asked me about Eliot. Which did I think her best book? What French writer is she most like? I felt this to be a "poser,” and fearful of losing my newly-acquired reputation, I answered that I could think of no one to compare her with. The conversation paused a moment, and to my surprise and pleasure Zola began to tell me about the novel he was then writing. I must have stayed three-quarters of an hour, and then, fearing to outstay my welcome, I bade the master good-bye. He took me downstairs, talking all the time. He asked me to come and see him again. Then I knew I had made a friend. "I have made a friend,” I repeated to myself as the carriage rolled through the green French country. My eyes noted the flat, green, French country; the mystery of the long, low horizon; the poplars pointing to the first stars. A train shrieked through the vibrating solitude. “I have made a friend,” I repeated, as I listened to the distant rattle. And as the rattle died away in faint echoes, consumed one by one in the dusky night of the long, low French plain, I said,"Yes, he is the very man I had imagined from reading his articles. The clear, well-balanced mind, the kind, sympathetic nature, passionate in his convictions, loyal to his opinions. A little roughness at first — possibly what. I mistook for roughness was mere shyness; besides it can’t be amusing to be told to your face that you are a great writer. I should not like it myself.”

Years passed. I had written many books; the Mummer’s Wife had been translated into French, it had been published in the Voltaire and the Vie Populaire; Charpentier was about to issue it in book form. Zola had promised to write a preface. The Confessions of a Young Man was appearing in La Revue Jndépendante, and the report had gone forth that the next number would contain a scathing attack on La Terre. I wrote to Zola to say that this was not so. I proposed to come and spend Monday with him. "On Monday morning you will receive the new number of the Revue, and we shall be able to discuss the matter at breakfast.” I knew that the number contained — well, some frivolous remarks about naturalism; these I hoped to be able to explain away; but I did not feel quite at ease, so I called on my way for the faithful Alexis — bulky Alexis’s pacific temperament would serve as a shelter, as something to fall back upon when the discussion became strained. However happily it might end, I felt that there could hardly fail to be moments when — I don’t think I finished the sentence at the time; I will not seek to do so now.

Médan is about a mile from the railway station. Our walk lay along the river banks — thick green banks that unrolled like green ribbons as we sauntered along talking of our books. The green French country seemed to rejoice in the sunshine like a living creature, and I took an exquisite pleasure in the poplars growing so tall and straight out of the plain, and the white clouds hanging between the trees. And when remembrance of Zola interrupted my reveries, I told Alexis exactly what I had written, and the dear fellow assured me that Zola could not take offence at such light criticism.

"Yes, Alexis,” I said, "but you always say what is agreeable to hear.”

Zola was lying on the sofa by the window reading the review. After a few words of greeting, he said: "I am afraid, my dear friend, that I shall not be able to write the preface. You have made it impossible for me to do so.”

And when subjected to close critical examination the phrases I had used proved to be more difficult of explanation than I had anticipated. The discussion was painful, and the breakfast bell was a welcome relief. "It is over at last,” I said to myself, but to my horror, as if answering my thought, the master said "We are going down to breakfast now, but after breakfast we will go into the matter thoroughly; I will read the passages aloud to you.” "Good heavens,” I thought, “I wish I hadn’t come.”

After breakfast Zola, Alexis, and myself, went for a walk in the garden. We discussed the subjects we are in the habit of discussing for an hour or more, and then Zola said:

"I think we'll go upstairs now.”

He led the way, I followed, feeling very much as I used to feel at school when I had been ordered a flogging. The master lay on the sofa. I took a small chair; he said:

“You'll be more comfortable in a larger one.”

The passages were already marked, and they were read out to me in a low and deliberate voice. I listened carefully, thinking what was the best defence to set up. Zola commented on every fresh sarcasm.

“How can I write your preface after that…. I want to, you know, but I ask you, how can I? Listen.”

"Don’t you see, my dear friend, that that book is not my real opinion about life and things, but rather an attempt to reduce to words the fugitive imaginings of my mind, its intimate working, its distracting buzz, its shifting colour? Has it never come to you to think differently about things, to find your mind in a ferment of contradiction?”

"No,” he said, "I do not change my opinions easily. There is Alexis (he was indeed there, round as a barrel, with the inevitable cigar between his teeth), I have known Alexis these five-and-twenty years, and I think of him to-day exactly as I always thought of him; with me an opinion is like a heavy piece of furniture; it is moved with difficulty.”

"But,” I said, "the passages you have just read are from a chapter entitled ‘La synthése de la Nouvelle Athènes,’ and must be taken as an expression of the opinion of the various rats who assemble there.”

“I will admit that as a legitimate defence, but you see the opinions expressed in the café coincide exactly with those which you express yourself in an earlier part of the book.”

So I had to fall back on the original defence that a man’s fugitive contradictory thinking should not be taken for the opinions which he holds by and abides by. "How often do we hear Christians make jokes against Christianity?” I thought the argument specious, but Zola did not notice it, he continued reading.

"After what you have written about Goncourt,” he said,"you never can go to his house again.”

"I don’t want to; he is not a friend.”

"The disciples, the childish vanity, the bric-à-brac, even an accusation of making copy out of his brother’s corpse: tout est là, rien ne manque. What you say of me is nothing compared to what you say of Goncourt.”

I hastened to concur with this opinion, but Zola was not to be wheedled.

"No, my dear friend,” he said gravely and sadly, "you do not call your book Mémoires d'un jeune Anglais. You say Confession d'un jeune Anglais, and when we use the word confession we mean that we are at last going to tell the truth…. all I said before was false, now I am going to tell the truth. I have gone through these pages, calling attention to the expressions used, not because I am angry, but because I want to convince you that you have made it impossible for me to write a preface to your Mummer’s Wife. What you think of me does not affect me. No, I won't say that. We are old friends. What you say about me does affect me. I mean that nothing that you can say can affect my position…. You admit in your book that you owe your first inspiration to me. I am proud that this is so, and thank you for saying it. I’m sorry you have changed your opinions, but after all, it is the eternal law — children devour their fathers. I make no complaint, nature has willed it so.”

I remember how he spoke these words, sadly, as he walked across the room. The twilight was gathering, the great furniture loomed up like shadows. There were tears in my eyes; never had I felt so distinct a sensation of my inferiority; the man was great in simplicity; the man is greater than his books; and that is a great deal, for he has written some very fine books.

I have told the story of these two meetings with some levity, but I was deeply moved at the time, and beneath the smile on my lips I am troubled even now…. And how Alexis lectured me as we walked through the solitary country, the moon whitening the roadway in front of us.

Alexis had devoted months to the correction of the translation that Charpentier was about to issue. "C’est Charpentier que va boire un bouillon. Mille francs de corrections.” I did not listen. The gray green French country stretched out before me, flat and dim. On a rising ground there was a dark mass of trees, beyond it a poplar striking out of the long plain; there was some mist and the moon was shining upon it. The effect was, I swear to you, divinely beautiful; and all the while I thought of Zola’s last words, as he bade me good-bye. "I hope you understand,” he said,"that our personal relations are the same as they always were, only you have made it impossible for me to write the preface.”

At this time Zola was a fat man. Soon after he became a thin one. By abstaining from drink at his meals he reduced his weight thirty-six French pounds in two months. He seemed to have accepted Balzac’s maxim that the elegance of life exists mainly in the waist. As his waist narrowed his manner of life became more expansive. No longer is he the recluse of Médan; he has added a tower to his country house — with what intention I never fully understood; and he lives in a spacious mansion in the Rue de Bruxelles, which he has furnished with oak carvings, tapestries, portraits of archbishops, and wrought iron railings. A plaster cast of the Venus de Milo stands on the balustrade that circles the staircase. This confusion of taste seems to me to be representative of the owner’s mind, a mind that would embrace life and art in their entirety, who grasps like a giant, and out of whose enormous grasp a good deal slips.

But there is no reason why a great writer should be learned in curios, there are many why he should not. The greatest do not care much about such things. Manet lived all his life amid the red plush of an hotel meublé; and I am not sure that I should have spoken of Zola’s furniture (has it not been described by reporters and reproduced in photography in every illustrated periodical?) if it had not been that, with the acquisition of a waist and much general bric-à-brac, a definite mental change has come upon Zola. I once heard him say he was going to give a ball. I don’t think he ever carried the project into execution. However this may be, his house has for the last three years been open to visitors, and he has answered the ten thousand heterogeneous questions that the eleven hundred and fifty-seven interviewers have put to him with unfailing urbanity, and I am bound to admit with extraordinary common sense.

His mind is not as intense and penetrating as Tourgueneff’s, but it looks with admirable lucidity over a wide surface, and he can answer the most foolish questions reasonably. An elderly lady’s apple-cart has been upset in the Place Cliche, and a reporter calls on Zola for his opinion. He says that he has no precise information on the subject of apples, but he believes that apple growing is a very large industry in the north of France. If the apple-sellers of Montmartre are prevented from exposing their wares for sale the liberty of the individual is called into question, and a very large and important industry is possibly affected. At the same time the streets cannot — and so on. But even these platitudes he will relieve with some touch of rare sense. This touch I have left out, it is the incommunicable secret of his genius. But if any reader of this article should desire to hear Zola talk I will recommend him to a book called Enquête Littéraire by Jules Huret. Huret’s interview with Zola is an astonishing piece of literature. In this interview we perceive as we should in long intercourse with Zola himself that his genius is but the triumph and apotheosis of common sense. For his genius is wingless, it never rises towards the stars; it maintains itself at what I may term a level of superior mediocrity; and it is with him always, on small as on great occasions. Take his answer to an interviewer who called on him at the Savoy Hotel. Zola had arrived late the night before, and had only just got out of bed. The question was "What are your impressions of London?” The answer was, "My first impression of London was of an excellent appetite. The train was late, and we did not dine until nine o’clock, but we dined excellently well.” Is it possible to answer a foolish question more sensibly?

I said just now that Zola’s vision of life was not so penetrating, intense, or subtle as Tourgueneff’s. It is radically different. Zola’s mind is patriarchal; he is an old world hero, a patriarch belated in the nineteenth century. Not Abraham himself, encamped amid his flocks, herds, and numerous servitude, saw and thought more simply than he does. There are hackney carriages, washerwomen, and chassepôts, in the Rougon-Macquart series, but these are merely adventitious attractions which in no way affect the general character of the work. Hugo is said to be the last of the old world poets; but the real difference between Hugo and Zola is that one could and the other cannot write verse. Take from Hugo his genius for versification, and you would get a novelist who would have produced a set of novels very similar to the Rougon- Macquart series. It would have been in twenty volumes, possibly in more, and would have sold as largely. Robbed of his versification Hugo would have accepted the hackney carriages and the washerwomen. He could not have done otherwise. And both men saw life from the outside, and their tendency was to exaggerate the outside. Still the hypothetical work would have differed from the Rougon-Macquart. Hugo was more naturally an artist than Zola. His imagination was rarer but it was not more powerful nor more fecund. Zola’s imagination is one of the most extraordinary that ever found expression in literature. Think, you who have read the twenty volumes, of the hundreds of places he has shown you and familiarised you with even as you are familiar with the room you live in. Can you not see incestuous Renée dreaming in her yellow boudoir, or feverishly flung on the wolf-skins under the malign shade of tropical plants in the great conservatory? Are not the market-places in your mind — the tin roofs for ever silhouetting against the pale sky, the smell of fish and the hundred colours of the fish; the vaults where the children roll amid the feathers, and the scene where they chop the pigeons’ heads, disputing how many so-and-so can bleed in an hour. And how intimately conscious we are of the great garden of the Pradou and the adorable death of Albine, who dies asphyxiated by the flowers with which she has filled the room; the enumeration of the flowers; the evocation of an orchestra of scents, for every scent recalls the sound of an instrument; and the last phrase: "Albine dies in a supreme hiccup of flowers.” How wonderful!

The modes of life, the trades, the various ways in which the human animal gains his livelihood. Do we not all remember the gold chain makers in Assommoir, and the vestment makers in Le Réve? In Au Bonheur des Dames the work of every employé is explained; the phenomena of each passing hour is revealed to us. Germinal is full of every detail of mining life, the ropes, the pulleys, the furnaces, the pumps, the trucks, the horses — but I must stay my pen, or this article will degenerate into a mere catalogue.

But has Zola furnished this extraordinary evocation of the externals of human life with human souls? Has he created characters that will not suffer by comparison with Balzac’s? Zola’s evocation of souls is slight, nearly always fragmentary and shadowy. A soul haunts in Gervaise, and Coupeau too has a soul, and through his numberless pages a few shades flit, vaguely recognisable as human souls. That is all. In the line of souls Gervaise is his greatest achievement; and that is why I place the Assommoir above all his other books. There are other reasons. When he wrote the Assommoir Zola was, more than he ever was before, and certainly more than he ever was since, a pupil of Flaubert. The book is written entirely in Flaubert’s manner, the short sentence relieved by the pictorial epithet. The old masters thought that originality was found in individual feeling and seeing rather than in mannerism, and as I share their opinion I think that it is regrettable that Zola did not continue to write in the style in which he produced his finest book. But the style became too laborious for him, just as pre-Raphaelitism became too laborious for Sir John Millais. There is no need to insist further on this point. Love of art for art’s sake was never strong in him, and when success came its place was taken by the spirit of conquest. He was nearer of kin to Attila and to Tambourlane than to Phidias, Raphael or Tourgueneff. He yielded to his dream of conquest and after the Assommoir his style became looser, and with every fresh book he seems more and more inclined to abandon himself to the ease of redundant expression. There are fine pages even in his worst books, but so far as my personal taste and interest are engaged in his work I would prefer to receive revised editions of his last works, rather than the new novels he contemplates writing — Lourdes, Paris, Rome, &c.

But it is irrelevant to ask Zola for subtlety of literary expression, or for those magical foreshortenings which give such inextinguishable life to Thackeray, Tolstoi, and Tourgueneff; as well might we ask the editor of a daily paper for these qualities in leading articles, dramatic notices, and reports of boat races. During the last ten or a dozen years a striking resemblance has grown up between the Zola novel and a popular newspaper. Novel and newspaper seem to me to stand on the same footing; the intention of both is the same, and the means employed are the same. It is true that Zola’s reports of the Franco-German war are better done than the reports of war correspondents of the Daily Telegraph; it is also true that the scenery at the Lyceum is better painted than the scenery at the Surrey, but that is hardly a reason for confusing a set taken from Much Ado about Nothing with the pictures of Turner, Constable, and Wilson. A theatrical back-cloth, however well painted, can never be a picture; a report of a boat race, however well written, can never be literature; and we find a like difference between the battle-pieces in War and Peace and those in La Débacle, a difference not of degree but difference of kind. In like manner the difference between M. Zola’s Commune and Flaubert’s description of the revolution of ’48 is not a difference of degree but of kind. So l do not argue with those who confuse Zola with Flaubert; I tell them flatly that they have not mastered the A B and C of literature.

The Zola novel is practically the daily paper. Zola has discovered a formula which suits the average man as well as the Daily Telegraph or the Petit Journal. The average man finds in each novel the same amount of actuality, the same amount of imagination, the same amount of lovemaking. And Zola chooses his subjects not in obedience to an artistic instinct but in accordance to public taste. What better subject than Lourdes? Three hundred thousand pilgrims go there yearly. Every pilgrim is a certain reader. Protestants hope to find refutation, Catholics confirmation of the miracles. The afflicted in all countries are interested in the question. What an audience! And Zola will steer a middle course, just as he steered a middle course between France and Prussia. I heard him boast, without however perceiving the enormous artistic significance of what he was saying, that he had written a French novel on the war without giving Prussia cause for offence. I take it that the sublime impartiality of the true artist is very different from the mock impartiality of the journalist who wants to "get up” a controversy. The true artist is void alike of morals, patriotism, politics, love, or hate; he sees life as God sees it, without prejudice; life is for him — I think the phrase is Flaubert’s — "une hallucination à transporter.”

Zola told me that he had gone into the calculation and that it would take him seven months to write. That would allow him a fortnight’s holiday at Christmas. Five hundred pages in seven months! Tolstoi took six years to write Anna Kerenine, ten to write War and Peace. Flaubert took seventeen years to write La Tentation de St. Antoine, eight or nine to write L’Education sentimentale. And seven or eight translators are already at work turning this very journalistic novel into as many languages; it will appear in the New York Herald. Mr. Bennett paid a thousand pounds for the serial rights; but adequate information regarding the various forms and languages in which this book will appear in would be the subject of an article of bibliography. Suffice it to say here that it will bring Zola something like £4,000 before it reaches Charpentier. In book form it will then be read by the whole world. Perhaps an exception should be made in favour of men of letters, but their number is so small that the abstention will not materially affect the sale. If the book does not sell 300,000 copies it is a failure, and if the book on the Russian alliance which will follow it does not sell half a million it will be a failure. Did any great writer ever see literature from this point of view before?

The idea of conquest seems inherent in Zola. Five-and-twenty years ago he wrote a book called Le Conquête de Plassans. The idea of conquest cropped up again in L’Oeuvre, and this time it was Paris that was conquered. Now it seems that Zola meditates the conquest of the world. He came to England at the head of an army of journalists; rockets were let off at the Crystal Palace and trumpets were blown in his honour at the Mansion House. The pretext was literature, the real reason was worship of the golden calf; and Zola has profited by the circumstance to extend his connection. He will probably proceed on a similar mission to St. Petersburg (it has already been spoken of); he may even visit America. Why not? There are sixty millions in the United States who through the medium of translation may read the Rougon Macquart. The newspapers reported that Madame Zola, astonished at the length of our London suburbs said,"This is a town that would suit you, Emile.” Every house represented to her the possible sale of a novel, Charpentier edition, three francs fifty. If you were to tell Zola that your concierge had not heard his name he would feel much discouraged. He would inquire if there were a concierges’ guild, and would arrange to address a meeting. Napoleon looked upon every man who was not a soldier as lost to France, so does Zola look upon all men who do not read his novels. The quality of the work does not concern him any more than the quality of the draperies, the carved wood-work, and the iron railings with which he has furnished his house. The iron railings may not be finely wrought, but they photograph just as the finest specimens of mediaeval handicraft; and the photographs inspire in the ignorant awe of a literature which is carried on among so much luxury. In these photographs Zola leans pensively over his writing-table; it is impossible to say that the table is not fifteenth century work, and it is impossible to say from the expression on the face whether the brain is engaged on a work like the Dialogues of Plato or on a work like La Terre.

Literature has long ceased to be discussed at Zola’s, but every interviewer is received, and the afternoon passes in gabbling on topics of the hour. Chinamen, Peruvians, Esquimaux, all and sundry, are granted audience. Some account of himself, some translation of his works, must appear in every written dialect. To discover a dialect not yet reduced to written characters, and to arrange that the first printed work in that dialect should be a translation of the Rougon-Macquart series, that would be fame! A paragraph on the subject would go the round of the newspapers. The translator from Thibet must be conciliated, and M. Bruneau comes in with the score of the music he has just written for one of the novels. The gentleman from Paraguay starts up and proposes to do the opera into the language spoken in his country; the Thibetan might do the same. Bruneau and Zola put their heads together. Hurrah! another outlet has been discovered, and the terms of the contract are discussed. Only the other day, in an article on the lyrical drama, after coupling Wagner and Bruneau together, he explained. that he would do for the lyrical drama what he has failed to do for his novels — namely, to furnish it with human characters; and when he has done this “the colossal Wagner will grow pale on the high pedestal of his symbols.” Zola believes that young French composers have not written great music because their libretti are not sufficiently human. In a word, imagines himself writing various libretti, to which the young French composers will add a little music, as cream is added to marasques. If a man will speak on all subjects, the time comes when he will talk nonsense. I am afraid that time has come for Zola.

The conquest of the world by literature! Search the insane brains of the entire family, tante Dide included, and you will not find a more insane idea than this. Mr. Stead may have cherished some such notion, but he hoped to realise it by means of the newspaper. But to conquer the world by means of novels, works of art — think of it! The great Flaubert would have raised his arms and roared, “C'est gigantesque; c'est gigantesque….”

The desire of gold for its own sake is comprehensible in a way; the desire to make money for the sake of children is easily comprehensible, and it is possible to sympathise with Rossini, who, when he had made sufficient income, declined to write another note of music, saying that henceforth he intended to live for the pleasure of the table and conversation with his friends. But Zola’s case is not one of these. He has no love of money; he has squandered all he made on vulgar decoration and absurd architecture. The pleasures of life bore him exceedingly, so he says, but I am afraid that he has not acquainted himself with them. Of the pleasures of art he is equally ignorant. His youth was beset with difficulties, sufficient, be it admitted to his credit, to conquer all but the most resolute. At a very early age he was obliged to support himself. When he was three- or four-and-twenty he wrote for four hours every morning at a novel, and every afternoon he wrote an article for a newspaper. Those who have felt the shackles of a weekly article while engaged on a work of the imagination will appreciate the severity of the ordeal which Zola bore for years unflinchingly. But though we may appear to conquer circumstances, we are in the end conquered by circumstances. In Zola’s youth there was little time for reflection or study. He was only able to catch the few ideas abroad in his day as they passed him, and being a man of genius he absorbed them triumphantly. He read his contemporaries, Flaubert, Goncourt, Maupassant; and, in order to obtain a platform whence he might preach his doctrine, he was obliged to read Balzac and Hugo. But with the heart of French literature, Bossuet, St. Simon, and La Bruyère, I do not believe that he possesses any more than the very slightest acquaintanceship. Into neither life nor art has he ever entered profoundly. He has observed the movement of things and not the things themselves. His long friendship with Manet only enabled him to imagine that hollow abortion Claude Lantier; and we gather how much he understood of his friend’s genius from the statement which I once heard him make: "Claude Lantier est autrement grand que Manet;” and when I spoke of Degas he said: "Je ne puis accepter un homme comme grand artist qui s'enferme toute sa vie pour dessiner une danseuse.” This appreciation of the two great artists shows how constitutionally incapable he is to understand rare and beautiful form; his mind instinctively demands size. Claude Lantier painted enormous canvases — that is why he was autrement que Manet; and the.Coliseum is greater than the Parthenon because it is bigger. We, his true friends, his true admirers; we, who hailed the Assommoir as a masterpiece, despite the clamour of an indignant world; we, who in the exaltation of our desire of genius, saw in it a sublimation, an apotheosis of Flaubert — for we knew how adverse were the circumstances in which the work had been produced; we knew too the noble simplicity of purpose which animated the man; we knew too how separated he was from the temptations which conspire against the realisation of artistic work, and carried away, too, by the extreme sanity of the ideas he expressed in his conversation with us; we hugged the belief, now that the one thing necessary had come into his life — freedom from pecuniary anxieties — that he would read and think and travel, above all, that he would refrain from constant production, that instead of one year he would give three or four to the composition and the writing of each book; in a word, that he would cultivate that quality, which we knew was lacking in him, refinement of thought and the sentiment of literary expression. How have our hopes been justified? What bitter disappointment has not fallen upon us? What have we witnessed? The building of ridiculous towers at Médan, the purchase of hideous decorations, the arrival of translators from Paraguay, and the blowing of trumpets before the Lord Mayor of London in honour of La Terre, La Débacle, L’Argent, and Dr. Pascal. And we are menaced now by a novel on Lourdes, which is to be written in seven months, by a novel on Rome, and by another on the Russian Alliance; and the man who, for a brief moment, we believed would write the great prose work of the nineteenth century, we see chained more tightly to his desk than ever, accomplishing this disastrous work in fever heat. Why should he work in this way for the sake of Deek’s china, iron work from the Villette, and modern Italian decorations? And we ask ourselves what will be the end of all this? In Le Ventre de Paris there is a pork butcher, who, after having worked ten hours a day all his life, is found dead sitting before the table, son nez dans le boudin. One of these days Zola will be found dead seated at his writing table, his nose in the sausage meat.

Zola has sacrificed his genius for the sake of ephemeral conquest; the literature he is now writing will perish even as a barbaric horde that overwhelms civilisation for a moment, and after some rapine is driven back. For the sake of such conquest, I repeat, Zola has sacrificed the joy of life and the joy of art. I question myself for the psychological explanation, and the conclusion I arrive at is that the case of M. Zola is a striking instance of the insanity of common sense.