Read Online Complete Works of Emile Zola by Émile Zola - Free Book Online Page B

and filth which disgusted me. At the first glance, one might think he had entered the chamber of the right sort of people; at the second, one saw the dirt on the mahogany and on the damask, and one felt that he was amid vice and slovenliness.
    I was saddened by the unhealthful aspect of this chamber; I breathed with disgust the thick and nauseous air, smelling of dust, old varnish and faded stuffs, a biting and stifling odor which is common to all furnished lodging-houses.
    Jacques, seated at the desk, was toiling away peacefully, a Code open before him. The young woman I had met on the stairway was lying upon the sofa, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, silent and grave.
    Jacques half turned his chair; his face appeared to me in the full light. It was still the same visage of other days, a superb and indifferent visage; one read in it a strong will, made up of selfishness and coldness. The man had become what the boy promised to be. Our former comrade must be what the world calls a practical and serious person; he has an aim: he wishes to be a counselor, a lawyer or a notary, and moves onward towards his goal with all the power of his tranquility. With closed heart and calm flesh, he accepts this world without either thanks or revolt. Jacques has an honest nature, a just mind; he will live honorably, according to duty and custom; he will not weaken, because he will not have to weaken; he will pass on, straight and firm, having nothing either to hate or to love. In his clear and empty eyes, I do not find the soul; upon his pale lips I do not see the blood of the heart.
    In the presence of this quiet and smiling young man, bending over his law books and extending to me his cool hand, I thought of myself, brothers, of my poor being incessantly shaken by the fever of wishes and regrets. I advance staggeringly; I have not to protect me Jacques’ imperturbable tranquility, his silence of heart and of soul. I am all flesh, all love; I feel myself profoundly vibrate at the least sensation. Events lead me; I can neither conduct nor surmount them. To-morrow, in my free life, if I should happen to wound the world, the world will turn from me, because I obeyed my pride and my tenderness. Jacques will be saluted, having followed the common route. I dare not say aloud that virtue is a question of temperament; but, brothers, I think all the same that the Jacqueses upon this earth are basely virtuous, while the Claudes have the frightful misfortune of having in them an eternal tempest, an immense desire for the good, which agitates them and leads them beyond the judgment of the crowd.
    The young woman had taken her glance from the ceiling and was looking at me, with partially open lips and curious eyes. Her face had the transparent whiteness of wax, with dull flushes on the cheeks; her pale lips, her soft and brown eyelids gave to her visage the air of a sick and resigned child. She was fifteen, and, at times, when she smiled, one would have thought her scarcely twelve.
    While Jacques was talking to me in his slow voice, I could not take my eyes from the young girl’s touching countenance, so youthful and so faded. There were upon her frank forehead profound lassitude and languor; the blood no longer flowed beneath her skin; the shivers of life no longer made her slumbering flesh tremble. Have you ever seen, in her cradle, a little girl whom fever has rendered whiter and more innocent than usual? She sleeps with her eyes wide open; she has the gentle and peaceful visage of an angel; she suffers and she seems to smile. The strange little girl whom I had before me, that woman who had remained a child, resembled her sister in the cradle. Only, in her case, it was more pitiful to see upon a forehead of fifteen so much purity and so much pallor, all the innocent graces of a young girl and all the shameful fatigues of a woman.
    She had thrown back her arms and was supporting her languishing head upon her hands. I was ignorant of her history; I knew