by Emile Zola
Table of Contents
PENGUIN CLASSICS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Acknowledgements
THE BEAST WITHIN
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
Notes
PENGUIN CLASSICS
PENGUIN CLASSICS
THE STORY OF PENGUIN CLASSICS
PENGUIN CLASSICS
THE BEAST WITHIN
ÉMILE ZOLA, born in Paris in 1840, was brought up in Aix-en-Provence in an atmosphere of struggling poverty after the death of his father in 1847. He was educated at the College Bourbon at Aix and then at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. After failing the baccalauréat twice and then taking menial clerical employment, he joined the newly founded publishing house Hachette in 1862 and quickly rose to become head of publicity. Having published his first novel in 1865 he left Hachette the following year to become a full-time journalist and writer. Thérèse Raquin appeared in 1867 and caused a scandal, to which he responded with his famous Preface to the novel’s second edition in 1868 in which he laid claim to being a ‘Naturalist’. That same year he began to work on a series of novels intended to trace scientifically the effects of heredity and environment in one family: Les Rougon-Macquart. This great cycle eventually contained twenty novels, which appeared between 1870 and 1893. In 1877 the seventh of these, L’Assommoir (The Drinking Den), a study of alcoholism in working-class Paris, brought him abiding wealth and fame. On completion of the Rougon-Macquart series he began a new cycle of novels, LesTroisVilles: Lourdes,Rome, Paris (1894-8), a violent attack on the Church of Rome, which led to another cycle, Les Quatre Évangiles. While his later writing was less successful, he remained a celebrated figure on account of the Dreyfus case, in which his powerful interventions played an important part in redressing a heinous miscarriage of justice. His marriage in 1870 had remained childless, but his happy, public relationship in later life with Jeanne Rozerot, initially one of his domestic servants, brought him a son and a daughter. He died in mysterious circumstances in 1902, the victim of an accident or murder.
ROGER WHITEHOUSE was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Aston, in Birmingham. He studied French at the University of Oxford and later at the University of Warwick, where he specialized in Renaissance Studies. For several years he lived and worked in Paris, teaching at the École Normale Supérieure and at the Sorbonne. In 1970 he joined the staff at Bolton Institute as a lecturer in French and subsequently became Head of Literary Studies there. In 2000 he was appointed as a Research Fellow. He has previously translated Flaubert’s Three Tales (Penguin Classics, 2005) and is currently editing an anthology of the work of the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren.
PENGUIN CLASSICS
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First published 1890 This translation first published 2007 1
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Chronology
1840 (2 April) Émile Zola born in Paris, the only son of an Italian engineer, Francesco Zola (b. 1795) and of Françoise-Emilie Auber (b. 1819).
1843 The family moves to Aix-en-Provence, which becomes the town of ‘Plassans’ in the Rougon-Macquart novels. Plassans is the birthplace of Jacques Lantier.
1847 (27 March) Francesco Zola dies from pneumonia caught while supervising a project to supply Aix-en-Provence with drinking water. The family is left almost destitute.
1848 The July monarchy (King Louis-Philippe) is overthrown, and the Second Republic is declared.
1851 The Republic is dissolved after the coup d‘état of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
1852 (2 December) Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor as Napoleon III. Start of the Second Empire, the period in which the Rougon-Macquart novels are set. Zola is enrolled as a boarder at the College Bourbon in Aix, where he forms a friendship with Paul Cézanne.
1853 (June) Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann is appointed Prefect of the Seine and begins major rebuilding of central Paris (this is mentioned in La Bête humaine).
1858 (February) Leaves Aix to join his mother in Paris. Attends the Lycée Saint-Louis.
1859 Falls ill with typhoid and twice fails the baccalauréat.
1860 A period of great hardship. Attempts to make a living from writing. (6 December) Victor Poinsot murdered on a train travelling from Troyes to Paris.
1862 (I March) Zola starts working for the publisher Hachette. Initially employed in the dispatch office, he is quickly appointed as head of publicity. (31 October) Becomes a naturalized French citizen.
1863 First newspaper article published.
1864 Publication of his first literary work, Contes à Ninon, a collection of short stories.
1865 Publishes first novel, La Confession de Claude. Meets his future wife, Gabrielle-Alexandrine Meley (b. 1839). They do not marry until 1870.
1866 Resigns his position at Hachette. From this point Zola lives by his writing. Writes articles for L‘Événement, praising the work of Manet and Monet. Frequents the Café Guerbois in the Batignolles district of Paris, the rendezvous of the Impressionist painters. (November) L’Événement suppressed.
1867 Publication of Thérèse Raquin.
1868 (April) In the preface to the second edition of Thérèse Raquin, Zola announces his allegiance to the literary school of ‘Naturalism’. (December) Publication of Madeleine Férat. Begins to plan the Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels. Signs contract for the work with the publisher Lacroix. Continues to work as journalist for various newspapers.
1869 (May) Elections for Legislative Assembly. Civil disturbances in Paris. The action of La Bête humaine takes place between mid-February 1869 and July 1870.
1870 (8 May) Plebiscite on new constitution. (3 I May) Marries Alexandrine. (19 July) France declares war on Prussia. (September) Napoleon III surrenders to Prussia at Sedan. The Third Republic is declared. Zola moves temporarily to Marseille. Paris is besieged by the Prussian army. Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie go into exile in England. La Fortune des Rougon, the first of the Rougon-Macquart novels, begins to appear in serial form.
1871 (28 January) Armistice with Prussia. (March) Zola returns to Paris. (28 Mar
ch) Election of the Commune. (28 May) End of the Commune. Publication in book form of La Fortune des Rougon.
1872 (January) Publication of La Curée.
1873 (April) Publication of Le Ventre de Paris, set in and around the central Paris market, Les Halles.
1874 (May) Publication of La Conquête de Plassans.
1875 (April) Publication of La Faute de l‘Abbé Mouret. 1876 (February) Publication of Son Excellence Eugène Rougon. The novel describes the career of a Minister of State under the Second Empire. Later in the year L’Assommoir appears in serialized form, firstly in Le Bien public, and subsequently in La République des Lettres (Le Bien public having refused to continue publication). The novel gives a sombre account of the effects of drink on the working-class inhabitants of the Paris slums.
1877 L’Assommoir is published in book form. The novel is a bestseller (thirty-eight impressions in one year) and establishes Zola’s reputation as a novelist. After years of hardship, Zola becomes a rich man. Paintings of the Gare Saint-Lazare by Monet.
1878 Zola buys a house at Médan, thirty miles outside Paris. He uses the house as a retreat for his writing. (June) Publication of Une page d’amour, a gentler story of domestic life. 1879 Publication in serial form of Nana, the story of a high-class prostitute.
1880 (8 May) Death of Zola’s literary mentor, Gustave Flaubert. (October) Death of Zola’s mother. Zola experiences depression and suspends work on the Rougon-Macquart novels. (December) Outlines the theory of Naturalism in Le Roman expérimental.
1882 Publication of Pot-Bouille.
1883 (March) Publication of Au Bonheur desDames, a novel describing the life and intrigues of a large Paris department store.
1884 (March) Publication of La Joie de vivre.
1885 (March) Publication of Germinal, a novel set in a mining community in the north of France. The novel describes the dangers and hardships experienced by the miners and their revolt against their employers. The revolt is led by Étienne Lantier. Publication of French translation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
1886 (April) Publication of L‘CEuvre, a novel describing the fortunes of Claude Lantier, a painter obsessed with radical new theories about art. The novel draws upon Zola’s close friendship with Cézanne. Cézanne, however, objects to the novel and ends their friendship. (Also April) The Prefect of the Département de l’Eure is murdered on a train travelling between Cherbourg and Paris. Publication of Gabriel Tarde’s La Criminalité comparée.
1887 (November) Publication of La Terre, a frank portrayal of peasant life. Five young writers, claiming to be ‘disciples’ of Zola, sign a manifesto in Le Figaro against the novel. Publication of the French translation of Lombroso’s L ’Uomo delinquente.
1888 (April) ‘Jack the Ripper’ commits the first of a series of murders in the East End of London. (October) Publication of Le Rêve. Jeanne Rozerot becomes Zola’s mistress. Publication in France of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.
1889 (5 May) Begins writing La Bête humaine at Médan. (20 September) Birth of Denise, daughter of Zola and Jeanne Rozerot. (14 November) The first three chapters of La Bête humaine appear in La Vie populaire. International exhibition in Paris (‘Exposition Universelle’).
1890 (March) The final chapters of La Bête humaine appear in La Vie populaire, and the novel is published in book form by Charpentier.
1891 (March) Publication of L’Argent. (25 September) Birth of Jacques, son of Zola and Jeanne.
1892 (June) Publication of La Débâcle, an account of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war.
1893 (July) Publication of Le Docteur Pascal, the final novel in the Rougon-Macquart series. Zola visits London as the guest of the Institute of Journalists and attends a banquet in his honour at the Crystal Palace.
1894 Zola begins a trilogy of novels called Les Trois Villes about a priest who turns away from Catholicism in search of a more humanitarian creed. The trilogy comprises Lourdes (1894), Rome (1896) and Paris (1898). In December a Jewish officer in the French army, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, is convicted by court martial of spying and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony on Devil’s Island.
1897New evidence suggests that Dreyfus has been wrongly convicted. Zola publishes three articles in Le Figaro demanding a retrial.
1898 (13 January) Zola’s article ‘J’accuse‘, written in support of Dreyfus and addressed to Félix Faure, President of the Republic, is published in L’Aurore. (21 February) Zola is found guilty of libelling the Minister of War and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 3,000francs. Zola appeals against this sentence but on 18 July, before the appeal is heard, he leaves France for London, where he spends a year in exile.
1899 (4 June) Returns to France. Begins a series of four novels, Les Quatre Évangiles. The series remained unfinished at his death.
1902 (29 September) Dies from asphyxiation as the result of the chimney of his bedroom stove being blocked. It is still widely believed that he was assassinated by anti-Dreyfusards.
1908 (4 June) Zola’s remains transferred to the Panthéon.
Introduction
This introduction refers to the novel by its original French
title, La Bête humaine. New readers are advised that the
introduction and the notes which appear at the end of the
book make details of the plot explicit.
La Bête humaine is the seventeenth in the series of twenty novels which Zola wrote under the collective title Les Rougon-Macquart. Zola’s overall purpose in this huge undertaking, as announced by its sub-title, was to depict ‘the Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire’. La Bête humaine contributes to this family history and continues Zola’s exploration of heredity and social conditioning, but it can be perfectly well read as a novel in its own right. Indeed it is as powerful and dramatic a narrative as any of the other novels in the series. It tells a story of sexual abuse, adultery, murder and suicide. This sombre catalogue of crime and misfortune is set against a background of deeply embedded political corruption which ensures that the voice of justice is silenced, that wickedness goes undetected and that violence is allowed to breed violence. The novel exposes a world of savagery and hypocrisy concealed behind a façade of progressive innovation and social refinement. Its bleak, uncompromising message challenged readers of Zola’s generation, as it challenges readers of today, to seek a clearer understanding of social malignity and to find better ways of dealing with it.
Zola began writing the novel on 5 May 1889 at his country house at Médan and finished it in Paris less than nine months later, on 18 January 1890. He had spent a considerable amount of time and effort in preparing the novel,1 yet the speed at which it was actually written is remarkable, especially when one considers that during this period he also moved house, continued to write articles for newspapers, was conducting a clandestine love affair and was called upon to do a stint of jury service at the Palais de Justice. The novel was first published in serialized form in the illustrated weekly magazine La Vie populaire, the first three chapters appearing on 14 November 1889 and the final instalments on 2 March 1890. The magazine paid Zola 20,000 francs for the serial rights. It appeared in book form immediately afterwards, published by Charpentier in March 1890, and very quickly sold 60,000 copies.
This was not the first time that Zola had written about murder. On 24 December 1866 Le Figaro had published his short story ‘Un Mariage d’amour’, a tale of adultery in which a husband who proves an obstacle to his wife’s amorous adventures is drowned by the two thwarted lovers in the Seine. A more substantial account of murder, again in the context of an adulterous love affair and again incorporating the drowning of the husband, occurs in the novel Thérèse Raquin, which had appeared in 1867. Thérèse Raquin does not belong to the Rougon-Macquart cycle, yet in the prominence it gives to sexually related violence and in the macabre, nightmarish quality of some of the episodes it contains it has as strong an affinity with La B�
�te humaine as any of the Rougon-Macquart novels. In his preface to the second edition of Thérèse Raquin in 1868, Zola refers to the bestial, soulless character of his two murderers. ’Thérèse and Laurent are human animals, nothing more ... the soul is entirely absent ... The murder they commit is the outcome of their adultery, an outcome that they accept as wolves accept the killing of a sheep.‘2 In the same year, writing as a journalist for La Tribune, Zola had also contributed an article on the trial in Marseille of three women accused of poisoning. ’It is good,‘ he says, referring to the trial, ’that human depravity is sometimes paraded before the public. Novelists are often accused of simply taking pleasure in such infamous acts. On the contrary, by making discussion of such crimes public they perform the same service as a court of law.’3 In the same article he makes the point that a novelist wishing to portray the bestial side of human nature could not have invented characters of a more instinctively criminal disposition.
At an early stage in his planning of the Rougon-Macquart cycle Zola had made provision for including a novel about crime and the law. The eminent critic and literary historian Hippolyte Taine (1828-93), whose opinion Zola had sought in connection with Thérèse Raquin, had urged him to reach beyond the closet world of private, domestic conflict and to write novels which, in the manner of Honoré de Balzac’s (1799- 1850) La Comédie humaine, would be a mirror of society. Taine’s advice undoubtedly prompted Zola to broaden the scope of his family history. The novels would still focus upon individual members of the Rougon-Macquart family and describe their personal fortunes, but they would also be directed outwards to demonstrate the social context in which these personal stories occurred. The series, when completed, would offer a panoramic view of Second Empire society as a whole.
