Emile Zola's Ark: A Lesson in Tolerance and Universal Brotherhood

By Nancy Molavi

Émile Zola (1840-1902), prominent leader of French Naturalism in novels and drama, was also an environmentalist, way ahead of his time. He had a great love and respect for animals of all kinds and shapes. Throughout this book, you will discover his love from the smallest creatures: ants, spiders, bugs and frogs, bats and rats, all the way to birds, rabbits, cats, dogs, donkeys, cows and bulls, horses, and even zoo lions. The stories, which are partly fictional but mostly realistic, clearly show his love of and admiration for most animals. In the process of telling them, he inter-mingled some humorous episodes. Who wouldn't laugh at the description of Gédéon, his donkey, getting drunk after savoring a bucket of red wine and raising havoc in his stable? And who wouldn't cry at the death of a dear pet? The stories in this book have been gathered after reading his complete works (fifteen volumes of more than 18,000 pages of Émile Zola: Oeuvres Complètes, edited by Henri Mitterand, the most eminent scholar of Zola's works, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Columbia University in New York City, in the 'Cercle du Livre Précieux' edition).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781528942874

Nancy Molavi

Nancy Molavi was born in Switzerland. She spent her childhood in Lugano, Monaco, and Madagascar. She was bilingual French-Italian, studied Latin and Greek in high-school, and graduated from the Lycée of Monaco. She attended the School of Translation and Interpretation in Geneva, Switzerland, learned English and some Farsi before meeting her future husband. They were married in Columbia, Missouri, where they both attended the University of Missouri. They live in Columbia; they have two children and two grandchildren. She earned her PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures (French and Spanish). Besides her love of languages and her interest in translation, she developed a profound admiration for Émile Zola's work; she lectured on the author's novels and plays at Stephen's College of Columbia and at the University of Missouri, Columbia. After she retired in 2011, she devoted her attention to Zola, searching for all the sketches and portraits of animals scattered throughout his complete works, and translated them into English.

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About the Author

Nancy Molavi was born in Switzerland. She spent her childhood in Lugano, Monaco, and Madagascar. She was bilingual French-Italian, studied Latin and Greek in high-school, and graduated from the Lycée of Monaco. She studied at the School of Translation and Interpretation in Geneva, Switzerland, learned English and some Farsi before meeting her future husband. They were married in Columbia, Missouri, where they both attended the University of Missouri. They live in Columbia; they have two children and two grandchildren.

She earned her PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures (French and Spanish). Besides her love of languages and her interest in translation, she developed a profound admiration for Émile Zola’s work; she lectured on the author’s novels and plays at Stephen’s College of Columbia and at the University of Missouri, Columbia. After she retired in 2011, she devoted her attention to Zola, searching for all the sketches and portraits of animals scattered throughout his complete works, and translated them into English.

Dedication

To my husband, who has been so patient with me and so helpful with his suggestions.

Copyright Information ©

Nancy Molavi (2018)

The right of Nancy Molavi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788483025 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788483032 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528942874 (E-Book)

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First Published (2018)

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In Memory Of

Snow White, our rabbit; Tweetie, the parakeet; our dog, Babri; Sweetie Pie, with his cohort of thirty social and almost civilized raccoons; and our three wonderful cats: Sam the Cat (Samantha), queen of the house; Maui the Pacifist; and Tiger the Hunter, who loved to bring his catch to the front door.

ZOLA’S ARK

Why are all animals a part of my family, like all men, as much as men? ¹

---

Œuvres Complètes, Cercle du Livre Précieux XIV, 737.↩︎

Preface

I wrote ZOLA’S ARK because of my profound admiration for one of the greatest French writers of the 19th century and also, because I thought an important aspect of his creation had not been developed enough: his love for animals and his portrayals of them. Émile Zola’s daughter Denise Le Blond-Zola aroused my curiosity when describing her father’s personality and the world of animals he surrounded himself with, whether in Paris or in Médan, in her book Émile Zola raconté par sa fille, published in 1931. Zola had many pets: cats, dogs, ducks, roosters, rabbits, piglets, even a little mouse that hid in his waste basket in London, a horse named Bonhomme, and a cow named Coliche. His property of Médan included a small island in the Seine, where most of them lived. If one died, he was disconsolate and cried for days. When in exile in London, during the Dreyfus affair, he constantly thought about the pets he had left behind and deeply suffered from the separation.¹

I began researching all the animal vignettes he scattered throughout his works and translated them into English, for the enjoyment of readers who do not speak French. Who can forget the tender friendship of the two horses of Germinal, Bataille and Trompette, or the jovial temper of the donkey Gédéon enjoying his barrel of wine, the coquettishness of female cats, the faithfulness and good nature of dogs, the loving care of a family of birds, the cruel stupidity of hens, or the military drill of a flock of geese?

What strikes one the most, when reading Zola’s works – novels, letters, critical essays, and journalistic articles – is his fundamental goodness, his compassion, and his love of justice and truth, which he extended to the animal world; he considered it to be one of the many wondrous facets of our universe. His humor and good heartedness permeate his descriptions and portrayals, contrary to the old-fashioned and trite opinion that the author of the Rougon-Macquart only delved into putrid or scandalous matters and had a morose, hypochondriac character.

Zola never fails to plea for justice and kindness toward our ‘brothers and sisters’² – the animals. We should love them, no matter how small, ugly, deformed, or unimportant they may seem to us. For, after all, they live, grow old, and die like us; they express pain and sadness through their eyes, even their tears, and their body motions. All of us, humans, animals, and plants, are linked to each other on this earth for some kind of general and all-inclusive purpose. We live off each other, we depend on each other; we would be desperately lonely without each other. Animals’ natural needs, their instincts, their simplistic ‘philosophy of life’, their unimpeded love affairs, their basic honesty are in a sense a moral compass in our overcomplicated lives. As for insects and bugs, Zola was intrigued by their social organization and disciplined work ethics toward a common goal. When asked which animals he preferred, he answered, All of them.³

Like his most famous predecessors, whom he deeply admired back in his college years and thereafter – the Greek fabulist Aesop, the comic playwright Aristophanes (The Wasps, The Birds, The Frogs) and mostly Jean de La Fontaine, the 17th century author of Fables and naughty short stories, Contes et Nouvelles – Zola makes extensive use of animal physiognomic features and expressions to give a human voice to them. Physiognomy was a branch of science, already mentioned in 1623 by French novelist Charles Sorel, in his ‘Francion’,⁴ that became very important during the 19th century; so were, of course, Darwin’s theories on the origin of species and hereditary features, which Zola read in translation, and Dr. Prosper Lucas’s voluminous ‘Philosophical and Psychological Treatise on Natural Heredity’⁵ from which he drew the bulk of his ideas in creating the characters of the Rougon-Macquart families. As a ‘naturalist’, Zola never failed to base his ideas on the minute observation of nature grounded in scientific data and experiments. In this, he was a disciple of Michelet whose work he read with much admiration.⁶

If Zola were alive today, he would be an impassioned environmentalist and conservationist. His love of animals began at an early age: he had a female monkey and wouldn’t eat his breakfast unless his cat shared it with him.⁷ Later on while in college, he and his best friends, Paul Cézanne and Jean-Baptistin Baille,⁸ would walk for hours through the olive groves and rocky lands of lower Provence then rest under the shade of trees along the River Arc. As they lay on the warm sand and listened to the fish jump, the frogs croak, the birds tweet, the insects buzz, and the cicadas shrill their drone during summer evenings, they discussed all kinds of new ideas, politics, history, science, poetry, literature and painting, sexual matters, and women. Later in his life, Zola became an avid and dedicated long-distance biker, which allowed him to observe nature in all its splendor and seasonal changes, and to listen to birds and other critters to his heart’s content.

He often said that he wished to embrace the whole universe in its reality, and he dreamed of a humanity of brothers and sisters across all established lines. He hated hypocrisy and dogmas. Thanks to his acute observation and perception of the world surrounding him, thanks to his ‘sympathy’ understood in the original ancient Greek meaning of ‘suffer or feel with’,⁹ he wrote humorous or tragic stories and left us an endearing gallery of animal portraits. In his notes, he jotted: ‘Donner une importance aux animaux dans les romans.’ (Give an important role to animals in the novels.)¹⁰

Nowadays, Zola’s works are enjoying a renewed attention because of his wide range of interests, his in-depth study of society, and of all types of human beings, whether generous or greedy, honest or corrupt. His social and psychological ideas remain very modern. He was not a scientist, but he had the curiosity of finding out whatever was odd, unexplainable yet, or futuristic, like his untamed and speeding locomotive, La Lison. His style is descriptive, very visual, and detailed, adapted to his minute scientific observation and his love for all aspects of nature, the ugly, as well as the beautiful. His scenes and backdrops are filled with movement, gestures, sounds, and smells; as all scholars of Zola have attested to, his stylistic approach is cinematic.

Zola had a talent and a passion for photography in those pre-movies and television times. In addition, he had written dramas, lyrical plays, and operatic poems. He had an acute sense of dramatics and scene sequencing. As a drama critic, he wrote many pieces and press releases on plays of the day, was often involved in their production, and was violently opposed, as a good disciple of Diderot in his Paradoxe sur le Comédien,¹¹ to any form of conventional constraints regarding stage props, vocabulary, body language, or costumes; he was irked by prudishness in the name of morality. He wanted to catch a scene in its very progress and development. Many of his novels and short stories have been adapted to the stage, as lyrical dramas, under his direction and that of Alfred Bruneau and William Busnach.¹² With his Le Naturalisme au théâtre (1881), he revolutionized modern drama and was a guide to stage director and playwright Antonin Artaud.

As I read his complete works, magnificently gathered in the 15 volumes of the ‘Cercle du Livre Précieux’ collection established under the direction of Henri Mitterand, I was captivated by his powerful portrayals of all types of humanity, his comprehensive and perceptive views of French society; I became aware of the love and deep concern he had for the animals that populate our streets, our homes, and nature at large. I thought they occupied a large place in his life and works, and that is why I decided to assemble and translate the various portraits he made of them and the stories or scenes in which they were involved. Some of them bring tears to your eyes, others make you wonder why we, as ‘smart humans’, do the things we do.

The masterful biographies, notes, and commentaries on Zola’s life and creative output by Henri Mitterand, Armand Lanoux, Colette Becker, and Roger Ripoll provided me with invaluable documents to understand his literary production, his style, his passionate fights for justice and universal brotherhood, his tolerance or his indignations against cruelty or indifference. I hope this translation will convey to the reader Émile Zola’s emotions, his thrills and disappointments, his joys, and, at times, his despair.

I want to extend my very special thanks to Vinh Tran, Production Coordinator; Jamie Yardley, Junior Production Coordinator; and the Production team of Austin Macauley Publishers for their continuous, timely, and professional support.

Nancy Molavi

Columbia, MO, January 2017

---

emilezola.free.fr/d_zola et l’amour des bêtes.htm: Denise Le Blond-Zola’s article in Cahiers Naturalistes 1956. No. 6, 284-308. Also, Pierre-Henri Simon ‘Un des derniers disciples de Rousseau’ Cahiers Naturalistes 1969, No. 38, 105-114.↩︎

See Zola’s articles of Nouvelle Campagne and Chroniques et Polémiques, Cercle du Livre Précieux XIV, 736-796, 841-842, 1158-1161, translated in Chapter I. These feelings will be expanded in Zola’s novel Le Dr. Pascal.↩︎

‘Answers to an indiscrete questionnaire’ listed by H. Mitterand, Zola II, 1134.↩︎

« Je scay bien que je ne me trompe point. Je tiens que les règles de physionomie ne sont point menteuses » (I know that I am not mistaken. I maintain that the laws of physiognomy do not lie.): Charles Sorel, Histoire comique de Francion (1623), Romanciers du XVIIè siècle, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard 1958 p. 93. ↩︎

Prosper Lucas (1808–1885) studied at the Paris School of Medicine, and defended his thesis on mental alienation in 1833 (De l’imitation contagieuse, ou de la propagation sympathique des névroses et des monomanies). He then wrote his Philosophical and Psychological treatise on Natural Heredity in 1847. He spent his life treating mentally ill patients at the hospital of Bicêtre. According to Michel Caire, author of ‘Contribution à l’histoire de l’hôpital Sainte-Anne (Paris): des origines au début du xxème siècle,’ he inspired Darwin who wrote ‘Dr. Lucas’s treatise, in two large volumes, is the fullest and the best on this subject.’ (On the Origin of Species, The Easton Press, Collector’s Edition, Norwalk CT, 1976, I, 6, and http://psychiatrie.histoire.free.fr/pers/bio/lucas.htm.)↩︎

Jules Michelet (1798–1874): French historian (History of France, originally published in 19 volumes), sociologist, anthropologist, philosopher, poet, and naturalist in his spare times: The Bird, The Insect, and The Mountain. See chapter I of Henri Mitterand’s Émile Zola I, 236, and Zola’s Chronicle entitled ‘Drifting along in a canoe’ in chapter I of Zola’s Ark.↩︎

See the humorous biography of Zola by Armand Lanoux, Bonjour Monsieur Zola, Livre de Poche, 1962, 393.↩︎

Jean-Baptistin Baille was a brilliant student in all subject matters, especially mathematics and sciences. He became a high level physicist, and specialized in optics and acoustics. He was one year younger than Zola (Henri Mitterand, Émile Zola I, 127-149).↩︎

From the Greek: Sym or Sun (with) and Pathein (Suffer).↩︎

H. Mitterand: Zola I, 726.↩︎

Denis Diderot: Œuvres, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard, Paris 1951. Zola was an early admirer of Diderot.↩︎

Émile Zola: Œuvres complètes, Cercle du Livre Précieux XV, 513-531, and H. Mitterand’s Introduction to Cercle du Livre Précieux XV, 13-15.↩︎

Chapter I

Love of Animals

How to Protect Universal Life from Suffering¹

Everyone knows that, at this later stage of my life, my ambition has no limits: I am beginning to enjoy power immensely.

Some keen press psychologists have perfectly observed this fact, because nothing escapes them; they possess a sharp philosophical understanding. That is why, for the last few years, they have noted with rare perspicacity the many despicable actions I have used to clinch official honors. They represent me with a rope around the neck, holding an expiatory candle in my hand; they show me in all the hallways and anterooms, my feet on the doormat and my hands on the doorbell, bending down so low that I now suffer from a chronic back pain.

How clever! You should have seen me! What can I say, if some people have an intelligence that pierces through the walls. I feel it useless to deny anything any longer, for the affair is now finally public: I just represented a Cabinet Minister, and they awarded me an honorary degree.

***

It was during the 44th meeting of the Society for the Protection of Animals, at the Cirque d’Hiver² that the ceremony took place, on the occasion of the awards distribution.

I perfectly understand what my new crime consists of. What? Zola decided to love animals? That’s all he needed. He must have sunken very low to pretend that he now loves animals; he only wants to call attention to his name and stir up publicity, at the very moment when one of his novels is being put up for sale. If he really loved animals, people would know about it.

That is quite true! Nobody knew that I loved animals. Such is the glory of literature and of the books we publish by the thousands, thinking that they are being read and understood by all. What a lesson in modesty when, one day, after having talked with brotherly love about animals in more than twenty volumes, after having portrayed them like favorite siblings and given them the most important roles next to humans, one hears people wonder and protest as they suddenly realize that you love animals!

On one occasion, when there was a total lack of news worth talking about, I decided to write my article on Love of animals, for the Figaro. I wrote it with some anxiety, fearing it would not be interesting, like one of those bland articles that we happen to write, unfortunately, too often. I was stupefied by the results: more than two hundred letters were sent to me, not only from France, but from all the countries in the world. I had contributed to the Figaro for almost six months, and this is the article that moved hearts and stirred passions the most! You cannot imagine the repercussions this love of animals has had in certain souls; outpourings of affection, pleas, relief projects, an entire brotherhood of activists. It is indeed miraculous and touching.

But what astounded me the most were the letters of beautiful ladies who all said, in barely different terms: What? You actually love animals, sir? You must therefore be a good man! And here I was, accusing you of all sorts of crimes, after all the bad things that were said to me about your novels and about yourself! In some of the pages I had read, I found you so dark, so terrible! But no more, I will never attack you again, and I will defend you, now that I know you are good to our dear animals. And one of those letters concluded: Your article has done more to earn you the support of women than your thirty years of literary works.

Imagine that! To speak of animals as our brothers, in twenty volumes! To have a circulation of one hundred thousand copies! To be read in both hemispheres of the globe! And one day, a single article of the newspaper reveals to the world that you love animals!

***

Last Monday, during the annual convention of the Society for the Protection of Animals, things happened in the most touching and cordial way. We were all in the family: only the members and some of their invited relatives were present, almost four thousand people, I was told. The distinguished President, Mr. Ulrich, who had fought so valiantly to spare France from the abomination of bull fights, thanked me for coming, and admitted it was an act of courage. French people are witty, especially in our Parisian newspapers. It appears that, to love animals, to take care of them, and to defend them is an easy target of jokes. What funnier sight is there than old spinsters with their band of cats, or an old gentleman tyrannized by his dog and walking him up and down the street so he can do his little business, or some bystander with a big heart who has a fight with a carter because he was whipping an old broken-winded horse? In other words, in order not to be made fun of, and if you like canaries, you better love them in the privacy of your home, give them a trinket and the freshest seeds, and not show off your love in public.

I didn’t show much courage, because for me, pleading the cause of animals stands at a higher level and is intimately linked to the cause of humanity, so much so that any improvement in our relationship with animals must necessarily lead to progress in human happiness. If all men are to be happy on earth one day, rest assured that all animals will be happy along with them. Our common destiny, when facing distress, is indestructible: universal life is at stake and must be spared any additional suffering. The ceremony I attended at the Cirque d’Hiver did not make me smile, but deeply touched me, because it was very simple, very moving, and constituted a wonderful lesson.

Twelve hundred laureates, awards, bronze, silver, and gold medals, honorable mentions, that’s a lot! Fortunately, not all laureates go there to be recognized. But would they number twelve thousands, the result would be even more laudable, since those prizes represent good propaganda, a means of encouraging our nice human empathy toward our little brothers and sisters the animals. The Society for the Protection of Animals has to use the only available means of action, a medal which distinguishes the most deserving person and sets him or her as an example. No doubt there is a trace of vanity in all that; but no one has yet discovered a better way to influence mankind. If you only knew what joy you bestow on a humble man, the day he is publicly honored with the sounds of music!

Humble people indeed! I only saw humble people go up the platform. Thanks to its gracious policy, the Society is willing to give a few awards to writers who have published an article or a book in which animals are cherished, and to newspapers the support of which is so necessary to promote its campaigns for animal protection. Its most obvious laureates are those humble people who are continuously in contact with animals, who live with them and by them, who are their masters, either defending them or tormenting them even more. Those are the teachers who can cheerfully influence our children’s hearts and minds; those are the cab drivers and carters who, whip in hand, rule the world of horses; or the farm boys, the shepherds, the cattle breeders who spend their days with innumerable herds; the armies with their blacksmiths, their regiments and various corps of cavalry men, among whom horses find a brother, or a tormenter; the firemen who rescue animals from fires and other disasters; the police officers who penalize delinquents guilty of disobeying the Grammont Law.³

You should have seen their rugged faces brighten up with a smile! You may laugh at them. However, this man spent twenty-five years in service without ever hitting an animal; that one took care of his horse like a brother and saved him from death; this other one was a good cabman, in this hellish city of Paris where working animals are flogged senseless. Yet another fought against human cruelty by keeping an eye on bird nests. You should have heard the cheers of this assembly of some four thousand spectators who were excited and beaming with joy. Very good people indeed, who do not hurt anyone but lend a helping hand instead. It was refreshing.

The queen of the ball was a sixteen-year-old shepherdess, Miss Camille Camelin from Trion, in the department of Yvonne: she risked her life to save her herd against a wolf. The entire audience cheered her, and it was I who decorated her, which makes me very proud.

Dear animals, you have indeed satisfied my insatiable ambition by giving me, for the first time, the flattering opportunity to publicly represent a Minister. It is you, not men, whom I want to thank!

Thank you, animals, so dear to my heart and my imagination; you populate my books. You are part of my life. I can see you galloping after the thousands of human beings I created, and it rejoices me, I am happy to have given you a place in my Ark.⁴

Thank you, animals swarming my Désirée’s⁵ barnyard; she grew up so full of healthy life and laughter, under your soft caresses; thank you, rabbits, hens, pigeons, ducks, thank you, my three geese and two turkeys; thank you Alexander, flaming red rooster who triumphantly crowed your sexual exploits; and thank you, pink piglet who so terrified young Father Serge.

Thank you, pets of my honest Pauline,⁶ who was so healthy too, despite her heroic renouncements. Thank you, Minouche the cat, so delicate yet a male hunter, who brought home, from God knows where, those overflowing litters of kittens. Thank you, my good Mathieu, my big dog, my big brother, who died in my arms, like a man, and whom I made die again in my despondent Lazare’s arms.

Thanks to my two coalmine heroes, my two martyrs, Trompette and Bataille,⁷ who lived their life in the darkness of the earth, away from the warm light of the large and bountiful sun; one died while working hard, brought back to daylight from the pit, like a cumbersome package; the other was left behind by himself and escaped, in a furious gallop, the devastating flood waters that reached and submersed him. Thank you also, Pologne, the little white rabbit, lovingly nestled on Souvarine’s lap, while he enjoys patting her and passing his fingers through her soft fur, as he dreams of bringing happiness to the world by means of a raging fire.

Thanks to all of you who labor and suffer in my novel The Land: to La Trouille’s pack of geese, let loose on the paths like a vagrant tribe, with its leader, its customs and its laws; to my donkey Gidéon, whom I made drunk and who caused me so much trouble; to Coliche my cow, whose birthing I wanted to be the everlasting symbol of animal and human life.

Thank you, my pitiful and tragic horses of The Debacle: thousands of dead horses scattered on the battlefield, with their bloated bellies, their stiffened legs up in the air, my agonizing horses wanting to flee, dragging themselves with their broken legs entangled in their guts; my stray horses, lost, wandering through the bloodied plain, charging the empty space in the midst of corpses, carried away by a wild wind, in the folly of disaster.

And thank you, all the other animals, whose list would be too long, the birds and the insects. Thank you, plants of my Paradou, that enormous explosion of vegetation, seeds, sprouts, all that life that I loved down to its slightest shiver, that life for which my sole ambition was to write an immense poem, even if I had to immolate to the glory of life all things sacred and accepted, the taste of our sedate literature, the respect of prudish people who cannot tolerate that someone accepts and speaks of everything.

Dear animals, I owe you the honor of having represented a Cabinet Minister on this podium, and also that of having received an honorary degree on the very same platform.

Oh! Dear unbiased animals, comforting animals who heal the wounds caused by men! Animals who know, thanks to your innocent instincts, how to distinguish true merit and show kindness toward the weaknesses of ambitious men; who do not pretend to judge literature and who welcome the distressed candidate out of the goodness of your hearts; animals, my brothers and sisters who have gratified my pride, here I am, finally crowned with success!

Nouvelle Campagne, New Crusade, CLP XIV, 736–796.

Speech at the Annual Session of the Society for the Protection of Animals

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am not here as an official representative of the government; the Minister of Public Education, who so graciously delegated me to you, will permit me to present myself as a mere friend of animals. I have no other reason to speak but to say that I love them. I suppose that to say so publicly can only bring honor to everyone, even to the government of a great country.

The brotherly love I feel for them does not fill me with any self-glorification, for I never made any effort to acquire it. I loved them as a little child and grew up loving them. It is absolutely true that I was born with this affection; it is so vibrant that I do not even have the merit of having acquired and cultivated it. My only surprise is to find myself amongst you so late in my life, at age fifty-six, since I have