quote other authorities, against opinions one can bring other opinions, against deductions other deductions. But for Zola such opinion is decided. There is only one grandmother Adelaïde, or grandfather Jacques, on whom everything depends. From that point begins, according to my opinion, the bad influence of the writer, because he not only decides difficult questions to be decided once and forever, but he popularizes them and facilitates the corruption of society. No matter if every thief or every murderer can appeal to a grandmother with nervousness. Courts, notwithstanding the cycle of Rougon-Macquart, will place them behind bars. The evil is not in single cases, but in this, that into the human soul a bad pessimism and depression flows, that the charm of life is destroyed, the hope, the energy, the liking for life, and therefore all effort in the direction of good is shattered.
A quoi bon? Such is the question coming by itself. A book is also an activity, forming human souls. If at least the reader would find in Zola's book the bad and good side of human life in an equal proportion, or at least in such as one can find it in reality! Vain hope! One must climb high in order to get colors from a rainbow or sunset – but everybody has saliva in his mouth and it is easy to paint with it. This naturalist prefers cheap effects more than others do; he prefers mildew to perfumes, la bête humaine to l'âme humaine!
If we could bring an inhabitant of Venus or Mars to the earth and ask him to judge of life on the earth from Zola's novels, he would say most assuredly: "This life is sometimes quite pure, like 'Le Rève,' but in general it is a thing which smells bad, is slippery, moist, dreadful." And even if the theories on which Zola has based his works were, as they are not, acknowledged truths, what a lack of pity to represent life in such a way to the people, who must live just the same! Does he do it in order to ruin, to disgust, to poison every action, to paralyze every energy, to discourage all thinking? In the presence of that, we are even sorry that he has a talent. It would have been better for him, for France, that he had not had it. And one wonders that he is not frightened, that when a fear seizes even those who did not lead to corruption, he alone with such a tranquillity finishes his Rougon-Macquart as if he had strengthened the capacity for life of the French people instead of having destroyed it. How is it possible that he cannot understand that people brought up on such corrupted bread and drinking, such bad water, not only will be unable to resist the storm, but even they will not have an inclination to do so! Musset has written in his time this famous verse: "We had already your German Rhine." Zola brings up his society in such a way that, if everything that he planted would take root, the second of Musset's verses would be: "But to-day we will give you even the Seine." But it is not as bad as that. "La Débâcle" is a remarkable book, notwithstanding all its faults, but the soldiers, who will read it, will be defeated by those who in the night sing: "Glory, Glory, Halleluia!"
I consider Zola's talent as a national misfortune, and I am glad that his times are passing away, that even the most zealous pupils abandon the master who stands alone more and more.
Will humanity remember him in literature? Will his fame pass? We cannot affirm, but we can doubt! In the cycle of Rougon-Macquart there are powerful volumes, as "Germinal" or "La Débâcle." But in general, that which Zola's natural talent made for his immortality was spoiled by a liking for dirty realism and his filthy language. Literature cannot use such expressions of which even peasants are ashamed. The real truth, if the question is about vicious people, can be attained by other means, by probable reproduction of the state of their souls, thoughts, deeds, finally by the run of their conversation, but not by verbal quotation of their swearings and most horrid words. As in the choice of pictures, so in the choice of expression, exist certain measures, pointed at by reason and good taste. Zola overstepped it to such a degree ("La Terre") to which nobody yet dared to approach. Monsters are killed because they are monsters. A book which is the cause of disgust must be abandoned. It is the natural order of things. From old production as of universal literature survive the forgetfulness of the rough productions, destined to excite laughter (Aristophanes, Rabelais, etc.), or lascivious things, but written with an elegance (Boccaccio). Not one book written in order to excite nausea outlived. Zola, for the sake of the renown caused by his works, for the sake of the scandal produced by every one of his volumes, killed his future. On account of that happened a strange thing: it happened that he, a man writing according to a conceived plan, writing with deliberation, cold and possessing his subjects as very few writers are, created good things only when he had the least opportunity to realize his plans, doctrines, means, – in a word, when he dominated the subject the least and was dominated by the subject most.
Such was the case in "Germinal" and "La Débâcle." The immensity of socialism and the immensity of the war simply crushed Zola with all his mental apparatus. His doctrines became very small in the presence of such dimensions, and hardly any one hears of them in the noise of the deluge, overflowing the mine and in the thundering of Prussian cannons; only talent remained. Therefore in both those books there are pages worthy of Dante. Quite a different thing happened with "Docteur Pascal." Being the last volume of the cycle, it was bound to be the last deduction, from the whole work the synthesis of the doctrine, the belfry of the whole building. Consequently in this volume Zola speaks more about doctrine than in any other previous volume; as the doctrine is bad, wicked, and false, therefore "Docteur Pascal" is the worst and most tedious book of all the cycle of Rougon-Macquart. It is a series of empty leaves on which tediousness is hand in hand with lack of moral sense, it is a pale picture full of falsehood – such is "Le Docteur Pascal." Zola wishes to have him an honest man. He is the outcast of the family Rougon-Macquart. In heredity there happens such lucky degenerations; the doctor knows about it, he considers himself as a happy exception, and it is for him a source of continuous inward pleasure. In the mean while, he loves people, serves them and sells them his medicine, which cures all possible disease. He is a sweet sage, who studies life, therefore he gathers "human documents," builds laboriously the genealogical tree of the family of Rougon-Macquart, whose descendant he is himself, and on the strength of his observations he comes to the same conclusion as Zola. To which? It is difficult to answer the question; but here it is more or less: if any one is not well, usually he is sick and that heredity exists, but mothers and fathers who come from other families can bring into the blood of children new elements; in that way heredity can be modified to such a degree that strictly speaking it does not exist.
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