The Fat and the Thin | Page 3

but
considerations of space forbid; so I will pass to another passage, which
is of more interest and importance. Both French and English critics
have often contended that although M. Zola is a married man, he knows
very little of women, as there has virtually never been any /feminine
romance/ in his life. There are those who are aware of the contrary, but
whose tongues are stayed by considerations of delicacy and respect.
Still, as the passage I am now about to reproduce is signed and
acknowledged as fact by M. Zola himself, I see no harm in slightly
raising the veil from a long-past episode in the master's life:--
The light was rising, and as I stood there before that footway
transformed into a bed of flowers my strange night-fancies gave place
to recollections at once sweet and sad. I thought of my last excursion to

Fontenay-aux-Roses, with the loved one, the good fairy of my
twentieth year. Springtime was budding into birth, the tender foliage
gleamed in the pale April sunshine. The little pathway skirting the hill
was bordered by large fields of violets. As one passed along, a strong
perfume seemed to penetrate one and make one languid. /She/ was
leaning on my arm, faint with love from the sweet odour of the flowers.
A whiteness hovered over the country-side, little insects buzzed in the
sunshine, deep silence fell from the heavens, and so low was the sound
of our kisses that not a bird in all the hedges showed sign of fear. At a
turn of the path we perceived some old bent women, who with dry,
withered hands were hurriedly gathering violets and throwing them into
large baskets. She who was with me glanced longingly at the flowers,
and I called one of the women. "You want some violets?" said she.
"How much? A pound?"
God of Heaven! She sold her flowers by the pound! We fled in deep
distress. It seemed as though the country-side had been transformed
into a huge grocer's shop. . . . Then we ascended to the woods of
Verrieres, and there, in the grass, under the soft, fresh foliage, we found
some tiny violets which seemed to be dreadfully afraid, and contrived
to hide themselves with all sorts of artful ruses. During two long hours
I scoured the grass and peered into every nook, and as soon as ever I
found a fresh violet I carried it to her. She bought it of me, and the
price that I exacted was a kiss. . . . And I thought of all those things, of
all that happiness, amidst the hubbub of the markets of Paris, before
those poor dead flowers whose graveyard the footway had become. I
remembered my good fairy, who is now dead and gone, and the little
bouquet of dry violets which I still preserve in a drawer. When I
returned home I counted their withered stems: there were twenty of
them, and over my lips there passed the gentle warmth of my loved
one's twenty kisses.
And now from violets I must, with a brutality akin to that which M.
Zola himself displays in some of his transitions, pass to very different
things, for some time back a well-known English poet and essayist
wrote of the present work that it was redolent of pork, onions, and
cheese. To one of his sensitive temperament, with a muse strictly
nourished on sugar and water, such gross edibles as pork and cheese
and onions were peculiarly offensive. That humble plant the onion,

employed to flavour wellnigh every savoury dish, can assuredly need
no defence; in most European countries, too, cheese has long been
known as the poor man's friend; whilst as for pork, apart from all other
considerations, I can claim for it a distinct place in English literature. A
greater essayist by far than the critic to whom I am referring, a certain
Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House, has left us an immortal page on
the origin of roast pig and crackling. And, when everything is
considered, I should much like to know why novels should be confined
to the aspirations of the soul, and why they should not also treat of the
requirements of our physical nature? From the days of antiquity we
have all known what befell the members when, guided by the brain,
they were foolish enough to revolt against the stomach. The latter plays
a considerable part not only in each individual organism, but also in the
life of the world. Over and over again--I could adduce a score of
historical examples--it has thwarted the mightiest designs of the human
mind. We mortals are much addicted to talking of our minds and our
souls and treating our bodies as mere dross. But I