This striking work, now published for the first time in England, but a hundred thousand copies whereof have been sold in France, is one of the most powerful novels that M. émile Zola has written. It will be doubly interesting to English readers, because for them it forms a missing link in the famous Rougon-Macquart series.
The student of Zola literature will remember in the Assommoir that "handsome Lantier whose heartlessness was to cost Gervaise so many tears." Jacques Lantier, the chief character in this Bête Humaine, this Human Animal which I have ventured to call the Monomaniac, is one of their children. It is he who is the monomaniac. His monomania consists in an irresistible prurience for murder, and his victims must be women, just like that baneful criminal who was performing his hideous exploits in the streets of the city of London in utter defiance of the police, about the time M. Zola sat down to pen this remarkable novel, and from whom, maybe, he partly took the idea.
Every woman this Jacques Lantier falls in love with, nay, every girl from whom he culls a kiss, or whose bare shoulders or throat he happens to catch a glimpse of, he feels an indomitable craving to slaughter! And this abominable thirst is, it appears, nothing less than an irresistible desire to avenge[Pg vi] certain wrongs of which he has lost the exact account, that have been handed down to him, through the males of his line, since that distant age when prehistoric man found shelter in the depths of caverns.
Around this peculiar being, who in other respects is like any ordinary mortal, M. émile Zola has grouped some very carefully studied characters. All are drawn with a firm, masterly hand; all live and breathe. Madame Lebleu, caught with her ear to the keyhole, is worthy of Dickens. So is Aunt Phasie, who has engaged in a desperate underhand struggle with her wretch of a husband about a miserable hoard of ￡40 which he wants to lay hands on. The idea of the jeering smile on her lips, which seem to be repeating to him, "Search! search!" as she lies a corpse on her bed in the dim light of a tallow candle, is inimitable.
The unconscious Séverine is but one of thousands of pretty Frenchwomen tripping along the asphalt at this hour, utterly unable to distinguish between right and wrong, who are ready to do anything, to sell themselves body and soul for a little ease, a few smart frocks, and some dainty linen. The warrior girl Flore, who thrashes the males, is a grand conception.
But the gem of the whole bunch is that obstinate, narrow-minded, self-sufficient examining-magistrate, M. Denizet; and in dealing with this character, the author lays bare all the abominable system of French criminal procedure. Recently this was modified to the extent of allowing the accused party to have the assistance of counsel while undergoing the torture of repeated searching cross-examinations at the hands of his tormentor. But in the days of which M. émile Zola is writing, the prisoner enjoyed no such protection. He stood alone in the room with the examining-magistrate[Pg vii] and his registrar, and while the former craftily laid traps for him to fall into, the latter carefully took down his replies to the incriminating questions addressed to him. It positively makes one shudder to think how many innocent men must have been sent to the guillotine, or to penal servitude for life, like poor Cabuche, during the length of years this atrocious practice remained in full vigour!
The English reader, accustomed to open, even-handed justice for one and all alike, and unfamiliar with the ways that prevail in France, will start with amazement and incredulity at the idea of shelving criminal cases to avoid scandal involving persons in high position. But such is by no means an uncommon proceeding on the other side of the straits. Georges Ohnet introduces a similar incident into his novel Le Droit de l\'Enfant.
M. émile Zola has made most of his books a study of some particular sphere of life in France. In this instance he introduces his readers to the railway and railway servants. They are all there, from the station-master to the porter, and all are depicted with so skilful a hand that anyone who has travelled among our neighbours must recognise them.
By frequent runs on an express engine between Paris and Havre, and vice versa, the author has mastered all the complicated mechanism of the locomotive; and we see his trains vividly as in reality, starting from the termini, gliding along the lofty embankments, through the deep cuttings, plunging into and bursting from the tunnels amidst the deafening riot of their hundred wheels, while the dumpy habitation of the gatekeeper, Misard, totters on its frail foundations as they fly by in a hurricane blast.
The story teems with incident from start to finish. Each chapter is a drama in itself. To name but a few of the[Pg viii] exciting events that are dealt with: there is a murder in a railway carriage; an appalling railway accident; a desperate fight between driver and fireman on the foot-plate of a locomotive, which ends in both going over the side to be cut to pieces, while the long train of cattle-trucks, under no control, crammed full of inebriated soldiers on their way to the war, who are yelling patriotic songs, dashes along, full steam, straight ahead, with a big fire just made up, onward; to stop, no one knows where.
This is certainly one of the best and most dramatic novels that M. émile Zola has ever penned; and I feel lively pleasure at having the good fortune to be able, with the assistance of my enterprising publishers, to present it to the English reading public.
Edward Vizetelly.
Surbiton,
August 20, 1901.