The Fat and the Thin | Page 2

Halles
in the small hours of the morning, and is instinct with that realistic
descriptive power of which M. Zola has since given so many proofs.
We hear the rumbling and clattering of the market carts, we see the
piles of red meat, the baskets of silvery fish, the mountains of
vegetables, green and white; in a few paragraphs the whole market

world passes in kaleidoscopic fashion before our eyes by the pale,
dancing light of the gas lamps and the lanterns. Several years after the
paper I speak of was published, when M. Zola began to issue "Le
Ventre de Paris," M. Tournachon, better known as Nadar, the aeronaut
and photographer, rushed into print to proclaim that the realistic
novelist had simply pilfered his ideas from an account of the Halles
which he (Tournachon) had but lately written. M. Zola, as is so often
his wont, scorned to reply to this charge of plagiarism; but, had he
chosen, he could have promptly settled the matter by producing his
own forgotten article.
At the risk of passing for a literary ghoul, I propose to exhume some
portion of the paper in question, as, so far as translation can avail, it
will show how M. Zola wrote and what he thought in 1867. After the
description of the markets to which I have alluded, there comes the
following passage:--
I was gazing at the preparations for the great daily orgy of Paris when I
espied a throng of people bustling suspiciously in a corner. A few
lanterns threw a yellow light upon this crowd. Children, women, and
men with outstretched hands were fumbling in dark piles which
extended along the footway. I thought that those piles must be remnants
of meat sold for a trifling price, and that all those wretched people were
rushing upon them to feed. I drew near, and discovered my mistake.
The heaps were not heaps of meat, but heaps of violets. All the flowery
poesy of the streets of Paris lay there, on that muddy pavement, amidst
mountains of food. The gardeners of the suburbs had brought their
sweet-scented harvests to the markets and were disposing of them to
the hawkers. From the rough fingers of their peasant growers the
violets were passing to the dirty hands of those who would cry them in
the streets. At winter time it is between four and six o'clock in the
morning that the flowers of Paris are thus sold at the Halles. Whilst the
city sleeps and its butchers are getting all ready for its daily attack of
indigestion, a trade in poetry is plied in dark, dank corners. When the
sun rises the bright red meat will be displayed in trim, carefully dressed
joints, and the violets, mounted on bits of osier, will gleam softly
within their elegant collars of green leaves. But when they arrive, in the
dark night, the bullocks, already ripped open, discharge black blood,
and the trodden flowers lie prone upon the footways. . . . I noticed just

in front of me one large bunch which had slipped off a neighbouring
mound and was almost bathing in the gutter. I picked it up. Underneath,
it was soiled with mud; the greasy, fetid sewer water had left black
stains upon the flowers. And then, gazing at these exquisite daughters
of our gardens and our woods, astray amidst all the filth of the city, I
began to ponder. On what woman's bosom would those wretched
flowerets open and bloom? Some hawker would dip them in a pail of
water, and of all the bitter odours of the Paris mud they would retain
but a slight pungency, which would remain mingled with their own
sweet perfume. The water would remove their stains, they would pale
somewhat, and become a joy both for the smell and for the sight.
Nevertheless, in the depths of each corolla there would still remain
some particle of mud suggestive of impurity. And I asked myself how
much love and passion was represented by all those heaps of flowers
shivering in the bleak wind. To how many loving ones, and how many
indifferent ones, and how many egotistical ones, would all those
thousands and thousands of violets go! In a few hours' time they would
be scattered to the four corners of Paris, and for a paltry copper the
passers-by would purchase a glimpse and a whiff of springtide in the
muddy streets.
Imperfect as the rendering may be, I think that the above passage will
show that M. Zola was already possessed of a large amount of his
acknowledged realistic power at the early date I have mentioned. I
should also have liked to quote a rather amusing story of a priggish
Philistine who ate violets with oil and vinegar, strongly peppered,