His Masterpiece by Émile Zola (classic novels for teens .TXT) 📕

and howling at each turn of its wheels, its firebox open the while, and lighting up the gloomy scene with a rain of sparks.

At last the pit was emptied, the coffin lowered, and the aspergillus passed round. It was all over. The second cousin, standing erect, did the honours with his correct, pleasant air, shaking hands with all these people whom he had never previously seen, in memory of the relative whose name he had not remembered the day before.

“That linen-draper is a very decent fellow,” said Bongrand, who was swallowing his tears.

“Quite so,” replied Sandoz, sobbing.

All the others were going off, the surplices of the priest and the choirboy disappeared between the green trees, while the straggling neighbours loitered reading the inscriptions on the surrounding tombs.

Then Sandoz, making up his mind to leave the grave, which was now half filled, resumed:

“We alone shall have known him. There is nothing left of him, not even a name!”

“He is very happy,” said Bongrand; “he has no picture on hand, in the earth where he sleeps. It is as well to go off as to toil as we do merely to turn out infirm children, who always lack something, their legs or their head, and who don’t live.”

“Yes, one must really be wanting in pride to resign oneself to turning out merely approximate work and resorting to trickery with life. I, who bestow every care on my books⁠—I despise myself, for I feel that, despite all my efforts, they are incomplete and untruthful.”

With pale faces, they slowly went away, side by side, past the children’s white tombs, the novelist then in all the strength of his toil and fame, the painter declining but covered with glory.

“There, at least, lies one who was logical and brave,” continued Sandoz; “he confessed his powerlessness and killed himself.”

“That’s true,” said Bongrand; “if we didn’t care so much for our skins we should all do as he has done, eh?”

“Well, yes; since we cannot create anything, since we are but feeble copyists, we might as well put an end to ourselves at once.”

Again they found themselves before the burning pile of old rotten coffins, now fully alight, sweating and crackling; but there were still no flames to be seen, the smoke alone had increased⁠—a thick acrid smoke, which the wind carried along in whirling coils, so that it now covered the whole cemetery as with a cloud of mourning.

“Dash it! Eleven o’clock!” said Bongrand, after pulling out his watch. “I must get home again.”

Sandoz gave an exclamation of surprise:

“What, already eleven?”

Over the low-lying graves, over the vast bead-flowered field of death, so formal of aspect and so cold, he cast a long look of despair, his eyes still bedimmed by his tears. And then he added:

“Let’s go to work.”

Endnotes

Some of the articles will be found in the volume of his miscellaneous writings entitled Mes Haines. ↩

So far as Manet is concerned, the curious reader may consult M. Antonin Proust’s interesting Souvenirs, published in the Revue Blanche, early in 1897. ↩

The street of the Headless Woman. (Translator’s note.) ↩

Gervaise of The Dram Shop (L’Assommoir). (Translator’s note.) ↩

This aunt is Lisa of The Fat and the Thin (Le Ventre de Paris) in a few chapters of which Claude figures. (Translator’s note.) ↩

In familiar conversation, French artists, playwrights, and novelists invariably call their productions by the slang term “machines.” (Translator’s note.) ↩

The allusion is to the French Art School at Rome, and the competitions into which students enter to obtain admission to it, or to secure the prizes offered for the best exhibits which, during their term of residence, they send to Paris. (Translator’s note.) ↩

The reader will bear in mind that all these complaints made by Claude and his friends apply to the old Salons, as organized under government control, at the time of the Second Empire. (Translator’s note.) ↩

This was in 1863. (Translator’s note.) ↩

Édouard Manet. (Translator’s note.) ↩

This palace, for many years the home of the “Salon,” was built for the first Paris International Exhibition, that of 1855, and demolished in connection with that of 1900. (Translator’s note.) ↩

A painting by one of those artists who, from the fact that they had obtained medals at previous Salons, had the right to go on exhibiting at long as they lived, the committee being debarred from rejecting their work however bad it might be. (Translator’s note.) ↩

Madame Sidonie, who figures in M. Zola’s novel, La Curée. The male cousin, mentioned immediately afterwards, is Octave Mouret, the leading character of Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames. (Translator’s note.) ↩

Colophon

His Masterpiece
was published in 1885 by
Émile Zola.
It was translated from French in 1902 by
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2009 by
Dagny and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe,
a painting completed in 1863 by
Édouard Manet.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 28, 2016, 7:24 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/emile-zola/his-masterpiece/ernest-alfred-vizetelly.

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May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and