Émile Zola
Chapter Twenty-Five
A knock on Zola’s front door startled me. “Are you expecting someone?”
“The chimney man is coming to clean it out.”
A large barrel-chested man with a dark beard and greasy hair falling into his eyes entered wearing stained white coveralls. Black worn smudges were apparent on his hands, from a job I assumed he had just come from. There was something about him that made me shiver. Walking behind Zola, en route to the hearth, I caught sight of the glare he shot into Zola’s back and it gave me a bad feeling. I’d seen that look on men trying to ascend into his carriage, throwing rocks through his windows, and screaming obscenities at him on the streets. My limbs grew cold as Zola, oblivious to the ill intent this man concealed, led him through his home, past Alexandrine and Jacques to where he was to work.
I rubbed the back of my neck to release the tension it held and asked Alexandrine, “Has he ever done work here? I’ve never seen him before.”
“No, he’s new,” she smiled.
“How did you come upon hiring him?”
She sat up straighter and asked, “Why?”
“Just a feeling,” I replied.
“I don’t know how Émile found him,” she said as she looked up at him approaching. “How did we hire him?” she asked.
Zola’s face twitched, a nervous habit of late. “He’s a poor man, hard on his luck, going door-to-door looking for work.”
“He is a stranger?” I asked.
“Not any longer,” Zola smiled. Then he turned serious. “What is all this fuss over a chimney sweep?”
Overthinking my reaction, I invalidated instinct, and apologized for upsetting Zola and his wife. “Just a thought,” I replied.
Without querying what I had in mind, “We can certainly do with less thinking,” Zola laughed, “that doesn’t serve us well.”
Laughter melted my anxiety and I ignored the man for the rest of the hour he was there, mostly outside. When it was time for me to leave, Jacques walked around the house to close the windows. Feeling most vulnerable while they slept, Zola and his wife shut and locked them all year round, a habit Zola regretted for he loved inhaling the fresh night air. It wasn’t winter yet and the fireplace would not be needed, but when the temperature chilled, they used it to keep warm.
I reflected on Zola’s supportive arrangement with Alexandrine, whom he was living with, and smiled. When it was safe to do so, he would spend time with Jeanne and the children. With every incidence of attack, his worry about his children’s welfare intensified. “It was best to put space between us,” he told me. “It is my love for them that requires I do this. And Alexandrine has been most generous through the years.” I made my way home that night, grateful another day had been granted to all of us.
§ § § §
As days ran into months, Zola felt France was passing through the great French divide. The embarrassment had quieted and although threats were still made on Zola’s life, active incidents had slowed. Feeling his work now centered elsewhere, his focus shifted to writing about capital and labor problems. He believed that the elixir for many ills was work. Influenced by the events in France, he advocated for equality and opportunity for everyone and the removal of the burdens imposed by the military and the old political force still shadowing the new regime. The movement he involved himself in dealt with comprehensive realism. Zola suggested that social conditions, heredity, and the environment all had an inevitable impact in shaping human character. My dear friend created this term—naturalism—as an outgrowth of literary realism.
The characteristics of naturalism defined Zola after the Dreyfus Affair: pessimism, and the opposite of free will, determinism. He asserted that his newly introduced fiction writing involved characters and stories based on the scientific method. Through the passing seasons, he liked to defend his new style of writing in one-sided debates, garnering supporters and eliminating some of the opposition. He laughed at the easy feat, knowing we who appreciated him were of like mind anyway.
The days of laughter became more frequent, not unlike my first months with the small child Émile and his parents. The boy had become the man, still verbose and ever brilliant. And not unlike those early days when the laughter ended, the amusement also came to an abrupt end when 62-year-old Émile Zola died of carbon monoxide poisoning, shocking everyone who knew and loved him.
Would there ever be justice for the man who gave his life in the pursuit of that very ideal.
When you have sorrow that is too great it leaves no room for any other.
Émile Zola
Chapter Twenty-Six
The circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Émile Zola were suspicious. Zola had been out with his wife for a visit to the countryside. Upon returning to their Paris home, the rainy frigid day prompted them to light a fire in their bedroom. Due to the continued death threats on Zola’s life, the windows in their home remained shut while they slept. That night the coal fire emitted carbon monoxide gas which overcame them. Zola made an attempt to open the window but collapsed before reaching it.
The next morning when the servants rose and the Zolas were still in their bedroom, they knew something was clearly wrong. The door was forced open and Zola was found nearly dead on the floor with Alexandrine unconsciousness on the bed. Doctors were urgently summoned, and upon arrival they gave Zola artificial resuscitation. They were too late. He was dead. Alexandrine was taken to a clinic, and once recovered sent word for me to come. Blood drained from my head and I felt faint as she told me what had happened. She asked that I go to Jeanne and the children, Denise and Jacques, to tell them.
The shock hadn’t settled in. Disbelief consumed me. The fact that he was gone was too unreal. As I relayed what had been told to me, I felt as if I was submerged under water, unable to catch my breath, living in an altered world.
Lightheaded from the news, Jeanne lost her balance and fell back screaming, “He’s been murdered!” She was not the only one to suspect foul play. I did as well. Zola had made rabid enemies on the political right with his attacks on those in power over the Dreyfus Affair.
While I walked from Jeanne’s home, Zola’s image burned in my brain. I thought of my friend, my dearest one, who would no longer show his face and speak his words upon this earth. The ache in my chest gave way to a feeling that this might be my last day as well—death from a broken heart. The past came floating before me in slow movement and with it came the tears I could no longer contain. The street was empty but for a few stragglers; not a word about Zola was spoken for the news had not yet hit the press and public opinion. I wanted to be as far away from those who hated him for dread of what action I might take should a word be uttered against him. I made it home and tried to put food in my belly, but was instantly sick. There was no room inside me for anything but pain.
It was a mournful day when his body lay in an open coffin surrounded by flowers in his Paris house. I sat staring at the body, waiting for him to move, still in disbelief. My attention was distracted when Alfred Dreyfus entered to pay his respects and, in that moment, a strange energy moved through me, as if Zola was trying to make contact. I could almost hear the words, “The truth will come out and you shall regain your honor, Captain Dreyfus.”
Dreyfus stood by the coffin, shook his head, and took several slow breaths. Turning to leave, our eyes pink from crying, made contact and I nodded a thank you to him.
Then Jeanne and the children came to the house for the first time. Solemnly quiet by the body, they stayed a good fifteen minutes before walking out, Jeanne sobbing under her breath. I was relieved that Alexandrine was still in the clinic. That she loved her husband and stood by him when he took a mistress speaks to her loyalty. It was best she was spared any embarrassment when Zola’s other family arrived.
§ § § §
When Alexandrine returned from the clinic in a weakened state, despite being physically and emotionally drained, she told me, “We
need to plan his funeral.”
Say goodbye to Zola. Impossible. Like breathing through quicksand and speaking in a trance, arrangements were made. I don’t remember those days before the funeral. October 5 was suddenly upon us. Attendance was over 50,000 at the Montmartre Cemetery, including government ministers and officials. Soldiers presented arms as the hearse passed. The juxtaposition of this respect compared with the vile attacks and cowardice during all Zola’s trials exasperated me. Where was the decency when it was most needed? Watching the burial box make its way to the hole in the ground, I wished he could have witnessed the display of humility and dignity.
Anatole France, poet, novelist, and close friend to Zola, gave the oration. With barely a whisper from the crowd, he recalled the tribulations Zola had endured with great dignity and optimism on behalf of truth. He told what we all knew in our hearts and had seen about how Zola had lived his life. After close to thirty minutes, he said, “Zola deserves well of his country for not having lost faith in its ability to rule by law.” A long pause and silence followed before he concluded with, “He was a moment in the history of human conscience.”
Truth and justice, so ardently longed for! How terrible it is to see them trampled, unrecognized and ignored!
Émile Zola
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Without my friend, the heavy weight of time passed slowly. Days were lonely and painful. And as if his death wasn’t bad enough, I continued to listen to the hate-filled rioting in the streets from conservative groups. They blamed the liberal changes in the political scene on the Dreyfus debacle, and Zola for his part in exposing it. Screams like, “The traitor’s advocate is dead!” were too much to bear.
Visits with Alexandrine continued for many days with conversations centering on a consensual disbelief that the events that Zola was engaged in had actually led up to his death. We all feared it but, when it happened, the shock threw us into another dimension. How could humankind be so hateful and vile? As we talked, we began to process pieces of information and gossip. Riddled with guilt, I replayed the time when I read the very first article on Dreyfus’s humiliation, and then later my part in supporting Zola’s involvement after meeting with Lucie Dreyfus. If I believed what my gut had told me when he was writing J’Accuse would I have tried to dissuade him from going forth with it? I couldn’t help wondering if fear had blinded me from seeing that the worst could really happen. Jacques distracted me from my reverie when he asked, “But who would have suspected the chimney?”
“That man who came to work on the chimney.” I recalled the way the chimney sweep made me feel. “If only…” I sank down in my chair.
Alexandrine interrupted with, “Charles, don’t be hard on yourself. We don’t know for sure if he was implicated.”
Despite her kindness, I wasn’t convinced. Several days later, Jacques and some other friends stopped by to commiserate. One said he had heard, “Zola’s enemies had blocked the chimney, causing the poisonous fumes to build up and suffocate him.”
Unable to contain the rumors that Zola had been murdered, an inquest was ordered. Tests were conducted at the Paris house. Fires were lit that showed no sign of carbon monoxide fumes, and rodents shut in the room survived without harm. The fireplace duct was dismantled but nothing of much importance was discovered, though the amount of residue found suggested that the chimney had not been adequately swept. The coroner, concerned over quieting down the situation, refused to make his expert report public and announced that Zola’s death was due to natural causes.
“The coroner is doing what was done at the Dreyfus court-martial by concealing the records,” a visiting friend said to me.
“Can anything be done?” I asked.
“We’ve been down that road before with government officials. You know the answer and,” he looked at my body, “how many more years do we have?”
True, I was in my early eighties. Knowing my days were numbered, I wondered what was keeping me alive. A week later I had my answer when a surprise visitor arrived at my door. It was Lucie Dreyfus. At first I did not recognize her due to a hat and veil covering her face, I but I knew her voice the moment she spoke.
I made tea and we talked. “I know that Mr. Zola was a very important friend,” she said. “You followed his every action with concerns to my husband and I thought it only appropriate to let you know that Mr. Jaures met in the Chamber of Deputies asking for a retrial of the Rennes verdict, citing the bordereau as a probable influence on the judge’s actions.” She went on to say, that since witness-account documentation now existed that the authenticity of the bordereau did not point to her husband, there is ground for him to be exonerated.
Jean Jaures, a French socialist leader, fought along with us for a revision of the trial. But the Marxist socialists, who did not believe in defending a man who was an officer and member of the middle class, would not approve his position. “Finally a change is occurring,” I said. “This is indeed good news.”
As Lucie Dreyfus’s visits continued and our friendship grew, my journeying out to Zola’s gravesite to share what I had learned from her decreased. Also diminishing was my energy level as my health began to decline, and soon I was confined to bed with a nurse tending to my needs while visitors came and went. More and more, I felt Zola’s presence and a calm, light-filled joy entered into my home as I learned that the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation had reinvestigated and ruled favorably for Dreyfus. Once that appeal was granted, the case was referred to the Supreme Court of Appeals.
As the case was on the docket, a most fortuitous event occurred changing the climate the court would rule under. The 1905 French Law on the Separation of Church and State was passed by the Chambers of Deputies. Enacted, it established state secularism, thus shifting the leadership of France to a left coalition. The power of the church-biased decisions in favor of Christianity was neutralized. It was during this momentous time that Alfred Dreyfus’s case was heard by the ultimate French Court of Appeals.
My breathing was shallow when Lucie Dreyfus came to visit. With tears of joy streaming down her rosy cheeks, “It has happened,” she said.
“Tell me, my dear,” I labored to say the words.
Putting a hand on mine, she smiled tenderly. “The Supreme Court of Appeals, with all three chambers sitting jointly, annulled the Rennes verdict, pronouncing the rehabilitation of my husband, and proclaiming his innocence.”
Moisture welled in my tired eyes, blurring the sight of her radiant face. “This is the best news.” Sinking back in the pillow, I felt a deep relaxation move into my body. I watched the fuzzy vision of my friend Lucie quietly take her leave as I fell asleep.
Floating in and out of consciousness, I remember a whisper in my ear. “The Chamber of Deputies passed a law reinstating Dreyfus in the army as a major and Picquart as brigadier-general.”
It is a crime to poison the minds of the meek and the humble, to stoke the passions of reactionism and intolerance, by appealing to that odious anti-Semitism that, unchecked, will destroy the freedom-loving France of the Rights of Man. It is a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred, and it is, finally, a crime to ensconce the sword as the modern god, whereas all science is toiling to achieve the coming era of truth and justice.
Émile Zola
Epilogue
On July 20, 1906, Alfred Dreyfus was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in the same courtyard of the École Militaire where he had been degraded eleven years before. To the cheerful ovation of, “Long live Dreyfus!” he nobly responded, “No, gentlemen, no. I beg of you. Long live France!”
In 1908 Zola’s remains were exhumed from the Montmartre Cemetery and taken across Paris to be interred in the Pantheon, the honored mausoleum for the great men of France. Angry nationalists’ attempts to stop the hearse were driven back by police as the coffin was placed on a catafalque.
The next day President Loubet attended the reburial. Alexandrine, Jeanne, and the two children were also prese
nt. So was Alfred Dreyfus, at whom a conservative journalist fired shots from a handgun. Dreyfus suffered a superficial wound in the arm before the police overpowered the assailant. After the commotion was over, Alexandrine, Jeanne, and the children went down into the crypt, where Émile Zola was laid to rest next to Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.
To this day, the circumstances leading up to the death of Émile Zola remain a mystery.
If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.
Émile Zola
About the Author
Paulette Mahurin lives with her husband Terry and two dogs, Max and Bella, in Ventura County, California. She grew up in West Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Science.
While in college, she won awards and was published for her short-story writing. One of these stories, Something Wonderful, was based on the real couple later presented in her fictionalized novel, His Name Was Ben, in 2014. Her first novel, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, made it to Amazon bestseller lists and won awards, including best historical fiction of the year 2012 in Turning the Pages Magazine.
Semi-retired, she continues to work part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in Ventura County. When she’s not writing, she does pro-bono consultation work with women with cancer, works in the Westminster Free Clinic as a volunteer provider, volunteers as a mediator in the Ventura County Courthouse for small claims cases, and involves herself, along with her husband, in dog rescue.
To Live Out Loud: A Novel Page 9
