Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 17 Zola's Saturday

It was an ordinary Saturday morning in the winter of 1879. The entire Paris region was filled with the chilly smell of thawing snow, especially in Médan, a suburb.

Although the vegetation here has withered, the dense network of rivers and good ventilation make the air here as pure as a young girl's first kiss.

Meitang has always been a popular summer retreat for city dwellers, but it doesn't attract many visitors in winter. However, a strangely shaped country villa in the northwest corner of Meitang is unusually lively today.

Here, the new owner of the villa—Mr. Émile Zola—was preparing a lavish feast to welcome his friends and celebrate his official move into the villa.

Although the villa was purchased last year, it was in very poor condition at the time; the second-floor floor almost caused Mr. Zola, who was inspecting the property, to fall to the first floor.

Fortunately, the profits from "The Little Hotel" were good, allowing him to make extensive renovations to the villa, which was finally ready for occupancy recently. Excited, Zola insisted on experiencing the life of a "great writer" in advance, despite the fact that it was a "summer retreat" for vacation purposes.

After all, he had long admired his friend Flaubert's three-story villa in downtown Paris.

As dawn broke, the male servant was kneeling on the stone steps at the entrance of the villa, carefully cleaning and polishing each stone to make it look brand new.

The mistress, with her chest puffed out, directed the gardener, groom, and maid to do their respective tasks.

Most importantly, the cook was there, because around noon, Mr. Zola's good friends, a group of learned, lively, and food-loving young men—Guy Maupassant, Paul Alexis, Léon Ennique, Henri Céarr, and Huysmann—would be coming to the villa to celebrate for Mr. Zola.

Each of them could eat twice the amount of a normal person—Mr. Zola could eat three times as much.

It would be a great disgrace to Madame Zola if any gentleman felt even a little bit hungry during the party!

By noon, the villa's dining room was overflowing with delicious food and joy.

A whole platter of Normandy prawn jelly, fresh butter and a variety of breads, Périgord truffle cream soup, fish pan-fried in champagne sauce, and Rossini-style grilled filet mignon with expensive black truffle slices and seasonal vegetables, along with sherry, blackcurrant liqueur, vermouth, and of course, fine wines from Bordeaux.

Zola and several loyal young followers feasted for two whole hours before finally moving contentedly to the warm fireplace in the living room, where each of them lit a cigar or their own pipe and began to smoke.

The firewood in the fireplace was burning brightly, the leaping orange-red flames greedily licking the air, shutting out the desolation of the riverbank outside the window, leaving only the warm fragrance of burning pine and the fresh aroma of tobacco filling the room.

As the owner of the villa, the organizer of the gathering, and the eldest among them, Émile Zola stroked his long beard, put down his cigar, and walked to the fireplace.

Maupassant and others knew that this passionate predecessor was about to deliver another resounding and thought-provoking statement—

Émile Zola’s voice boomed with his usual powerful tone: “...That’s the problem, my friends! What are our cafes and pubs, those so-called ‘people’s places,’ serving?”

He was like a statue outlined by the firelight, his powerful gestures almost lifting the air.
"It's bread mixed with sawdust and plaster powder! It's cheap wine so bad it can scratch your throat!"
And what about the factory owners and bankers? They're in the private rooms of the Louvre restaurant, enjoying fresh oysters flown in overnight from Brittany on silverware, and drinking the finest vintage wines from Burgundy's Grand Cru vineyards!

The listeners, scattered around the fireplace, had different expressions.

Maupassant nestled comfortably in a large velvet armchair, his long legs casually crossed, a faint smile playing on his lips.

His gaze wasn't focused on the impassioned Zola, but rather on the villa's completely renovated interior. Huysmann, meanwhile, sat in a stiff, straight-backed chair, leaning slightly forward, his hands clasped on his knees.

His face was hard and cold, his expression world-weary, his brows furrowed, as if he were silently agreeing with Zola's views, or perhaps criticizing Zola's choice of words.

Paul Alexis was the most composed of them all. He occupied the thickest and most comfortable armchair on the other side of the fireplace and slowly took out a pinch of fine tobacco from the carved wooden box.

With his well-maintained hands, he meticulously and slowly filled the large meerschaum pipe.

The others also adopted their own stances, not focusing all their attention on Zola—today's discussion was destined to be very long, and this was just an appetizer.

The crackling of burning pine in the fireplace briefly filled the silence after Zola's words had fallen.

“So, Emile—” Huysman finally broke the silence.

His voice was as cold as he was, but his words were surprisingly amusing: "Are you planning to have some starving worker storm into the Louvre restaurant in your next novel and stab some bloated banker in the throat with a fork?"

Everyone laughed; it was a good joke.

Zola's broad chest heaved slightly, but he wasn't angry: "That's too extreme! What I want is to puncture that festering sore and let the sunlight in!"
Violence cannot solve the fundamental problem!

He waved his arms, trying to steer the conversation back to his grand framework of social analysis.

Paul Alexis spoke, his voice clear and resonant: "Festering sore, Emil, you are absolutely right!"

But be careful, excessive passion will only turn your characters into puppets, mere tools for your accusations against society.

His grey-blue eyes peered through the wisps of smoke at Zola: "Balzac also wrote about greed, about sin, but his Vautrin, Old Goriot, Rastignac..."

They are alive, struggling with all their contradictions and vitality, existing not merely to prove that 'society is a big abscess.'

“Rastignac…” Maupassant seemed to be suddenly awakened by this name, and the wandering interest in his eyes was instantly replaced by a vivid brilliance.

He sat bolt upright, his languid posture vanishing instantly, replaced by a spring-loaded energy: "Ah! Speaking of Rastignac! Friends, you would never guess that just a few days ago, in a class at the Sorbonne Academy, I saw a young man who could use Rastignac as a dart, hitting an arrogant nobleman squarely in the face!"

Huysmann raised one eyebrow, a rare look of curiosity appearing on his usually stern face, clearly expecting Maupassant to continue.

Zola's train of thought was interrupted, and he frowned in displeasure, but seeing the almost fanatical excitement in Maupassant's eyes, he temporarily put aside his own topic.

Maupassant was completely absorbed in the excitement of his discovery, speaking rapidly like a machine gun: "It was a student named Lionel Sorel, from the provinces, penniless, wearing a coat with shiny elbows, commuting by public carriage, and living in the supposedly stinking eleventh district!"

Zola's curiosity was also piqued. In his mind, the Sorbonne's Faculty of Arts was a paradise for a bunch of spoiled brats and a graveyard for a bunch of stubborn scholars. When would poor students ever have a chance to rise up?
Maupassant was even more excited to see that his "off-topic" had received Zola's tacit approval.

(End of this chapter)