But the human mind, which never sleeps, and the organism which strives to live, cannot endure excess of poison. At last the moment comes to cough out disgust. Voices are rising at present which call for mental bread of another sort; an instinctive feeling is abroad that it is impossible to go farther in this way, that men must rise up, shake themselves free of mud, purify themselves, and change. People are crying for fresh air. In general, they cannot tell what they want; but they know what they do not want; they know that they have been breathing miasmas, and have a feeling of suffocation. Alarm possesses minds. In that very France, men are seeking for something, and calling for something. A sort of dull protest is rising against the prevailing order of things. Many writers feel this disquiet. Moments of doubt are coming on them, such as those which we have mentioned, and besides fear and bitterness, strengthened by uncertainty as to new roads. Look at the last books of Bourget, Rode, Barrés, Desjardins, at the poetry of Rimbaud, Verlaine, Heredes, Mallarmé, and even Maeterlinck and his school. What do they contain? A search for new substance and new forms; a feverish search for an issue of some sort; an uncertainty whither to turn and where to look for salvation, whether in mysticism, or in faith, or in the duties behind faith, or in patriotism, or in humanity? But, first of all, an immense disquiet is evident in them. They find no issue, since to do that there is need of two things: a great idea, and great talent, and they have neither the idea nor the talent. Hence disquiet increases, and these very same persons who step forth against the rude pessimism of the naturalistic school fall into pessimism themselves, and thus is weakened the main significance and meaning which reform might have. For what remains to them? Grotesqueness of form. And into this grotesqueness, whether it be called symbolism or impressionism, they wade deeper and deeper; they are more and more perplexed, and lose artistic balance, sound sense, repose of soul. Frequently they fall into the former rottenness with respect to substance, and are almost always in discord with themselves, for they have both the proper and fundamental feeling that they must give the world something new, but know not what it is.
Such is the present moment!
Any purloiner of public or private funds, any murderer, may appeal to a neurotic grandmother; but courts put such people behind prison bars in spite of the “Rougon-Macquart” cycle of volumes. The evil lies not in particular circumstances; but in this, that an unparalleled pessimism and depression is flowing into men’s souls from such literature, that life’s charm, hope, energy, the desire to live, and therefore the desire of all efforts in the direction of good, disappears in them. What is the use? This is the question which thrusts itself forward. But a book is one agent in the education of the human soul. If at least the reader could find in Zola’s books the good and bad sides of life in balancing relation, or at the worst in such relation as they are found in reality! Vain hope. One must reach high to get colors from the aurora or the rainbow; but every man has spittle in his mouth, and it is easier to paint with it. This painter from nature prefers cheap effects; he prefers foul odors to perfumes, rottenness to living blood, decayed wood to healthy sap, manure to flowers, la bete humaine to l’ame humaine.
If we could bring in some inhabitant of Mars or Venus, and command him to make a conclusion from Zola’s novels touching life upon earth, he would answer undoubtedly: “Life is a little clean sometimes as le rive, but in general it is something with a very bad odor; often it is slippery, oftenest of all it is terrible.” And even if those theories on which Zola builds were recognized truths, as they are not, what a lack of mercy to represent life as he does to people who in every case must live! Did he do this to cast them down, disgust them, befoul them, poison every activity, paralyze every energy, and take away the desire for all thought? In view of this, his talent is evil indeed. Better for him, better for France, that he had it not. And at moments one is astonished that fear does not seize him, when even those are alarmed who had nothing to do with the analysis, he the only man with a calm forehead finishes his “Rougon-Macquart” as if he were strengthening instead of breaking the vital force of the French. Why does it not occur to him, that people, nourished on that foul bread and polluted water, will not only fail to resist the storm, but will not even have the wish to resist it? Musset, in his time, wrote the famous verse, “We have had your German Rhine.” Zola so instructs his society that if all which he inculcates were really accepted a second verse of Musset’s might sound as follows, “But to-day we give you even the Seine.” But it is not so bad as that yet.
“La Débâcle,” in spite of its blunders, is a famous book; but the soldiers who read it are inferior to those who at night sing, “Christ has arisen!”
If I were a Frenchman, I should consider Zola’s talent a national misfortune, and rejoice that his epoch is passing, that even his most intimate disciples are abandoning their master, that he is left more and more to himself.
Will he remain in the memory of men, in literature; will his fame survive? It is difficult to foresee; it is permitted to doubt. In the cycle “Rougon-Maequart” are volumes really powerful, such as “Germinal” or “La Débâcle.” But in general all that Zola’s native talent has done to make him immortal has been ruined by his admiration for foul realism, and by his tongue, which is simply vile. Literature must not employ expressions which even boors are ashamed to use among themselves. Realistic truth, in so far as concerns criminals, the fallen, or wretches, is reached by another method, through truthful rendering of their conditions of mind, through acts, finally by the course of their speech, but not through a literal quotation of their curses and most repulsive phrases. So in the choice of images, as in the choice of words, there is a certain measure which is dictated by judgment and good taste. Zola has passed this measure to such a degree (in “La Terre”) as no man had dared up to that time. Monstrosities are condemned to death, because they are monstrous. A book which rouses disgust must be cast aside. That lies also in the nature of things. Among productions of universal literature, rude things intended to rouse laughter have survived (Aristophanes and Kabelais), or wanton things written exquisitely (Boccaccio); but not one production has survived which was intended to rouse disgust. Zola, for the noise made by his books, for the scandal which every single volume called forth, killed his future. Therefore this wonderful thing happened, that he, a man writing on a settled plan, writing with deliberation, cool, and commanding his subject as few command, has produced the best things only when he had the least chance of carrying out his plans, doctrines, and methods; in a word, when he commanded his subject least, and when the subject commanded him most. -
So it happened in “Germinal” and “La Débâcle.” The immensity of socialism, and the immensity of the war, simply crushed Zola, with his entire mental apparatus. His doctrines were belittled before such proportions, and could hardly be heard in the roar of the deluge which filled up the mine, and in the thunder of the Prussian cannons. His talent alone remained. So in these two novels there are genuine pictures worthy of Dante. With “Doctor Pascal,” the contrary happened. As the last volume of the cycle, it had to be the concluding induction from the whole work, — a synthesis of his doctrine, the tower finishing the structure. For this reason there is more mention made in it of doctrine than in any preceding volume; but since the doctrine is bad, pitiful, false, and empty, “Doctor Pascal” is the poorest and dreariest volume of the whole cycle. A series of empty, barren pictures, in which dreariness goes hand in hand with lack of moral sense, pallor of images with falseness, — that is Doctor Pascal. Zola wants to present him as a decent man. He is a degeneration of the Kougon-Macquarts. In heredity such happy degenerations are met, — the Doctor knows this; he looks on himself as a blessed degeneration, and this is for him a source of unceasing, heartfelt delight. Meanwhile he loves people, serves them, and injects into them a liquid discovered by himself, which is a cure for all ailments. He is a mild sage who investigates life, hence collects “human documents,” fits together with toil a genealogical tre
e of the family Rougon-Macquart, of which he is a descendant; and, in virtue of his observations, he reaches the same conclusions as Zola. What are they? It is difficult to answer; they are, more or less, the following: Whoever is not well is generally ill; heredity exists, but mothers or fathers coming from other families bring in new elements to the blood of children, so that heredity may be modified to such a degree that, taking matters strictly, there is no heredity.
Doctor Pascal is, moreover, a positivist. He does not wish to prejudge, but he asserts that the present condition of science will not let him make inferences which transcend known facts; therefore he must adhere to known facts and neglect others. In this regard his judgments tell us nothing newer than the articles of the newspapers written by young positivists. For people who are rushing forward because of spiritual needs which are as insistent as hunger and thirst, — needs in virtue of which a man is conscious of such conceptions as God, faith, immortality, — the Doctor has merely a smile of commiseration. And one might wonder at him somewhat. He would be understood better if he did not recognize the possibility of solving various abstract questions; but he asserts that the necessity of solving them does not exist, — by which he sins against evidence; for such a necessity exists, not farther away than under his own roof, in the person of his niece. That young lady, reared in his principles, loses the ground from under her feet all at once. More problems are born in her soul than the Doctor can answer. And from that moment the drama begins for them both.
“I cannot stop here,” cries the niece, “I am suffocating; I must know something, be certain of something; and if thy science cannot pacify my pressing need, I will go to persons who will not only pacify it and explain everything, but make me happy, — I will go to the church!”
And she goes. The roads of the master and pupil diverge more. The pupil reaches the conviction that that science which is only a halter around the neck of people is simply an evil, and that it would be a service before God to burn those old papers on which the Doctor is writing his observations. And the drama intensifies; for, in spite of the sixty years of the Doctor and the twenty years and something of Clotilda, these two people now love each other, not merely as relatives, but as a man and woman love. That love adds bitterness to the battle, and hastens the catastrophe.
Amid those who grope in the dark, wandering and disquieted, one above all remains calm, sure of himself and his doctrine, unmoved and almost serene in his pessimism, — Emile Zola. A great talent, a power slow but immense and patient, an amazing power of observing feelings, for it almost equals indifference, a gift of seeing the collective soul of people and things, a power so exceptional that it brings this naturalistic writer near the mystics, and makes him an uncommon and very original figure.
The physical face of a man does not always reflect his spiritual personality. In Zola this connection appears very emphatically. A square face, a forehead low and covered with wrinkles, large features, high shoulders, and a short neck give his figure something rude. From his face, and the wrinkles around his eyes, you would divine that he is a man who can endure much, that he can bear much, — stubborn and enduring to fanaticism, not only in his plans and their realization, but, which is the main thing, in thought. There is no quickness in him. It is evident at the first glance that he is a doctrinaire shut up in himself, who, as a doctrinaire, does not take in broad horizons, — sees everything at a certain angle and narrowly, but definitely. His mind, like a dark lantern, casts a narrow light in one direction only, and goes in that direction with unswerving certainty. And this explains at once the history of that whole series of books bearing the general title, “Les Rougon-Maequart.” Zola resolved to write the history of a given family during the Empire, on the basis of conditions which the Empire created, and to illustrate the law of heredity. It was even a greater question than to illustrate, for heredity was to become the physiological basis of the work.
There is a certain contradiction in the plan. The Rougon-Macquarts, taking them historically, were to be a picture of French society during recent times, and the normal phenomena of its life; so they should themselves be a family more or less normal. But in such case, what would become of heredity? It is certain that normal families are such also by virtue of heredity. But to show it in those conditions is impossible; so it must be done in deviations from the regular type. The Rougons are in fact a sickly family. They are children of neurosis. The ancestress of the family fell into it, and thenceforth her descendants were born with her brand on the forehead. Such is the wish of the author, and we must accept. But how the history of a family exceptionally affected with mental aberrations could be at the same time a picture of French society, the author does not explain to us. If he answered that during the Empire all society was sick, that would be a subterfuge. Society may go by a ruinous road, politically or socially, as Polish society did in the eighteenth century, and be sick as a whole, but be made up of individuals and families who are healthy. These are two different things. One of two issues, then: either the Rougons are sick, and the cycle of novels concerning them is a psychological study, not a picture of France during the Empire; or, the whole psychological basis, all that heredity on which the cycle is built, — in a word, Zola’s entire doctrine, — is nonsense. I do not know whether any one has ever turned Zola’s attention to this aut aut (either or). It is certain that he himself has never turned his attention to it. Probably that would have had no influence on him, just as the critics of his theory of heredity had not. Both literary men and physiologists have appeared against him repeatedly with a whole supply of irresistible proofs. Nothing helped in any way. They contended in vain that in exact science the theory of heredity had not been investigated or studied to the end, and, what was most important, it was impossible thus far to grasp it and to prove it through facts; in vain did they show that physiology could not be fantastic, that its proofs could not be subjected to the arbitrary ideas of an author. Zola listened, wrote on, and in the final volume of his work added the genealogical tree of the family of Rougon-Macquart with as much calmness as if no one had ever brought his theory into doubt.
That tree has one good side. It is so pretentious that it is brought to ridicule, and deprives the theory of the remnant of dignity which it might have had for minds less independent. We learn from the tree that a stock springs from a great-grandmother who is nervously ill, also of light conduct. But the man who should think that her neurosis would appear in her descendants, just as might happen in the physical sphere, in a certain unmixed manner, in some special inclination to something, or in some passion, would be mistaken. On the contrary, the wonderful tree produces the most varied fruit: red apples, peaches, plums, dates, and whatever any one wants. And all this because of the great-grandmother’s neurosis! Does this happen in nature? We do not know. Zola himself has no data for it except pretended cuttings from newspapers describing various crimes, which he preserves carefully as “human documents,” which he manipulates according to his own fancy. And he is free to do this; only, let him not sell us these fancies as the eternal and unchangeable laws of nature. The grandmother had neurosis; her nearest friends had the habit of seeking, not in an apothecary shop, medicine for affliction; hence the descendants, male and female, are that which they had to be, — namely, criminals, scoundrels, streetwalkers, decent people, saints, statesmen, good-for-nothings, procuresses, bankers, agriculturists, murderers, priests, soldiers, ministers: in a word, everything which in the spheres of thought, soundness, property, position, and career both men and women can be and are, the whole world over. And we are amazed in spite of us. Well, what is the position then? All happens because the great-grandmother was neurotic? Yes! answers the author. But if Adelaide Fouqué had not been neurotic, her descendants would have had to be good or bad, and be occupied with that with which men or women are occupied in the world usually? Of course! answers Zola, but Adelaide Fouqué had the neurosis. And further discussion becomes simply impossible; for we have to do with
a man who takes his own arbitrary fancy for a law of nature, and whose mind does not answer to the ordinary key furnished by logic. Well, he built a genealogical tree; the tree might have been different, but if it had been, he would have contended that it could only be as it is, and it would be easier to kill than convince him that his theory was valueless.
For that matter, the theory is of this sort, — that there is really nothing to dispute about. People have said long ago that Zola had one good thing, his talent; and one bad thing, his doctrine. If, as a result of neurosis inherited from one and the same ancestor, one might be as well a thief as an honest man, Nana as well as a sister of charity, a brute as well as a sage, a laborer as well as Achilles, then there is a bridge which does not exist, and there is a heredity which is not. A man may be what he wishes himself. The field for free-will and responsibility is completely open, and all those moral bases on which the life of man rests come uninjured from the fire. One might say to the author, That is too “much ado about nothing,” finish with him as with a doctrinaire, and count with him only as with a talent. But he wants something else. Though his doctrine has no connection, and is simply nothing, he draws other conclusions from it. His whole cycle of books say expressly, and without double meaning: “Whatever thou art, saint or criminal, thou art through heredity: thou art that which thou must be, and in no case is it thy fault or merit.” Ah, this is the question of responsibility! — This is neither the time nor the place to touch it. Philosophy has not found a proof that man exists, unless the Cartesian “cogito ergo sum” is proof sufficient. The question is still open. The same thing with responsibility. Whole ages of philosophy may assert what they like, man has the internal conviction that he exists, and the no less mighty conviction that he is responsible; and his whole life, without reference to theory, is founded on such a conviction. Moreover, exact science has not decided the question of will and responsibility. Against considerations may be cited considerations; against opinions, opinions; against inferences, inferences. But for Zola the question is decided. There is no responsibility; there is only some grandmother Adelaide, or some grandfather Jacques, from whom all come. And here, to my thinking, begins the ruinous influence of this writer; for he not only prejudges undecided questions, but he popularizes his prejudices, ingrafts and facilitates dissolution.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 755