Fruitfulness - Fecondite

Fruitfulness - Fecondite

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fruitfulness, by Emile Zola This
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Title: Fruitfulness Fecondite
Author: Emile Zola
Release Date: November 29, 2003 [EBook #10330]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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FRUITFULNESS ***

Produced by Dagny, [email protected] and David Widger,
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FRUITFULNESS (FECONDITE)
BY
EMILE ZOLA
Translated and edited by
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
"FRUITFULNESS" is the first of a series of four works in which M.

Zola proposes to embody what he considers to be the four cardinal
principles of human life. These works spring from the previous series
of The Three Cities: "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris," which dealt with
the principles of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The last scene in "Paris,"
when Marie, Pierre Froment's wife, takes her boy in her arms and
consecrates him, so to say, to the city of labor and thought, furnishes
the necessary transition from one series to the other. "Fruitfulness,"
says M. Zola, "creates the home. Thence springs the city. From the idea
of citizenship comes that of the fatherland; and love of country, in
minds fed by science, leads to the conception of a wider and vaster
fatherland, comprising all the peoples of the earth. Of these three stages
in the progress of mankind, the fourth still remains to be attained. I
have thought then of writing, as it were, a poem in four volumes, in
four chants, in which I shall endeavor to sum up the philosophy of all
my work. The first of these volumes is 'Fruitfulness'; the second will be
called 'Work'; the third, 'Truth'; the last, 'Justice.' In 'Fruitfulness' the
hero's name is Matthew. In the next work it will be Luke; in 'Truth,'
Mark; and in 'justice,' John. The children of my brain will, like the four
Evangelists preaching the gospel, diffuse the religion of future society,
which will be founded on Fruitfulness, Work, Truth, and Justice."
This, then, is M. Zola's reply to the cry repeatedly raised by his hero,
Abbe Pierre Froment, in the pages of "Lourdes," "Paris," and "Rome":
"A new religion, a new religion!" Critics of those works were careful to
point out that no real answer was ever returned to the Abbe's despairing
call; and it must be confessed that one must yet wait for the greater part
of that answer, since "Fruitfulness," though complete as a narrative,
forms but a portion of the whole. It is only after the publication of the
succeeding volumes that one will be able to judge how far M. Zola's
doctrines and theories in their ensemble may appeal to the requirements
of the world.
While "Fruitfulness," as I have said, constitutes a first instalment of M.
Zola's conception of a social religion, it embodies a good deal else. The
idea of writing some such work first occurred to him many years ago.
In 1896 he contributed an article to the Paris _Figaro_, in which he said:
"For some ten years now I have been haunted by the idea of a novel, of
which I shall, doubtless, never write the first page. . . . That novel
would have been called 'Wastage'. . . and I should have pleaded in it in

favor of all the rights of life, with all the passion which I may have in
my heart."* M. Zola's article then proceeds to discuss the various social
problems, theories, and speculations which are set forth here and there
in the present work. Briefly, the genesis of "Fruitfulness" lies in the
article I have quoted.
* See Nouvelle Campagne (1896), par Emile Zola. Paris, 1897, pp.
217-228.
"Fruitfulness" is a book to be judged from several standpoints. It would
be unjust and absurd to judge it from one alone, such, for instance, as
that of the new social religion to which I have referred. It must be
looked at notably as a tract for the times in relation to certain grievous
evils from which France and other countries--though more particularly
France--are undoubtedly suffering. And it may be said that some such
denunciation of those evils was undoubtedly necessary, and that
nobody was better placed to pen that denunciation than M. Zola, who,
alone of all French writers nowadays, commands universal attention.
Whatever opinion may be held of his writings, they have to be
reckoned with. Thus, in preparing "Fruitfulness," he was before all else
discharging a patriotic duty, and that duty he took in hand in an hour of
cruel adversity, when to assist a great cause he withdrew from