Fruitfulness - Emile Zola
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FRUITFULNESS
(FECONDITE)
BY
EMILE ZOLA
Translated and edited by
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
"FRUITFULNESS" is the first of a series of four works in which M. Zola
proposes to embody what he considers to be the four cardinal principles
of human life. These works spring from the previous series of The Three
Cities: "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris," which dealt with the principles
of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The last scene in "Paris," when Marie,
Pierre Froment's wife, takes her boy in her arms and consecrates him, so
to say, to the city of labor and thought, furnishes the necessary
transition from one series to the other. "Fruitfulness," says M. Zola,
"creates the home. Thence springs the city. From the idea of citizenship
comes that of the fatherland; and love of country, in minds fed by
science, leads to the conception of a wider and vaster fatherland,
comprising all the peoples of the earth. Of these three stages in the
progress of mankind, the fourth still remains to be attained. I have
thought then of writing, as it were, a poem in four volumes, in four
chants, in which I shall endeavor to sum up the philosophy of all my
work. The first of these volumes is 'Fruitfulness'; the second will be
called 'Work'; the third, 'Truth'; the last, 'Justice.' In 'Fruitfulness'
the hero's name is Matthew. In the next work it will be Luke; in 'Truth,'
Mark; and in 'justice,' John. The children of my brain will, like the
four Evangelists preaching the gospel, diffuse the religion of future
society, which will be founded on Fruitfulness, Work, Truth, and
Justice."
This, then, is M. Zola's reply to the cry repeatedly raised by his hero,
Abbe Pierre Froment, in the pages of "Lourdes," "Paris," and "Rome": "A
new religion, a new religion!" Critics of those works were careful to
point out that no real answer was ever returned to the Abbe's despairing
call; and it must be confessed that one must yet wait for the greater
part of that answer, since "Fruitfulness," though complete as a
narrative, forms but a portion of the whole. It is only after the
publication of the succeeding volumes that one will be able to judge how
far M. Zola's doctrines and theories in their ensemble may appeal to the
requirements of the world.
While "Fruitfulness," as I have said, constitutes a first instalment of
M. Zola's conception of a social religion, it embodies a good deal else.
The idea of writing some such work first occurred to him many years ago.
In 1896 he contributed an article to the Paris _Figaro_, in which he
said: "For some ten years now I have been haunted by the idea of a novel,
of which I shall, doubtless, never write the first page. . . . That novel
would have been called 'Wastage'. . . and I should have pleaded in it in
favor of all the rights of life, with all the passion which I may have in
my heart."* M. Zola's article then proceeds to discuss the various social
problems, theories, and speculations which are set forth here and there
in the present work. Briefly, the genesis of "Fruitfulness" lies in the
article I have quoted.
* See _Nouvelle Campagne_ (1896), par Emile Zola.
Paris, 1897, pp. 217-228.
"Fruitfulness" is a book to be judged from several standpoints. It would
be unjust and absurd to judge it from one alone, such, for instance, as
that of the new social religion to which I have referred. It must be
looked at notably as a tract for the times in relation to certain
grievous evils from which France and other countries--though more
particularly France--are undoubtedly suffering. And it may be said that
some such denunciation of those evils was undoubtedly necessary, and that
nobody was better placed to pen that denunciation than M. Zola, who,
alone of all French writers nowadays, commands universal attention.
Whatever opinion may be held of his writings, they have to be reckoned
with. Thus, in preparing "Fruitfulness," he was before all else
discharging a patriotic duty, and that duty he took in hand in an hour of
cruel adversity, when to assist a great cause he withdrew from France and
sought for a time a residence in England, where for eleven months I was
privileged to help him in maintaining his incognito. "Fruitfulness" was
entirely written in England, begun in a Surrey country house, and
finished at the Queen's Hotel, Norwood.
It would be superfluous for me to enter here into all the questions which
M. Zola raises in his pages. The evils from which France suffers in
relation to the stagnancy of its population, are well known, and that
their continuance--if continuance there be--will mean the downfall of the
country from its position as one of the world's great powers before the
close of the twentieth century, is a mathematical certainty. That M.
Zola, in order to combat those evils, and to do his duty as a good
citizen anxious to prevent the decline of his country, should have dealt
with his subject with the greatest frankness and outspokenness, was only
natural. Moreover, absolute freedom of speech exists in France, which is
not the case elsewhere. Thus, when I first perused the original proofs of
M. Zola's work, I came to the conclusion that any version of it in the
English language would be well-nigh impossible. For some time I remained
of that opinion, and I made a statement to that effect in a leading
literary journal. Subsequently, however, my views became modified. "The
man who is ridiculous," wrote a French poet, Barthelemy, "is he whose
opinions never change," and thus I at last reverted to a task from which
I had turned aside almost in despair.
Various considerations influenced me, and among them was the thought that
if "Fruitfulness" were not presented to the public in an English dress,
M. Zola's new series would remain incomplete, decapitated so far as
British and American readers were concerned. After all, the criticisms
dealing with the French original were solely directed against matters of
form, the mould in which some part of the work was cast. Its high moral
purpose was distinctly recognized by several even of its most bitter
detractors. For me the problem was how to retain the whole ensemble of
the narrative and the essence of the lessons which the work inculcates,
while recasting some portion of it and sacrificing those matters of form
to which exception was taken. It is not for me to say whether I have
succeeded in the task; but I think that nothing in any degree offensive
to delicate susceptibilities will be found in this present version of M.
Zola's book.
The English reviews of the French original showed that if certain
portions of it were deemed indiscreet, it none the less teemed with
admirable and even delightful pages. Among the English reviewers were two
well-known lady writers, Madame Darmesteter (formerly Miss Mary
Robinson), and Miss Hannah Lynch. And the former remarked in one part of
her critique: "Even this short review reveals how honest, how moral, how
human and comely is the fable of _Fecondite_,"* while the latter
expressed the view that the work was "eminently, pugnaciously virtuous in
M. Zola's strictly material conception of virtue." And again: "The pages
that tell the story of Mathieu and Marianne, it must be admitted, are as
charming as possible. They have a bloom, a beauty, a fragrance we never
expected to find in M. Zola's work. The tale is a simple one: the
cheerful conquest of fortune and the continual birth of offspring."**
* _Manchester Guardian_, October 27, 1899.
** _Fortnightly Review_, January 1900.
Of course, these lady critics did not favor certain features of the
original, and one of them, indeed, referred to the evil denounced by M.
Zola as a mere evil of the hour, whereas it has been growing and
spreading for half a century, gradually sapping all the vitality of
France. But beside that evil, beside the downfall of the families it
attacks, M. Zola portrays the triumph of rectitude, the triumph which
follows faith in the powers of life, and observance of the law of
universal labor. "Fruitfulness" contains charming pictures of homely
married life, delightful glimpses of childhood and youth: the first
smile, the first step, the first word, followed by the playfulness and
the flirtations of boyhood, and the happiness which waits on the
espousals of those who truly love. And the punishment of the guilty is
awful, and the triumph of the righteous is the greatest that can be
conceived. All those features have been retained, so far as my abilities
have allowed, in the present version, which will at the same time, I
think, give the reader unacquainted with the French language a general
idea of M. Zola's views on one of the great questions of the age, as well
as all the essential portions of a strongly conceived narrative.
E. A. V.
MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND: April, 1900.
FRUITFULNESS
I
THAT morning, in the little pavilion of Chantebled, on the verge of the
woods, where they had now been installed for nearly a month, Mathieu was
making all haste in order that he might catch the seven-o'clock train
which every day conveyed him from Janville to Paris. It was already
half-past six, and there were fully two thousand paces from the pavilion
to Janville. Afterwards came a railway journey of three-quarters of an
hour, and another journey of at least equal duration through Paris, from
the Northern Railway terminus to the Boulevard de Grenelle. He seldom
reached his office at the factory before half-past eight o'clock.
He had just kissed the children. Fortunately they were asleep; otherwise
they would have linked their arms about his neck, laughed and kissed him,
being ever unwilling to let him go. And as he hastily returned to the
principal bedroom, he found his wife, Marianne, in bed there, but awake
and sitting up. She had risen a moment before in order to pull back a
curtain, and all the glow of that radiant May morning swept in, throwing
a flood of gay sunshine over the fresh and healthy beauty of her
four-and-twenty years. He, who was three years the elder, positively
adored her.
"You know, my darling," said he, "I must make haste, for I fear I may
miss the train--and so manage as well as you can. You still have thirty
sous left, haven't you?"
She began to laugh, looking charming with her bare arms and her
loose-flowing dark hair. The ever-recurring pecuniary worries of the
household left her brave and joyous. Yet she had been married at
seventeen, her husband at twenty, and they already had to provide for
four children.
"Oh! we shall be all right," said she. "It's the end of the month to-day,
and you'll receive your money to-night. I'll settle our little debts at
Janville to-morrow. There are only the Lepailleurs, who worry me with
their bill for milk and eggs, for they always look as if they fancied one
meant to rob them. But with thirty sous, my dear! why, we shall have
quite a high time of it!"
She was still laughing as she held out her firm white arms for the
customary morning good-by.
"Run off, since you are in a hurry. I will go to meet you at the little
bridge to-night."
"No, no, I insist on your going to bed! You know very well that even if I
catch the quarter-to-eleven-o'clock train, I cannot reach Janville before
half-past eleven. Ah! what a day I have before me! I had to promise the
Moranges that I would take dejeuner with them; and this evening Beauchene
is entertaining a customer--a business dinner, which I'm obliged to
attend. So go to bed, and have a good sleep while you are waiting for
me."
She gently nodded, but would give no positive promise. "Don't forget to
call on the landlord," she added, "to tell him that the rain comes into
the children's bedroom. It's not right that we should be soaked here as
if we were on the high-way, even if those millionnaires, the Seguins du
Hordel, do let us have this place for merely six hundred francs a year."
"Ah, yes! I should have forgotten that. I will call on them, I promise
you."
Then Mathieu took her in his arms, and there was no ending to their
leave-taking. He still lingered. She had begun to laugh again, while
giving him many a kiss in return for his own. There was all the love of
bounding health between them, the joy that springs from the most perfect
union, as when man and wife are but one both in flesh and in soul.
"Run off, run off, darling! Remember to tell Constance that, before she
goes into the country, she ought to run down here some Sunday with
Maurice."
"Yes, yes, I will tell her--till to-night, darling."
But he came back once more, caught her in a tight embrace, and pressed to
her lips a long, loving kiss, which she returned with her whole heart.
And then he hurried away.
He usually took an omnibus on his arrival at the Northern Railway
terminus. But on the days when only thirty sous remained at home he
bravely went through Paris on foot. It was, too, a very fine walk by way
of the Rue la Fayette, the Opera-house, the Boulevards, the Rue Royale,
and then, after the Place de la Concorde, the Cours la Reine, the Alma
bridge, and the Quai d'Orsay.
Beauchene's works were at the very end of the Quai d'Orsay, between the
Rue de la Federation and the Boulevard de Grenelle. There was hereabouts
a large square plot, at one end of which, facing the quay, stood a
handsome private house of brickwork with white stone dressings, that had
been erected by Leon Beauchene, father of Alexandre, the present master
of the works. From the balconies one could perceive the houses which were
perched aloft in the midst of greenery on the height of Passy, beyond the
Seine; whilst on the right arose the campanile of the Trocadero palace.
On one side, skirting the Rue de la Federation, one could still see a
garden and a little house, which had been the modest dwelling of Leon
Beauchene in the heroic days of desperate toil when he had laid the
foundations of his fortune. Then the factory buildings and sheds, quite a
mass of grayish structures, overtopped by two huge chimneys, occupied
both the back part of the ground and that which fringed the Boulevard de
Grenelle, the latter being shut off by long windowless walls. This
important and well-known establishment manufactured chiefly agricultural
appliances, from the most powerful machines to those ingenious and
delicate implements on which particular care must be bestowed if
perfection is to be attained. In addition to the hundreds of men who
worked there daily, there were some fifty women, burnishers and
polishers.
The entry to the workshops and offices was in the Rue de la Federation,
through a large carriage way, whence one perceived the far-spreading
yard, with its paving stones invariably black and often streaked by
rivulets of steaming water. Dense smoke arose from the high chimneys,
strident jets of steam emerged from the roof, whilst a low rumbling and a
shaking of the ground betokened the activity within, the ceaseless bustle
of labor.
It was thirty-five minutes past eight by the big clock of the central
building when Mathieu crossed the yard towards the office which he
occupied as chief designer. For eight years he had been employed at the
works where, after a brilliant and special course of study, he had made
his beginning as assistant draughtsman when but nineteen years old,
receiving at that time a salary of one hundred francs a month. His
father, Pierre Froment,* had four sons by Marie his wife--Jean the
eldest, then Mathieu, Marc, and Luc--and while leaving them free to
choose a particular career he had striven to give each of them some
manual calling. Leon Beauchene, the founder of the works, had been dead a
year, and his son Alexandre had succeeded him and married Constance
Meunier, daughter of a very wealthy wall-paper manufacturer of the
Marais, at the time when Mathieu entered the establishment, the master of
which was scarcely five years older than himself. It was there that
Mathieu had become acquainted with a poor cousin of Alexandre's,
Marianne, then sixteen years old, whom he had married during the
following year.
* Of _Lourdes_, _Rome_, and _Paris_.
Marianne, when only twelve, had become dependent upon her uncle, Leon
Beauchene. After all sorts of mishaps a brother of the latter, one Felix
Beauchene, a man of adventurous mind but a blunderhead, had gone to
Algeria with his wife and daughter, there to woo fortune afresh; and the
farm he had established was indeed prospering when, during a sudden
revival of Arab brigandage, both he and his wife were murdered and their
home was destroyed. Thus the only place of refuge for the little girl,
who had escaped miraculously, was the home of her uncle, who showed her
great kindness during the two years of life that remained to him. With
her, however, were Alexandre, whose companionship was rather dull, and
his younger sister, Seraphine, a big, vicious, and flighty girl of
eighteen, who, as it happened, soon left the house amid a frightful
scandal--an elopement with a certain Baron Lowicz, a genuine baron, but
a swindler and forger, to whom it became necessary to marry her. She
then received a dowry of 300,000 francs. Alexandre, after his father's
death, made a money match with Constance, who brought him half a million
francs, and Marianne then found herself still more a stranger, still
more isolated beside her new cousin, a thin, dry, authoritative woman,
who ruled the home with absolute sway. Mathieu was there, however, and a
few months sufficed: fine, powerful, and healthy love sprang up between
the young people; there was no lightning flash such as throws the
passion-swayed into each other's arms, but esteem, tenderness, faith,
and that mutual conviction of happiness in reciprocal bestowal which
tends to indissoluble marriage. And they were delighted at marrying
penniless, at bringing one another but their full hearts forever and
forever. The only change in Mathieu's circumstances was an increase of
salary to two hundred francs a month. True, his new cousin by marriage
just vaguely hinted at a possible partnership, but that would not be
till some very much later date.
As it happened Mathieu Froment gradually became indispensable at the
works. The young master, Alexandre Beauchene, passed through an anxious
crisis. The dowry which his father had been forced to draw from his
coffers in order to get Seraphine married, and other large expenses which
had been occasioned by the girl's rebellious and perverse conduct, had
left but little working capital in the business. Then, too, on the morrow
of Leon Beauchene's death it was found that, with the carelessness often
evinced in such matters, he had neglected to leave a will; so that
Seraphine eagerly opposed her brother's interests, demanding her personal
share of the inheritance, and even suggesting the sale of the works. The
property had narrowly escaped being cut up, annihilated. And Alexandre
Beauchene still shivered with terror and anger at the recollection of
that time, amidst all his delight at having at last rid himself of his
sister by paying her in money the liberally estimated value of her share.
It was in order to fill up the void thus created in his finances that he
had espoused the half-million represented by Constance--an ugly creature,
as he himself bitterly acknowledged, coarse male as he was. Truth to
tell, she was so thin, so scraggy, that before consenting to make her his
wife he had often called her "that bag of bones." But, on the other hand,
thanks to his marriage with her, all his losses were made good in five or
six years' time; the business of the works even doubled, and great
prosperity set in. And Mathieu, having become a most active and necessary
coadjutor, ended by taking the post of chief designer, at a salary of
four thousand two hundred francs per annum.
Morange, the chief accountant, whose office was near Mathieu's, thrust
his head through the doorway as soon as he heard the young man installing
himself at his drawing-table. "I say, my dear Froment," he exclaimed,
"don't forget that you are to take dejeuner with us."
"Yes, yes, my good Morange, it's understood. I will look in for you at
twelve o'clock."
Then Mathieu very carefully scrutinized a wash drawing of a very simple
but powerful steam thresher, an invention of his own, on which he had
been working for some time past, and which a big landowner of Beauce, M.
Firon-Badinier, was to examine during the afternoon.
The door of the master's private room was suddenly thrown wide open and
Beauchene appeared--tall, with a ruddy face, a narrow brow, and big
brown, protruding eyes. He had a rather large nose, thick lips, and a
full black beard, on which he bestowed great care, as he likewise did on
his hair, which was carefully combed over his head in order to conceal
the serious baldness that was already coming upon him, although he was
scarcely two-and-thirty. Frock-coated the first thing in the morning, he
was already smoking a big cigar; and his loud voice, his peals of gayety,
his bustling ways, all betokened an egotist and good liver still in his
prime, a man for whom money--capital increased and increased by the labor
of others--was the one only sovereign power.
"Ah! ah! it's ready, is it not?" said he; "Monsieur Firon-Badinier has
again written me that he will be here at three o'clock. And you know that
I'm going to take you to the restaurant with him this evening; for one
can never induce those fellows to give orders unless one plies them with
good wine. It annoys Constance to have it done here; and, besides, I
prefer to entertain those people in town. You warned Marianne, eh?"
"Certainly. She knows that I shall return by the
quarter-to-eleven-o'clock train."
Beauchene had sunk upon a chair: "Ah! my dear fellow, I'm worn out," he
continued; "I dined in town last night; I got to bed only at one o'clock.
And there was a terrible lot of work waiting for me this morning. One
positively needs to be made of iron."
Until a short time before he had shown himself a prodigious worker,
endowed with really marvellous energy and strength. Moreover, he had
given proof of unfailing business instinct with regard to many profitable
undertakings. Invariably the first to appear at the works, he looked
after everything, foresaw everything, filling the place with his bustling
zeal, and doubling his output year by year. Recently, however, fatigue
had been gaining ground on him. He had always sought plenty of amusement,
even amid the hard-working life he led. But nowadays certain "sprees," as
he called them, left him fairly exhausted.
He gazed at Mathieu: "You seem fit enough, you do!" he said. "How is it
that you manage never to look tired?"
As a matter of fact, the young man who stood there erect before his
drawing-table seemed possessed of the sturdy health of a young oak tree.
Tall and slender, he had the broad, lofty, tower-like brow of the
Froments. He wore his thick hair cut quite short, and his beard, which
curled slightly, in a point. But the chief expression of his face rested
in his eyes, which were at once deep and bright, keen and thoughtful, and
almost invariably illumined by a smile. They showed him to be at once a
man of thought and of action, very simple, very gay, and of a kindly
disposition.
"Oh! I," he answered with a laugh, "I behave reasonably."
But Beauchene protested: "No, you don't! The man who already has four
children when he is only twenty-seven can't claim to be reasonable. And
twins too--your Blaise and your Denis to begin with! And then your boy
Ambroise and your little girl Rose. Without counting the other little
girl that you lost at her birth. Including her, you would now have had
five youngsters, you wretched fellow! No, no, I'm the one who behaves
reasonably--I, who have but one child, and, like a prudent, sensible man,
desire no others!"
He often made such jesting remarks as these, through which filtered his
genuine indignation; for he deemed the young couple to be over-careless
of their interests, and declared that the prolificness of his cousin
Marianne was quite scandalous.
Accustomed as Mathieu was to these attacks, which left him perfectly
serene, he went on laughing, without even giving a reply, when a workman
abruptly entered the room--one who was currently called "old Moineaud,"
though he was scarcely three-and-forty years of age. Short and thick-set,
he had a bullet head, a bull's neck, and face and hands scarred and
dented by more than a quarter of a century of toil. By calling he was a
fitter, and he had come to submit a difficulty which had just arisen in
the piecing together of a reaping machine. But, his employer, who was
still angrily thinking of over-numerous families, did not give him time
to explain his purpose.
"And you, old Moineaud, how many children have you?" he inquired.