by Emile Zola
One day, all three of them set out for a day on the river at Corbeil. After ordering dinner, they hire a boat and, when it is hidden behind the tall trees on an island, Jacques starts a fight with Michel, who bites him on the cheek. After a short struggle, he pushes Michel overboard, then capsizes the boat. Michel is drowned, the two lovers are rescued and no one suspects murder.
Every day, Jacques goes to the Morgue. When at last he recognizes Michel’s body, he feels a shudder of horror, though up to then the thought of the crime has left him unmoved. Hoping to drive away his fears, he marries Suzanne, but the couple find that their passion for one another has cooled and they are haunted by the spectre of Michel. In fact, they come to hate one another, each accusing the other of being responsible for the crime. The scar on Jacques’s face is a permanent reminder of the killing and horrifies Suzanne whenever she sees it.
Finally, their suffering becomes intolerable and each of them decides to get rid of the sole witness to their crime. Finding each other preparing poison, they realize what is happening, burst into tears and take the poison themselves, dying in each other’s arms. ‘Their confession was found on a table, and it was after reading that grim document that I was able to write the story of this love match.’
It is clear that the outlines of Zola’s future novel are in this story, which occupies four pages in the Petits Classiques Larousse edition of Thérèse Raquin, where it is reproduced in full.
Though the final sentence of ‘Un mariage d’amour’ makes it sound like a news story, the inspiration for the plot came from a novel by Adolphe Belot and Ernest Daudet, La Venus de Gordes, which Zola had received from the publisher in his capacity as a book reviewer. This was the melodramatic story of a love affair in the Lubéron, in which a woman and her lover try to poison, then shoot her husband, a crime for which they are imprisoned, the woman eventually dying of yellow fever in the penal colony of Cayenne. There is a long way from this to ‘Un mariage d’amour’, and further still to Thérèse Raquin.
Zola started working on his first major novel early in 1867. In fact, he was engaged on two books: Thérèse Raquin, which he wrote in the mornings; and Les Mystères de Marseille, which occupied his afternoons. He was quite clear in his mind that Thérèse Raquin was the more important of the two. He had proposed it in February to Arsène Houssaye for the periodical La Revue du XIXe siècle, as a development in six parts of ‘Un mariage d’amour’; but by the time the novel was written, in June 1867, La Revue du XIXe siècle had folded, so it was transferred to L’Artiste (another publication of Arsène Houssaye and his son, Henri), where it appeared, under the same title as the short story, Un mariage d’amour, in three parts from August to October, with a few cuts, which the Houssayes had asked for to spare their readers’ sensibilities. In November 1867, the novel appeared in book form under its final title.
‘The work is very dramatic, very poignant, and I am counting on a horror success,’ Zola wrote in a letter of 13 September 1867.20 Those who reviewed the novel on its first appearance (like Louis Ulbach, quoted earlier) saw Zola’s intention, though they did not always share his estimate of the novel’s qualities: ‘a tormented work’, ‘medical dissections’, ‘crude colours’, ‘brutality’, ‘mire, blood and bestial love’, were some of the terms used to describe Zola’s work,21 which was generally ascribed to the genre of the horror novel. The horror element, in this psychological study, is indicated by Zola’s vocabulary. One drawback is the relative poverty of the vocabulary which Zola has at his disposal to describe the psychological state of the three main protagonists (Thérèse, Laurent, Mme Raquin) from Chapter XXII onwards. It is a vocabulary mainly drawn from the language of sensational fiction: ‘sinister’, ‘horrible’, ‘base’, ‘monstrous’, ‘fear’, ‘repulsion’, ‘anguish’ and ’terror’ recur over and over. Characters are ‘mad with terror and despair’ and suffer ‘crises of terror and agony’ which make them stammer and stutter as they speak. In their agitation, they dream of ‘tranquil happiness’ and ‘simple affection’, yet they are condemned to suffer ‘torments’ and ‘agonies’.
In one respect, in particular, the language fails him: he is obliged to speak of ‘remorse’ in relation to Laurent and Thérèse; yet, as an atheist engaged in an essentially materialistic project, he has been at pains to insist that what the two murderers feel has nothing to do with the Christian idea of conscience: it is a purely nervous and physiological reaction. When Thérèse does pray for forgiveness (Chapter XXIX), Zola makes it clear that her ‘dramas of repentance’ are acted out for the sole benefit of Mme Raquin, and that they are calculating, selfish and hypocritical — all the more so since this play-acting imposes ‘the most unspeakable agony’ on her aunt. But, despite this, it is hard for the reader not to interpret her feelings of remorse and those of Laurent as indications of guilt brought about by a sense of sin. Regardless of where the remorse comes from, most readers now see this as a very moral tale.
Despite having sometimes been obliged to have recourse to the language of melodrama, Thérèse Raquin is a novel of considerable power, which it owes partly to its compression, its structure and the simplicity of its plot. It has the urgency and inevitability of a classical tragedy. It stands, too, as a bridge between the Gothic novel and the modern psychological thriller, using the vocabulary of sensationalist horror in an earnest attempt to get inside the minds of the perpetrators of a crime and to study the repercussions of their act. One should be careful about taking too literally Zola’s own claims for his method in writing the novel: there is something slightly disingenuous about his protestations, in the Preface to the second edition, that he is doing nothing more than a doctor examining a patient or a painter studying a model. In any case, however much Zola claimed throughout his career that his enterprise was essentially scientific, he never believed that the novelist was engaged in a purely mechanical exercise, any more than he thought that an artist like Manet was simply reproducing reality. The proof is here in this novel, in the character of Laurent. If the artist’s work is just to recount what he sees, then how is it that Laurent, who does not have the talent to do this at the start of the book, acquires it as a result of the nervous strain to which he is subjected by the murder? From the start, Zola had a high concept of the writer’s individual contribution to the work and to the art that he brings to it. The careful structure of this novel, its complex links to the art and literature of its age, and its network of symbolic references — not least those represented by that enigmatic presence, François, the cat — make it far more than an outdated exercise in psychological analysis, and justify its enduring popularity in Zola’s work.
NOTES
1 It has been suggested that the critic in question, Louis Ulbach, writing as ‘Ferragus’, may have colluded with Zola in order to create a sensation around the novel. See Armand Lanoux, Bonjour, Monsieur Zola (Paris: Hachette, 1962).
2 Henri Mitterand, Zola. I. Sous le regard d‘Olympia, 1840 — 1871 (Paris: Fayard, 1999), p. 572.
3 The Second Empire: the period of rule by the Emperor Napoleon III (1852-70).
4 See, for example, the three pages that François-Marie Mourad devotes to the cat, François, in his annotated edition of Thérèse Raquin (see Further Reading); and Robert Lethbridge’s article, where he says that ‘the cat ... although at first sight of minor importance, is one of a network of symbols at the heart of the narrative’ (see Further Reading, p. 291).
5 Mitterand, Zola. I., p. 433. The link between the novel and Manet’s painting is a key theme in Mitterand’s biography: for the cat, see also the reference to Olympia on p. 507; and, for the more general links, see the chapter ‘Thérèse et Olympia’, pp. 566-600.
6 Lethbridge, see Further Reading, p. 280.
7 Quoted by Mitterand, Zola. I., p. 441.
8 From Zola’s work of 1881, Les Romanciers naturalistes (quoted by Mitterand, ibid., p. 665).
9 Edmond and Jules Goncourt, Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire (Paris: F
asquelle, Flammarion, 1956), vol. 2, p. 474.
10 Revue encyclopédique, vol. XXXIX (1828), p. 117.
11 In his ‘Two Definitions of the Modern Novel’ (quoted by Mitterand, Zola. I., p. 513).
12 See Chapter III, notes 2 and 4.
13 See pp. 3-8.
14 See Mitterand, Zola. I., pp. 163-5.
15 In Mes haines (2nd ed., Paris: Charpentier, 1879, p. 231).
16 See Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (Paris: Larousse, 1875), article ‘Tempérament’, p. 1578.
17 See Mitterand’s Introduction to the 1970 Garnier-Flammarion edition of Thérèse Raquin, where he gives a table showing all the characteristics of these three, Thérèse, Laurent and Camille, according to the temperament of each.
18 In Le Salut public de Lyon (February 1865).
19 Edmond and Jules Goncourt, Journal, vol. 2, p. 96. This entry for 24 October 1864 was made at the time when the Goncourts were writing Germinie Lacerteux.
20 Émile Zola, Correspondance, ed. B. H. Bakker (Montreal: University of Montreal Press, 1978), vol. I, p. 523.
21 Quoted by Russell Cousins, Zola: Thérèse Raquin (London: Grant and Cutler, 1992), p. 12.
Further Reading
Brown, Frederick, Zola. A Life (New York: Macmillan, 1995)
Hemmings, F. W. J., The Life and Times of Émile Zola (London: Paul Elek, 1977)
Lapp, John C., Zola before the ‘Rougon-Macquart’ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964)
Schumacher, Claude, Zola. Thérèse Raquin (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1990)
Wilson, Angus, Émile Zola. An Introductory Study of His Novels (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1952)
Two studies of Thérèse Raquin (with quotations in French):
Cousins, Russell, Zola. Thérèse Raquin (London: Grant and Cutler, 1992)
Lethbridge, Robert, ‘Zola, Manet and Thérèse Raquin’ in French Studies, XXXIV, no. 3 (July, 1980), pp. 278-99
Critical Edition (French):
Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin, ed. François-Marie Mourad (Paris: Petits Classiques Larousse, 2002)
Note on Adaptation and Translation
The relatively simple narrative of Thérèse Raquin, and the fact that it is set almost entirely in one location, soon made Zola consider an adaptation for the theatre. He had written a melodrama from Les Mystères de Marseille, so it was natural for him to think of adapting his other novel of the time for the stage. His play from Thérèse Raquin eventually opened at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Paris on 11 July 1873, where it ran for only nine performances (though it was occasionally revived later).
A more elaborate stage adaptation was made by Marcelle Maurette in 1947, and another by Raymond Rouleau in 1981. The last of these is generally considered the most successful and most faithful to Zola’s presumed intentions, though it is also furthest from the plot of the novel: Rouleau gives Camille overtly homosexual leanings, for example, and makes Suzanne a victim of sexual abuse.
There have also been several versions for the cinema, the best-known being Jacques Feyder’s (now lost) 1928 silent version, a Franco-German co-production, stylistically influenced by German expressionist cinema; and Marcel Carné’s film of 1953, with Simone Signoret and Raf Vallone, which was a success on first release, though it departs considerably from the novel. For example, Carné introduces the character of a sailor who tries to blackmail Thérèse and Laurent after the murder, and he reworks the plot in various other ways to make it more plausible for a twentieth-century audience.
The first English translation of Thérèse Raquin that I can find was one by John Stirling published in America in 1881. It was not until the Irish novelist George Moore negotiated the translation rights in 1884 with the publisher Henry Vizetelly (and his son, Ernest, who did the translations) that Zola’s work began to appear in England. The Vizetellys brought out their first translation of Thérèse Raquin in 1886 and there have been several other versions since then. As its source, the present translation uses Henri Mitterand’s edition for Garnier-Flammarion (1970), which reproduces the text of the 1868 edition, together with Zola’s Preface to the second edition of that same year.
Two previous translators, Leonard Tancock (who did the version for Penguin Classics published in 1962, which the present translation replaces), and Andrew Rothwell (whose version for Oxford World Classics appeared in 1992), point to certain characteristics of Zola’s novel which make it ‘an awkward work to translate’ (Rothwell) and set ‘peculiar problems’ (Tancock) for the translator. One of these is Zola’s tendency to refer repeatedly to characters by certain set phrases: ‘the old haberdasher’ (for Mme Raquin); ‘the drowned man’ (for Camille); ‘the retired police commissioner’ (for Michaud). Both translators consider these to be, in Tancock’s words, ‘impossibly clumsy locutions’ and have chosen to rephrase them. I find these repetitions less bothersome than my predecessors appear to have done, and on the whole, when Zola refers to Michaud as ‘the retired police commissioner’, I do the same.
In fact, I am slightly surprised at these previous translators’ uneasiness about Zola’s style. As well as their problem with clumsy locutions, both Tancock and Rothwell feel that Zola ‘fails to graduate his climaxes’ (Tancock), ‘so that subsequent intensification can only be achieved by accumulation and repetition’ (Rothwell). Both of them have felt it was not part of the translator’s job to correct ‘such pervasive stylistic features’, but to retain them with regret. I accept that, as I point out in my Introduction, there is a problem in the limited vocabulary at Zola’s disposal to describe the mental state of the two main characters, but this is a feature of the text, and not a difficulty for the translator.
Finally, Rothwell also says that he has made ‘some alterations to the tense-sequences in certain passages’ and points to Zola’s frequent use of the imperfect tense, and that ‘it has proved necessary on occasion to decide between frequentative and narrative uses of the French imperfect tense, a distinction which Zola deliberately blurs in order to convey the monotony of the life led by the Raquin household, but which can lead to apparent temporal contradictions in English’.
In fact, Zola’s use of the imperfect is one of the characteristic features of his style. As Anne Judge and F. G. Headley say in their Reference Grammar of Modern French:1 ‘Flaubert and then, to a far greater extent, Zola are said to have “given the imperfect artistic overtones” which it never had before’, using it to place ‘the reader in the middle of the action ...’ And the ‘artistic overtones’ may be ‘artistic’ in the narrow sense as well as in the general one. Grévisse,2 talking about the same ‘narrative’ use of the imperfect, notes that it is sometimes called the ‘picturesque’ imperfect and quotes Brunetière’s ‘well-chosen description [when he says]: “it is a painter’s technique ... The imperfect, here, serves to prolong the duration of the action being described by the verb, and in a sense immobilizes it before the reader’s eyes”’ — which seems particularly significant in the case of Zola, given his interest in applying the techniques of painting to writing.
It is not possible to follow Zola’s choice of tenses precisely when translating into English, but in translating Thérèse Raquin I have been constantly aware of Zola’s use of verb tenses and have tried to find an appropriate English equivalent. I hope overall that I have managed to convey something of Zola’s style, even if his repetitions, superlatives, accumulations and imperfect tenses may occasionally strike the English reader as odd. Having said that, my overriding aim has been to produce a readable and accurate translation that will respect the qualities of a remarkable novel and bring it to a new generation of English readers.
NOTES1 A. Judge and F. G. Headley, A Reference Grammar of Modern French (London: Edward Arnold, 1983), p. 107.
2 Maurice Grévisse, Le Bon Usage, revised by André Goosse (Paris: Duculot, 1986), p. 1291.
THERESE RAQUIN
Preface to the Second Edition (1868)
I naïvely thought that this
novel could do without a Preface. Being accustomed to speak my mind out loud and to stress the least detail in what I write, I hoped that I might be understood and judged without having to explain myself further. It seems that I was wrong.
The critics greeted this book with anger and indignation. Some virtuous folk, in no less virtuous newspapers, puckered their faces in disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw it on the fire. Even the little literary papers — those same literary papers that every evening report the gossip from bedrooms and private dining rooms — held their noses and spoke of stinking filth. I have no complaint to make about this reception; on the contrary, I am charmed to discover that my colleagues have the sensitive feelings of young ladies. It is quite evident that my book belongs to my critics and that they may find it repulsive without giving me any cause for protest. What I do mind, however, is that not one of the prudish journalists who have blushed as they read Thérèse Raquin seems to me to have understood the novel. If they had understood it, perhaps they would have blushed even more, but at least I should now be enjoying the private satisfaction of seeing that they were disgusted for the right reason. Nothing is more irritating than to hear honest writers protest about depravity when one is quite certain that they make these noises without knowing what they are protesting about.
It is necessary, therefore, for me to present my work to these critics myself. I shall do so in a few lines, simply in order to avoid any misunderstanding in the future.
In Thérèse Raquin I set out to study temperament, not character. 1 That sums up the whole book. I chose protagonists who were supremely dominated by their nerves and their blood, deprived of free will and drawn into every action of their lives by the predetermined lot of their flesh. Thérèse and Laurent are human animals, nothing more. In these animals, I have tried to follow step by step the silent operation of desires, the urgings of instinct and the cerebral disorders consequent on a nervous crisis. The love between my two heroes is the satisfaction of a need; the murder that they commit is the outcome of their adultery, an outcome that they accept as wolves accept the killing of a sheep; and finally what I have been compelled to call their ‘remorse’,2 consists in a simple organic disruption, a revolt of the nervous system when it has been stretched to breaking-point. I freely admit that the soul is entirely absent, which is as I wanted it.