Complete Works of Emile Zola (565 page)
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Authors: Émile Zola
In a few bold lines Zola sketches a living character. Take the picture of old Mere Fetu. One really feels her disagreeable presence, and is annoyed with her whining, leering, fawning, sycophancy. One almost resents her introduction into the pages of the book. There is something palpably odious about her personality. A pleasing contrast is formed by the pendant portraits of the awkward little soldier and his kitchen-sweetheart. This homely and wholesome couple one may meet any afternoon in Paris, on leave-of-absence days. Their portraits, and the delicious description of the children’s party, are evidently studies from life. With such vivid verisimilitude is the latter presented that one imagines, the day after reading the book, that he has been present at the pleasant function, and has admired the fluffy darlings, in their dainty costumes, with their chubby cavaliers.
It is barely fair to an author to give him the credit of knowing something about the proper relative proportions of his characters. And so, although Dr. Deberle is somewhat shadowy, he certainly serves the author’s purpose, and — well, Dr. Deberle is not the hero of “An Episode of Love.” Rambaud and the good Abbe Jouve are certainly strong enough. There seems to be a touch of Dickens about them.
Cities sometimes seem to be great organisms. Each has an individuality, a specific identity, so marked, and peculiarities so especially characteristic of itself, that one might almost allow it a soul. Down through the centuries has fair Lutetia come, growing in the artistic graces, until now she stands the playground of princes and the capital of the world, even as mighty Rome among the ancients. And shall we object, because a few pages of “A Love Episode” are devoted to descriptions of Paris? Rather let us be thankful for them. These descriptions of the wonderful old city form a glorious pentatych. They are invaluable to two classes of readers, those who have visited Paris and those who have not. To the former they recall the days in which the spirit of the French metropolis seemed to possess their being and to take them under its wondrous spell. To the latter they supply hints of the majesty and attractiveness of Paris, and give some inkling of its power to please. And Zola loved his Paris as a sailor loves the sea.
C. C. STARKWEATHER. C. C. STARKWEATHER.
NANA
Translated by John Stirling
This famous novel was written in 1880, forming the ninth instalment in the
Les Rougon-Macquart
cycle. The novel was an immediate success.
Le Voltai
re, the French newspaper that was to publish it in instalments from October, 1879, had launched a lavish advertising campaign, raising the curiosity of the reading public to a fever pitch. When Charpentier finally published
Nana
in book form in February 1880, the first edition of 55,000 copies was sold out in a single day.
Nana
tells the story of Nana Coupeau’s rise from streetwalker to high-class cocotte during the last three years of the French Second Empire. The character Nana first appeared in the end of
L’Assommoir
, in which she was portrayed as the daughter of an abusive drunk; reduced to beginning a life of prostitution. The novel opens with a night at the Théâtre des Variétés, when
The Exposition Universelle
— the second world fair to be held in Paris, from April 1 to November 3, 1867 — has just opened its doors. Nana is fifteen years old when she gives her lead performance in
La Blonde Vénus
, a fictional operetta modelled on Offenbach’s
La Belle Hélène
. Though she has never been seen on a stage, all Paris is talking about her. Her performance captivates the audience and is a great success. The novel then charts Nana’s career of dominating and defeating every man that pursues her.
Official view of Exposition Universelle, 1867
Nana portrayed onscreen by Martine Carol
One of the many advertising posters promoting the novel
The first edition title page
Édouard Manet’s famous 1877 depiction of Nana
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIV
Poster of the film adaptation by Jean Renoir
Original poster for the film adaptation of 1955
CHAPTER I
At nine o’clock in the evening the body of the house at the Theatres des Varietes was still all but empty. A few individuals, it is true, were sitting quietly waiting in the balcony and stalls, but these were lost, as it were, among the ranges of seats whose coverings of cardinal velvet loomed in the subdued light of the dimly burning luster. A shadow enveloped the great red splash of the curtain, and not a sound came from the stage, the unlit footlights, the scattered desks of the orchestra. It was only high overhead in the third gallery, round the domed ceiling where nude females and children flew in heavens which had turned green in the gaslight, that calls and laughter were audible above a continuous hubbub of voices, and heads in women’s and workmen’s caps were ranged, row above row, under the wide-vaulted bays with their gilt-surrounding adornments. Every few seconds an attendant would make her appearance, bustling along with tickets in her hand and piloting in front of her a gentleman and a lady, who took their seats, he in his evening dress, she sitting slim and undulant beside him while her eyes wandered slowly round the house.
Two young men appeared in the stalls; they kept standing and looked about them.
“Didn’t I say so, Hector?” cried the elder of the two, a tall fellow with little black mustaches. “We’re too early! You might quite well have allowed me to finish my cigar.”
An attendant was passing.
“Oh, Monsieur Fauchery,” she said familiarly, “it won’t begin for half an hour yet!”
“Then why do they advertise for nine o’clock?” muttered Hector, whose long thin face assumed an expression of vexation. “Only this morning Clarisse, who’s in the piece, swore that they’d begin at nine o’clock punctually.”