by Emile Zola
1871 Political reporter for La Cloche (in Paris) and Le Sémaphore de Marseille. (March) Returns to Paris. (October) Publishes The Fortune of the Rougons, the first of the twenty novels making up the Rougon-Macquart series
1872 The Kill
1873 (April) The Belly of Paris
1874 (May) The Conquest of Plassans. First independent Impressionist exhibition. (November) Further Tales for Ninon
1875 Begins to contribute articles to the Russian newspaper Vestnik Evropy (European Herald ). (April) The Sin of Abbé Mouret
1876 (February) His Excellency Eugène Rougon. Second Impressionist exhibition
1877 (February) L’Assommoir
1878 Buys a house at Médan on the Seine, 40 kilometres west of Paris. ( June) A Page of Love
1880 (March) Nana. (May) Les Soirées de Médan (an anthology of short stories by Zola and some of his naturalist ‘disciples’, including Maupassant). (8 May) Death of Flaubert. (September) First of a series of articles for Le Figaro. (17 October) Death of his mother. (December) The Experimental Novel
1882 (April) Pot Luck (Pot-Bouille). (3 September) Death of Turgenev
1883 (13 February) Death of Wagner. (March) The Ladies’ Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames). (30 April) Death of Manet
1884 (March) La Joie de vivre. Preface to catalogue of Manet exhibition
1885 (March) Germinal. (12 May) Begins writing The Masterpiece (L’Œuvre). (22 May) Death of Victor Hugo. (23 December) First instalment of The Masterpiece appears in Le Gil Blas
1886 (27 March) Final instalment of The Masterpiece, which is published in book form in April
1887 (18 August) Denounced as an onanistic pornographer in the Manifesto of the Five in Le Figaro. (November) Earth
1888 (October) The Dream. Jeanne Rozerot becomes his mistress
1889 (20 September) Birth of Denise, daughter of Zola and Jeanne
1890 (March) The Beast in Man
1891 (March) Money. (April) Elected President of the Société des Gens de Lettres. (25 September) Birth of Jacques, son of Zola and Jeanne
1892 ( June) La Débâcle
1893 ( July) Doctor Pascal, the last of the Rougon-Macquart novels. Fêted on visit to London
1894 (August) Lourdes, the first novel of the trilogy Three Cities. (22 December) Dreyfus found guilty by a court martial
1896 (May) Rome
1898 (13 January) ‘J’accuse’, his article in defence of Dreyfus, published in L’Aurore. (21 February) Found guilty of libelling the Minister of War and given the maximum sentence of one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs. Appeal for retrial granted on a technicality. (March) Paris. (23 May) Retrial delayed. (18 July) Leaves for England instead of attending court
1899 (4 June) Returns to France. (October) Fecundity, the first of his Four Gospels
1901 (May) Toil, the second ‘Gospel’
1902 (29 September) Dies of fumes from his bedroom fire, the chimney having been capped either by accident or anti-Dreyfusard design. Wife survives. (5 October) Public funeral
1903 (March) Truth, the third ‘Gospel’, published posthumously. Justice was to be the fourth
1908 (4 June) Remains transferred to the Panthéon
A Love Story
Part One
Chapter 1
The night light in the blue-tinged glass on the mantelshelf burned behind a book, which cast a shadow across half the bedroom. The quiet glow spreading over the bedside table and the chaise longue, bathed the wide folds of the velvet curtains, and flooded the mirror on the rosewood cupboard between the two windows with azure. The harmonious tones of this homely room, the blue of the curtains, the furniture and the carpet acquired a softness, like clouds, at this time of the evening. And opposite the windows, in the shadow, the bed, also draped in velvet, was a dark shape, brightened only by the whiteness of the sheets. Hélène, a mother and a widow, her arms serenely crossed, was breathing lightly.
The clock struck one into the silence. The sounds from the streets round about had died away. Up there on the heights of the Trocadéro all you could hear of Paris was a distant hum. Hélène’s breathing was so soft and gentle, her chaste bosom scarcely moved. In a deep, peaceful slumber, her neat head to one side, chestnut hair securely fastened, she looked to have fallen asleep while listening to something. On the other side, the wide-open door to the adjoining room cast a dark shadow on the wall.
But there was not a sound to be heard. It struck the half-hour. The pendulum on the clock seemed to move more slowly in the overwhelming feeling of sleepiness that engulfed the entire bedroom. The night light, the furniture, a woman’s needlework lying on the little table by the snuffed-out lamp, all seemed to be sleeping. Even in her sleep, Hélène retained her grave, benign expression.
When two o’clock struck, the peace was disturbed; a sigh could be heard in the darkness of the adjoining room. It was followed by a rustle of sheets before all fell silent again. Then came a more laboured breathing. Hélène had not moved. But suddenly she sat up. She had just been woken by the confused babble of a child in pain. She put her hands to her forehead, still half asleep, when a muffled cry startled her from her bed.
‘Jeanne, Jeanne! What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Answer me!’
And as her daughter did not answer she rushed to fetch the night light, saying under her breath:
‘My God, she wasn’t well, I shouldn’t have gone to bed.’
She went quickly into the adjoining room that was heavy with silence. The night light, drowning in oil, was just a flickering flame throwing a single circle of light on to the ceiling. Leaning over the iron bedstead, at first Hélène could make out nothing. Then, in the blue glow, in the middle of the cast-off sheets she saw Jeanne, rigid and with her head thrown back, the muscles in her neck stiff and hard. Her poor, beloved face was distorted in a seizure, her eyes were open, she was staring at the tops of the curtains.
‘My God, my God!’ Hélène cried. ‘My God, she’s dying.’
And putting the night light down with trembling hands, she felt her daughter all over. She could not find the pulse. Her heart seemed to have stopped. Her small arms and legs were splayed out violently. At that point Hélène lost her head and panicked:
‘My child is dying!’ she stammered. ‘Help me! My child! My child!’
She came back into her bedroom, stumbling around, falling over objects, not knowing where she was going. Then she returned to the other room and threw herself in front of the bed again, still calling for help. She took Jeanne in her arms, kissed her hair, feeling her all over with her hands, pleading with her to say something. One word, just one word. Where did it hurt? Did she want some of the medicine she had given her the other day? Would fresh air bring her round? And she tried over and over again to get her to say something.
‘Speak to me, Jeanne, please, speak to me!’
Oh God... not knowing what to do! Just like that, suddenly in the night. No light, even. Her thoughts became confused. She chattered on to her daughter, asking questions and answering for her. Was the pain in her stomach? No, it was in her throat. Nothing serious. One must stay calm. And she made an effort to retain all her own common sense. But her stomach turned over when she felt her daughter stiff in her arms. She looked at her convulsing, not breathing. She tried to be sensible, to resist her need to shout. Then suddenly in spite of herself, she cried out.
She crossed the dining room and kitchen and called:
‘Rosalie, Rosalie! Quick, get a doctor! My daughter’s dying!’
There was an answering cry from the servant, who slept in a small room behind the kitchen. Hélène ran back. She paced to and fro in her nightgown, not seeming to feel the cold of the icy February night.* This servant would let her daughter die! But scarcely a minute had passed. She returned to the kitchen, went into the bedroom again. She flung on a skirt, threw a shawl roughly over her shoulders. She knocked over the furniture, and the room, where such peace had reigned a short while ag
o, was now filled with the violence of her desperation. Then, still in her slippers and leaving the doors open, she ran down the three flights of stairs, with the notion of fetching a doctor herself.
The concierge pulled the cord and Hélène found herself outside, her ears buzzing and her head spinning. She ran down the Rue Vineuse,* rang Doctor Bodin’s bell; he had treated Jeanne before. After what seemed an eternity, a servant came to say that Doctor Bodin was attending a woman having a baby. Hélène remained stupefied on the pavement. She did not know any other doctor in Passy. For a moment she paced up and down, looking at the houses. An icy little wind was blowing. Still in her slippers, she walked across the sprinkling of snow which had fallen the night before. And constantly before her eyes was the vision of her daughter, accompanied by the anguished thought that she was letting her die by not finding a doctor straight away. Then, as she retraced her steps up the Rue Vineuse, she tugged at a bell pull. She would ask someone, perhaps they could give her an address. She rang again, they took their time coming to open the door. The wind flattened her thin petticoat against her legs and loosened the strands of her hair.
Finally a servant came and said that Doctor Deberle was in bed. She had rung at a doctor’s house, so Heaven had not abandoned her after all! Then she insisted on entering, saying over and over:
‘My child is dying! My child! Tell him to come.’
It was a well-furnished town house. She went upstairs, arguing with the servant, countering all objections with the words that her child was dying. When she reached the landing, she agreed to wait; but as soon as she heard the doctor getting up in the adjoining room, she went and spoke to him through the door.
‘Come as soon as you can, Doctor, I beg you... My child is dying!’
When the doctor appeared in his waistcoat, without a tie, she urged him to be quick and would not let him finish getting dressed. He had recognized her. She lived in the house next door and was his tenant. So when he took a short cut through the garden with her and passed through the communicating gate between the two houses, she suddenly remembered.
‘Of course,’ she said softly, ‘you are a doctor and I knew that... I’m taking leave of my senses, as you see... Let’s be quick.’
On the stairs, she ushered him ahead of her. Had he been the Almighty, she could not have brought him into her home with more reverence. Upstairs Rosalie had stayed by Jeanne, and had lit the lamp placed on the small table. As soon as the doctor went in, he took this lamp and shone it directly on the child, who was still painfully stiff, except that her head had slipped down and her face was twitching rapidly. For a minute he remained tight-lipped, and did not speak. Hélène looked anxiously at him. When he saw this imploring look from her mother, he murmured:
‘It’s not serious... But you mustn’t leave her here. She needs air.’
Hélène hoisted her on to her shoulders. She could have kissed the doctor’s hands for his reassuring words and waves of relief coursed through her. But scarcely had she placed Jeanne in her big bed when the little girl’s body shook with violent convulsions. The doctor had taken off the lampshade, a white light illuminated the room. He went over and opened the window a little, ordered Rosalie to pull the bed away from the curtains. Hélène, again overwhelmed with anxiety, stammered:
‘She’s dying, Doctor! Look at her, look at her! I can’t recognize her!’
He did not answer, but keenly studied the progress of the attack.
‘Go into the recess and hold her hands so that she doesn’t scratch herself... There, gently, be careful not to hurt her. Don’t worry, the crisis must take its course.’
And both, leaning over the bed, held Jeanne, whose limbs were slackening in a series of abrupt shocks. The doctor had buttoned up his waistcoat to cover his bare neck. Hélène had remained wrapped in the shawl she had thrown around her shoulders. But Jeanne, flailing around her, tugged at a corner of the shawl and undid the top of the waistcoat. They were unaware of it. Neither was conscious of the other.
The attack was nearly over. The little girl, exhausted, seemed to collapse. Despite the doctor’s reassurance to her mother about the outcome of the crisis, he still looked thoughtful. He continued to study the sick child and finally asked Hélène some questions as he stood by her bed.
‘How old is she?’
‘Eleven and a half, Monsieur.’
There was a silence. He nodded, leaned down to raise Jeanne’s closed eyelids and look inside. Then he continued his questioning, without looking directly at Hélène.
‘Did she have convulsions when she was small?’
‘Yes, Doctor, but they subsided when she was about six... She’s very delicate. I’ve noticed that she has been unwell these last few days.’
‘Do you know of any nervous illnesses in the family?’
‘I don’t know... My mother died of a chest infection.’
She hesitated, overcome with shame, not wanting to admit to having had a relative locked up in an asylum.* Her whole family had a tragic history.
‘Careful,’ said the doctor rapidly. ‘She’s having another attack.’
Jeanne had just opened her eyes. Bewildered, she looked about her for a moment, without uttering a word. Then her eyes started to stare, she threw herself backwards, her limbs tensed and stiffened. She was very flushed. Suddenly she went white, livid, and began to convulse.
‘Keep hold of her,’ the doctor directed. ‘Take her other hand.’
He hurried to the side table, on which he had put a little array of medicaments. He came back with a bottle, which he held to her nose. But it was like a whiplash, Jeanne shook so hard she jerked out of her mother’s hands.
‘No, no, not ether!’ her mother cried, when she smelled the bottle. ‘Ether drives her mad.’
The two of them could scarcely hold her. Her contractions were violent, her body raised up on her heels and on her neck, as if bent double. Then she fell back, she ranged from one side of the bed to the other. Her fists were tight shut, her thumbs turned in towards her palms; from time to time she opened them and spread out her fingers, attempting to seize things in thin air and twist them. Her fingers found her mother’s shawl and clung on to it. But the most upsetting thing for her mother was, as she said, that she couldn’t recognize her daughter any more. Her sweet little angelic face was utterly changed, her eyes, a bluish pearly colour, were sunk in their sockets.
‘Do something, I beg you, Doctor,’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t the strength any more...’ She had just remembered that the daughter of one of her neighbours in Marseilles had died of asphyxiation in a similar crisis. Perhaps the doctor was withholding the truth, to spare her? Jeanne’s breathing was sporadic and halting so that the mother thought every breath she felt on her face might be her last. Then in despair, and overwhelmed by pity and terror, she wept. Her tears fell on the innocent naked body of the little girl, who had thrown back the covers.
Meanwhile the doctor’s long supple fingers were applying light pressure to the base of her neck. The intensity of the attack was lessening. Jeanne’s movements grew slower and then she remained inert. She had fallen back into the centre of the bed, her body taut and her arms spread wide, her head propped up by the pillow, lolling on to her chest. She looked like an infant Christ. Hélène bent down and gave her a long kiss on her forehead.
‘Is it over?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Do you think there will be another attack?’
He made an evasive gesture. Then replied:
‘Well, further attacks will be less violent anyway.’
He asked Rosalie for a glass and a jug. He half-filled the glass, took two new flasks, counted out the drops and, with Hélène’s help, raising the child’s head, inserted a spoonful of this potion in between her clenched teeth. The white flame of the lamp rose high, lighting the untidy room, in which some of the furniture had been knocked over. The clothes Hélène had thrown down on the back of a chair when she went to bed had slipped on to the floor and lay on the r
ug. Having trodden on a bodice, the doctor picked it up so that it shouldn’t get under his feet again. The scent of verbena wafted up from the unmade bed and from these few underclothes. All the intimate possessions of this woman were on shocking display. The doctor himself went to fetch the basin, soaked a towel, and applied it to Jeanne’s temples.
‘You’ll catch cold, Madame,’ Rosalie said, shivering. ‘Perhaps we should shut the window... It’s very chilly.’
‘No, no,’ Hélène cried. ‘Leave the window open... That’s right, Doctor, isn’t it?’
A little breeze came through, lifting the curtains. She was unaware of it, yet the shawl had completely fallen off her shoulders, uncovering part of her bosom. At the back of her head, her chignon had worked loose and disordered strands of hair were hanging down to her hips. Her bare arms had freed themselves in order to move more quickly and she forgot everything in the total devotion to caring for her child. Beside her, the doctor was quite unaware of his open waistcoat, or his collar that Jeanne had just torn off.
‘Lift her up a little,’ he said. ‘No, not that way... Give me your hand.’
He took her hand and placed it himself under the head of the little girl, whom he was trying to induce to take another spoonful of the medicine. Then he got her to come over next to him. He was using her as an assistant and she obeyed him religiously, seeing that her daughter appeared to be more calm.
‘Come here... You put her head on your shoulder while I listen to her chest.’
Hélène did what he ordered. Then he bent over her to place his ear on Jeanne’s chest. He touched her bare shoulder lightly with his cheek, and as he listened to the child’s heart he might also have heard the mother’s beating. When he stood up again their breaths mingled.
‘Nothing wrong there,’ he said quietly, much to Hélène’s relief. ‘Put her back to bed, we won’t torment her any more.’
But a fresh attack occurred. It was much less serious. Jeanne mumbled a few halting words. Two more spasms one after the other came and went. The child had fallen into a state of prostration, and that seemed to make the doctor anxious once more. He had laid her down with her head raised high, the covers pulled up under her chin, and for almost an hour he stayed watching her, appearing to be waiting for the regular sound of her breathing. From the other side of the bed, Hélène also waited, not moving.