The Masterpiece

by Émile Zola

  One day, when Jacques was crying and refusing to pose for his father, Christine said gently:

  ‘You tire him, poor darling. That’s what’s the matter with him.’

  Then Claude was angry with himself and overcome with remorse.

  ‘Why yes, I suppose I do,’ he said. ‘I’m a fool to insist. Children aren’t made for that sort of thing.’

  Spring and summer went gently by, though Claude and Christine did not go about so much now and practically never went boating at all, as it was quite a problem taking the child out to the islands; so the boat was left to rot in the water. One thing they often did, however, was to wander slowly down the river bank, though rarely very far afield. Claude had tired of painting the garden and turned now to the riverside for subjects. On the days he was out painting Christine and the boy would go out to meet him and all three would saunter gently back home in the growing dusk. One afternoon she surprised him by turning up with her own old painting-book. She made a joke of it and pretended it reminded her of old times to be sitting behind him, painting her own picture. Her voice trembled a little as she spoke, for the truth was that she felt she had to claim a share in his work, as she felt that work was taking him from her more and more every day. With her meticulous school-girl hand she did a little drawing and a water-colour or two, then, discouraged by his smiles and feeling that this was ground on which they would never really meet, she stopped bringing her painting-book, but forced him to promise he would give her painting lessons later, when he had time.

  What was more, she liked his latest canvases. After a whole year’s rest in the open country and in pure, unsullied daylight, he was painting as with a renewed vision, producing something lighter, livelier, more harmonious in tone. Never before had he shown such handling of reflections, such a true feeling for people and things bathed in diffused light. Now, won over by the feast of colour he provided, she would have been prepared to say his painting was good if only he would finish it off a little more, and if she had occasionally not been taken aback to see him paint mauve soil and blue trees, which rather upset her firm ideas about colouring. One day, when she ventured to criticize him for painting in a blue poplar, he showed her on the spot the delicate blue cast of the leaves, and she had to agree with him that the tree really did look blue. In her heart of hearts, however, she refused to accept the fact. She was convinced that, in nature, there was no such thing as a blue tree.

  She was always very serious now when she talked about the pictures he hung on their dining-room walls. Art was regaining its place in their lives, and it gave her much to think about. Sometimes, when she saw him ready to start out with his bag, his stick, and his sunshade, she would fling her arms round his neck and say:

  ‘You do love me, don’t you, Claude?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, of course I do. Why should you think I don’t?’

  ‘Kiss me then, and show me you do! Kiss me! Kiss me!’

  As she accompanied him out into the road she would say:

  ‘Off you go and work now. I’ve never tried to stop you working, you know. … I like it when you work.’

  During their second autumn in the country, with the first nip in the air and the first yellow leaves on the trees Claude began to grow more and more restless. The weather was atrocious; for a whole fortnight he was kept hanging about the house because of torrential rain; after that, fog began seriously to hinder his work out of doors. So he would sit gloomily in front of the fire, and, although he never spoke about Paris, he could feel it was there, on the horizon, winter Paris, with its gas-lamps all ablaze at five in the afternoon, its gatherings of friends and their keen competitive spirit, its wealth of production unhindered even by December’s icy blasts. Three times in one month he went there on the pretext of seeing Malgras, to whom he had sold a few more pictures. He stopped going out of his way to avoid the Faucheurs’ inn; he even let himself be held up by old Poirette and now and then accepted a glass of white wine. In the inn he would peer about the place as if he expected to come upon some of his old friends, out from Paris that morning, in spite of the weather; he would linger there in expectation, only to have to go back home in desperate solitude, stifling with what was boiling up inside him, sick with the need for someone to whom he could cry aloud what was ready to burst his brain.

  Winter came and went, and Claude had at least the consolation of being able to paint some lovely snow effects. A third year was beginning when, towards the end of May, he was profoundly upset by an unexpected meeting. It happened one morning when he had gone up to the plateau in search of a subject, having tired of the banks of the Seine. At a sudden bend in the lane that ran between two hedges of elder bushes he was dumbfounded to find himself face to face with Dubuche wearing a silk hat and looking very correct in a tight-waisted frock-coat.

  ‘Well, of all people!’ cried Claude.

  Dubuche was so flustered he hardly knew what to say.

  ‘I’m just going to pay a call,’ he mumbled. ‘Sounds silly, doesn’t it, calling in the country? Still, there are things that have to be done, so there we are! … What about you? Do you live up this way? I thought you did … at least I’d heard something of the sort, but I thought it was further down, somehow, on the other bank.’

  Claude was very agitated but he managed to help Dubuche out of his difficulty.

  ‘Now there’s no need for you to make excuses, old fellow. I’m the one who ought to apologize. … It’s a long time since we last met, isn’t it? You can’t imagine the way my heart thumped when I saw you nosing your way through the greenery!’

  Grinning with pleasure, he took Dubuche’s arm and began to walk along beside him. Full of his own affairs as usual, Dubuche could never stop talking about himself, so he started at once to talk about his future. He had taken a first-class pass at the Beaux-Arts, after working his way painfully through all the usual intermediary grades. But success had not solved his problems. His parents never sent him a penny now; all they did was to cry poverty in the hope that he would help to support them. He had given up the idea of trying for the Prix de Rome as he was sure he would be beaten, and he was in a hurry to start earning his living. But he had had enough of it already; he was sick of doing odd jobs at one franc twenty-five an hour for ignorant architects who treated him simply as a drudge. He did not know what to do for the best, which was the shortest route to take. If he left the Beaux-Arts, he would be well backed by his tutor, the powerful Duquersonnière, who liked him because he was docile and a plodder, but that would only mean a lot more hard work, as there was no obvious future in it. He complained bitterly of State schools where you could slave away for years, but which did not even promise jobs for all the pupils they turned out.

  Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of the path; the elder hedges were petering out into the open plain, and ‘La Richaudière’, with all its big trees, was coming into view.

  ‘Ah, of course!’ cried Claude. ‘I might have known! You’re going to the lair, to see those disgusting-looking monsters!’

  Very annoyed by Claude’s outburst, Dubuche bridled as he answered:

  ‘You may think old man Margaillan’s a fool, but he’s a good man at his job. You ought to see him at it, supervising his building, you’d be surprised at his energy. Besides, he has an amazing gift for good management and a marvellous flair for picking his site and knowing exactly what materials to buy. Anyhow, to make millions, like he does, you’ve got to have something about you. I know one thing, and that is I should be a fool not to be polite to a man who can be useful to me.’

  As he spoke, he took up his stand in the middle of the narrow lane, preventing his friend from going any further, clearly because he was afraid he would be compromised if they were seen together and also to make him understand that this was where they had to take their leave.

  Claude was going to ask him about their friends in Paris, but he did not. Not a word was said about Christine either. He had quite made up his mind to leave Dubuche
and was ready to shake his hand when, in spite of himself, the question slipped out:

  ‘How’s Sandoz?’

  ‘Oh, all right. … I don’t see much of him. … He mentioned you last time I saw him, a month ago. He’s still sorry you turned your back on us.’

  ‘But I didn’t turn my back on you!’ retorted Claude angrily. ‘I want you to come and see me! You can’t imagine how pleased I’d be!’

  ‘If that’s what you want, we’ll come! I’ll tell Sandoz to come, too! … I must be off now, I haven’t much time. Goodbye, goodbye,’ said Dubuche as he made off towards ‘La Richaudière’, while Claude stood watching the glint of his silk hat and the black patch of his frock-coat grow smaller and smaller as he hurried across the fields. Claude ambled slowly back home, his heart inexplicably heavy. He said nothing to Christine about his encounter.

  About a week later Christine had been down to the Faucheurs’ to buy a pound of vermicelli and was dawdling on the way back talking to a neighbour with the child on her arm when a man who had just come over by the ferry came up to her and said:

  ‘This is the way to Monsieur Claude Lantier’s house, I believe?’

  She was surprised, but answered simply:

  ‘Yes, it is, monsieur. If you would care to follow me. …’

  They walked on side by side for a time, and the stranger, who appeared to know her, gave her a friendly smile; but as she tended to hurry ahead, hiding her confusion by looking very serious, he did not try to make conversation. She opened the door and showed him into the living-room, saying as she did so:

  ‘Claude, here’s someone to see you.’

  With one great shout of joy the two men fell on each other’s neck.

  ‘Dear old Pierre! How splendid of you to come! … Where’s Dubuche?’

  ‘Detained on business at the last minute. He sent me a telegram telling me to start out without him.’

  ‘I see, but I’m not surprised really. … You’re here, and God knows I’m glad to see you!’ said Claude. Then, turning towards Christine, who was smiling now to see them both so happy, he went on:

  ‘Why, it’s true, of course, I never told you. I met Dubuche the other day on his way up to the big house to call on the monsters. … But what am I thinking about?’ he cried, clutching his brow as if he had suddenly remembered something. ‘You two don’t know each other, and here am I doing nothing about it! … Darling, the gentleman you see before you is my old friend Pierre Sandoz. I love him as a brother. … And this, Pierre old fellow, is the woman in my life. … And now you’re going to kiss each other and be friends!’

  With a jolly laugh Christine readily offered her cheek. She had taken to Sandoz at once. She liked his affability, his staunch sincerity, and the sympathetic, almost fatherly way he looked at her. Tears welled into her eyes as he held both her hands in his and said to her:

  ‘I’m glad to know you’re fond of Claude. You must always be fond of each other. It’s the finest thing that can happen to anybody.’

  Then, as he bent down to kiss the baby in her arms, he said:

  ‘So this is the first, already.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the first,’ said Claude, with a vague, apologetic gesture. ‘What can you do? The creatures seem to be there almost before you know they’re coming!’

  Claude and Sandoz stayed talking in the living-room, whilst Christine was turning the kitchen upside down in preparation for lunch.

  In a few words Claude told their story, who she was, how he had met her, what had led them to set up house together. He seemed most surprised when his friend wanted to know why they did not get married.

  Married? Why, they had never so much as mentioned the subject, and Christine did not even seem keen on it. Besides, what difference would it make so long as they were happy? Did it matter, anyhow?

  ‘It’s your affair,’ said Sandoz, ‘and it certainly doesn’t worry me. Still, she’s been yours from the start, you ought to make an honest woman of her.’

  ‘I’m ready when she is,’ said Claude. ‘Though I shouldn’t think of leaving her in the lurch with a youngster on her hands.’

  Sandoz changed the subject and began to sing the praises of the pictures hanging on the walls. The rascal hadn’t wasted his time, obviously! There was colouring for you, and look at that now for sunlight! Delighted, and with occasional laughs of conscious pride, Claude listened to Sandoz’s eulogies, and was on the point of asking him about the rest of their friends and their doings when Christine came in calling:

  ‘Come quickly now, the eggs are on the table!’

  They had lunch in the kitchen and an extraordinary lunch it was. Boiled eggs followed by fried gudgeon, then last night’s boiled beef done up in a salad with potatoes and a red herring. It was delicious, eating in the strong, appetizing odour of the herring which Mélie had tossed on the coals, with the coffee splashing slowly but noisily through its filter on the hob. By the time dessert was brought on, strawberries fresh from the garden, cheese from a neighbouring dairy, all three had their elbows on the table, engrossed in conversation. Paris? What were the others doing in Paris? Oh, nothing particularly new, really. Still, they were putting up a pretty good fight to see who would get to the top of the tree first. Of course, people who stayed away from Paris were making a sad mistake; Paris was the place to be if you didn’t want to be forgotten altogether. But surely talent would out, wherever it was, and didn’t success depend to a great extent on strength of will? Oh, there was no doubt about it that the ideal was to live in the country and pile up masterpieces and then go back to Paris and swamp it with them!

  In the evening, as Claude was escorting him to the station, Sandoz said to him:

  ‘By the way, I’m going to let you into a secret. … I think I’m going to get married.’

  Immediately Claude laughed.

  ‘So that’s your game, is it? That accounts for your sermon this morning!’

  They went on talking till the train was due. Sandoz explained what he thought about marriage. It was the essential condition, he said, for the good, solid, regular work required of anyone who meant to produce anything worth while today. Woman seeking whom she may devour, Woman who kills the Artist, grinds down his heart, and eats out his brain was a Romantic idea and not in accordance with the facts. He himself felt the need of an affection to safeguard his peace of mind and a sympathetic home in which he could live in cloistered seclusion and give up his whole life to the vast work he had so long dreamed of. Everything, he added, depended on the wife one chose, and he thought he had found what he was looking for: a simple girl, the orphan of small business people without a penny to her name, but good-looking and intelligent. Since he gave up his office job six months ago, he had made some headway in journalism and found it more remunerative too. He had just settled his mother into a little house in the Batignolles where he was looking forward to having the two women to cherish him and to being able to support the three of them by his own efforts.

  ‘You get married by all means,’ said Claude. ‘One should always do what one thinks is best. … Well, goodbye for the present; here’s your train. Don’t forget, now, you promise to come and see us again.’

  Sandoz did go to see them again many times. He would often drop in uninvited when his newspaper left him any leisure and while he was still single; he was not to be married until the autumn. It meant happy days again for them all, whole afternoons spent exchanging confidences, a re-awakening of their old desire for fame.

  One day, when he was alone with Claude, lying out on one of the islands, gazing into the blue, he confessed his great ambition.

  ‘A newspaper is simply a battleground, if you see what I mean. A man has to live, and to live he has to fight. The Press, whatever one thinks of it, and however much you may dislike working for it, is a power to be reckoned with, an invincible weapon in the hands of a chap who has the courage of his convictions. … Just now I’m forced into using it myself, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of
my days in journalism. Far from it! No, my plans are made. I’ve found what I’ve been looking for for a long time. It may turn out to be killing work, and once I’ve plunged into it I may never get out of it, but I’m going to do it.’

  There was a silence, for not even the leaves stirred in the heat, and then he spoke again, more slowly now, and in more disjointed sentences:

  ‘Look. This is the idea: to study man as he really is. Not this metaphysical marionette they’ve made us believe he is, but the physiological human being, determined by his surroundings, motivated by the functioning of his organs. … Don’t you think it’s a farce, the way they’ve concentrated their studies exclusively on the brain and its functions and pretend that the brain is the noblest of the human organs? … Thought, now. What is thought, in God’s name, but the product of the entire body? Can they get a brain to think all by itself? What happens to the “nobility” of the brain when its owner has belly-ache? … No, the whole thing’s ridiculous! Philosophy’s behind the times. So is science. We call ourselves positivists and evolutionists, and yet our man is still the literary manikin of the classicists and we still go on trying to comb out the tangled hairs of pure reason! To be a psychologist is to be a traitor to truth. Besides, “psychology”, “physiology”, what do they mean really? Just nothing. They’ve overflowed into each other to such an extent that they’ve become one, and human mechanism has come to be the sum total of human functions. … That’s the point we start from, the only possible basis for our modern revolution. The inevitable death of the old conception of society and the birth of a new society, and that means a new art is bound to spring up in the new ground. … Oh, that’s bound to happen! A new literature for the coming century of science and democracy!’