Finally, in 1884, M. Zola published a fourth collection, named, after the first of the series, Naïs Micoulin. This volume contained in all six stories, each of considerable extent. I do not propose to dwell at any length on the contents of this book, partly because they belong to the finished period of naturalism, and seem more like castaway fragments of the Rougon-Macquart epos than like independent creations, but also because they clash with the picture I have sought to draw of an optimistic and romantic Zola returning from time to time to the short story as a shelter from his theories. Of these tales, one or two are trifling and passably insipid; the Parisian sketches called “Nantas” and “Madame Neigon” have little to be said in favour of their existence. Here M. Zola seems desirous to prove to us that he could write as good Octave Feuillet, if he chose, as the author of Monsieur de Camors himself. In “Les Coquillages de M. Chabre,” which I confess I read when it first appeared, and have now re-read, with amusement, we see the heavy M. Zola endeavouring to sport as gracefully as M. de Maupassant, and in the same style. The impression of buoyant Atlantic seas and hollow caverns is well rendered in this most unedifying story. “Naïs Micoulin,” which gives its name to the book, is a disagreeable tale of seduction and revenge in Provence, narrated with the usual ponderous conscientiousness. In each of the last mentioned the background of landscape is so vivid that we half forgive the faults of the narrative.
The two remaining stories in the book are more remarkable, and one of them, at least, is of positive value. It is curious that in “Le Mort d’Olivier Bécaille” and “Jacques Damour” M. Zola should in the same volume present versions of the Enoch Arden story, the now familiar episode of the man who is supposed to be dead, and comes back to find his wife re-married. Olivier Bécaille is a poor clerk, lately arrived in Paris with his wife; he is in wretched health, and has always been subject to cataleptic seizures. In one of these he falls into a state of syncope so prolonged that they believe him to be dead, and bury him. He manages to break out of his coffin in the cemetery, and is picked up fainting by a philanthropic doctor. He has a long illness, at the end of which he cannot discover what has become of his wife. After a long search, he finds that she has married a very excellent young fellow, a neighbour; and in the face of her happiness, Olivier Bécaille has not the courage to disturb her. Like Tennyson’s “strong, heroic soul,” he passes out into the silence and the darkness.
The exceedingly powerful story called “Jacques Damour” treats the same idea, but with far greater mastery, and in a less conventional manner. Jacques Damour is a Parisian artisan, who becomes demoralised during the siege, and joins the Commune. He is captured by the Versailles army, and sentenced to penal servitude in New Caledonia, leaving a wife and a little girl behind him in Paris. After some years, in company with two or three other convicts, he makes an attempt to escape. He, in fact, succeeds in escaping, with one companion, the rest being drowned before they get out of the colony. One of the dead men being mistaken for him, Jacques Damour is reported home deceased. When, after credible adventures, and at the declaration of the amnesty, he returns to Paris, his wife and daughter have disappeared. At length he finds the former married to a prosperous butcher in the Batignolles, and he summons up courage, egged on by a rascally friend, to go to the shop in midday and claim his lawful wife. The successive scenes in the shop, and the final one, in which the ruddy butcher, sure of his advantage over this squalid and prematurely wasted ex-convict, bids Félicie take her choice, are superb. M. Zola has done nothing more forcible or life-like. The poor old Damour retires, but he still has a daughter to discover. The finale of the tale is excessively unfitted for the young person, and no serious critic could do otherwise than blame it. But, at the same time, I am hardened enough to admit that I think it very true to life and not a little humorous, which, I hope, is not equivalent to a moral commendation. We may, if we like, wish that M. Zola had never written “Jacques Damour,” but nothing can prevent it from being a superbly constructed and supported piece of narrative, marred by unusually few of the mechanical faults of his later work.
Since 1884 M. Zola, more and more absorbed in the completion of his huge central edifice, has not found time to build many arbours or pavilions in his literary garden. No one can possibly say what such an active and forcible talent, still in the prime of life, will or will not do in the future. But it is very probable that the day of his sentimental short stories is over, and that those who like the oddity of studying a moonlight-coloured Zola are already in full possession of the materials for so doing.
Edmund Gosse.
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL
I.
It was high holiday at Father Merlier’s mill on that pleasant summer afternoon. Three tables had been brought out into the garden and placed end to end in the shadow of the great elm, and now they were awaiting the arrival of the guests. It was known throughout the length and breadth of the land that that day was to witness the betrothal of old Merlier’s daughter, Françoise, to Dominique, a young man who was said to be not overfond of work, but whom never a woman for three leagues of the country around could look at without sparkling eyes, such a well-favoured young fellow was he.