Le ventre de Paris. English Read online

  Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

  THE FAT AND THE THIN

  (LE VENTRE DE PARIS)

  By Emile Zola

  Translated, With An Introduction, By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

  Let me have men about me that are fat: Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. SHAKESPEARE: _Julius Caesar_, act i, sc. 2.

  INTRODUCTION

  "THE FAT AND THE THIN," or, to use the French title, "Le Ventre deParis," is a story of life in and around those vast Central Marketswhich form a distinctive feature of modern Paris. Even the reader whohas never crossed the Channel must have heard of the Parisian _Halles_,for much has been written about them, not only in English books onthe French metropolis, but also in English newspapers, magazines, andreviews; so that few, I fancy, will commence the perusal of the presentvolume without having, at all events, some knowledge of its subjectmatter.

  The Paris markets form such a world of their own, and teem at certainhours of the day and night with such exuberance of life, that it wasonly natural they should attract the attention of a novelist like M.Zola, who, to use his own words, delights "in any subject in which vastmasses of people can be shown in motion." Mr. Sherard tells us[*] thatthe idea of "Le Ventre de Paris" first occurred to M. Zola in 1872, whenhe used continually to take his friend Paul Alexis for a ramble throughthe Halles. I have in my possession, however, an article written byM. Zola some five or six years before that time, and in this one canalready detect the germ of the present work; just as the motif ofanother of M. Zola's novels, "La Joie de Vivre," can be traced to ashort story written for a Russian review.

  [*] _Emile Zola: a Biographical and Critical Study_, by RobertHarborough Sherard, pp. 103, 104. London, Chatto & Windus, 1893.

  Similar instances are frequently to be found in the writings of Englishas well as French novelists, and are, of course, easily explained. Ayoung man unknown to fame, and unable to procure the publication of along novel, often contents himself with embodying some particular ideain a short sketch or story, which finds its way into one or anotherperiodical, where it lies buried and forgotten by everybody--exceptingits author. Time goes by, however, the writer achieves some measure ofsuccess, and one day it occurs to him to elaborate and perfect that oldidea of his, only a faint _apercu_ of which, for lack of opportunity, hehad been able to give in the past. With a little research, no doubt, aninteresting essay might be written on these literary resuscitations; butif one except certain novelists who are so deficient in ideas that theycontinue writing and rewriting the same story throughout their lives, itwill, I think, be generally found that the revivals in question are dueto some such reason as that given above.

  It should be mentioned that the article of M. Zola's young days to whichI have referred is not one on market life in particular, but one onviolets. It contains, however, a vigorous, if brief, picture of theHalles in the small hours of the morning, and is instinct with thatrealistic descriptive power of which M. Zola has since given so manyproofs. We hear the rumbling and clattering of the market carts, we seethe piles of red meat, the baskets of silvery fish, the mountains ofvegetables, green and white; in a few paragraphs the whole market worldpasses in kaleidoscopic fashion before our eyes by the pale, dancinglight of the gas lamps and the lanterns. Several years after the paperI speak of was published, when M. Zola began to issue "Le Ventrede Paris," M. Tournachon, better known as Nadar, the aeronaut andphotographer, rushed into print to proclaim that the realistic novelisthad simply pilfered his ideas from an account of the Halles which he(Tournachon) had but lately written. M. Zola, as is so often his wont,scorned to reply to this charge of plagiarism; but, had he chosen, hecould have promptly settled the matter by producing his own forgottenarticle.

  At the risk of passing for a literary ghoul, I propose to exhume someportion of the paper in question, as, so far as translation can avail,it will show how M. Zola wrote and what he thought in 1867. After thedescription of the markets to which I have alluded, there comes thefollowing passage:--

  I was gazing at the preparations for the great daily orgy of Paris whenI espied a throng of people bustling suspiciously in a corner. A fewlanterns threw a yellow light upon this crowd. Children, women, and menwith outstretched hands were fumbling in dark piles which extended alongthe footway. I thought that those piles must be remnants of meat soldfor a trifling price, and that all those wretched people were rushingupon them to feed. I drew near, and discovered my mistake. The heapswere not heaps of meat, but heaps of violets. All the flowery poesy ofthe streets of Paris lay there, on that muddy pavement, amidst mountainsof food. The gardeners of the suburbs had brought their sweet-scentedharvests to the markets and were disposing of them to the hawkers. Fromthe rough fingers of their peasant growers the violets were passing tothe dirty hands of those who would cry them in the streets. At wintertime it is between four and six o'clock in the morning that the flowersof Paris are thus sold at the Halles. Whilst the city sleeps and itsbutchers are getting all ready for its daily attack of indigestion, atrade in poetry is plied in dark, dank corners. When the sun rises thebright red meat will be displayed in trim, carefully dressed joints, andthe violets, mounted on bits of osier, will gleam softly within theirelegant collars of green leaves. But when they arrive, in the darknight, the bullocks, already ripped open, discharge black blood, andthe trodden flowers lie prone upon the footways. . . . I noticed just infront of me one large bunch which had slipped off a neighbouring moundand was almost bathing in the gutter. I picked it up. Underneath, itwas soiled with mud; the greasy, fetid sewer water had left black stainsupon the flowers. And then, gazing at these exquisite daughters of ourgardens and our woods, astray amidst all the filth of the city, I beganto ponder. On what woman's bosom would those wretched flowerets openand bloom? Some hawker would dip them in a pail of water, and of all thebitter odours of the Paris mud they would retain but a slight pungency,which would remain mingled with their own sweet perfume. The water wouldremove their stains, they would pale somewhat, and become a joy both forthe smell and for the sight. Nevertheless, in the depths of each corollathere would still remain some particle of mud suggestive of impurity.And I asked myself how much love and passion was represented by allthose heaps of flowers shivering in the bleak wind. To how many lovingones, and how many indifferent ones, and how many egotistical ones,would all those thousands and thousands of violets go! In a few hours'time they would be scattered to the four corners of Paris, and for apaltry copper the passers-by would purchase a glimpse and a whiff ofspringtide in the muddy streets.

  Imperfect as the rendering may be, I think that the above passagewill show that M. Zola was already possessed of a large amount of hisacknowledged realistic power at the early date I have mentioned. Ishould also have liked to quote a rather amusing story of a priggishPhilistine who ate violets with oil and vinegar, strongly peppered, butconsiderations of space forbid; so I will pass to another passage, whichis of more interest and importance. Both French and English critics haveoften contended that although M. Zola is a married man, he knowsvery little of women, as there has virtually never been any _feminineromance_ 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 andacknowledged as fact by M. Zola himself, I see no harm in slightlyraising the veil from a long-past episode in the master's life:--

  The light was rising, and as I stood there before that footwaytransformed into a bed of flowers my strange night-fancies gave place torecollections at once sweet and sad. I thought of my last excursion toFontenay-aux-Roses, with the loved on
e, the good fairy of my twentiethyear. Springtime was budding into birth, the tender foliage gleamedin the pale April sunshine. The little pathway skirting the hill wasbordered by large fields of violets. As one passed along, a strongperfume seemed to penetrate one and make one languid. _She_ was leaningon my arm, faint with love from the sweet odour of the flowers. Awhiteness hovered over the country-side, little insects buzzed in thesunshine, deep silence fell from the heavens, and so low was the soundof 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 intolarge baskets. She who was with me glanced longingly at the flowers, andI 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 deepdistress. It seemed as though the country-side had been transformed intoa huge grocer's shop. . . . Then we ascended to the woods of Verrieres,and there, in the grass, under the soft, fresh foliage, we found sometiny violets which seemed to be dreadfully afraid, and contrived tohide themselves with all sorts of artful ruses. During two long hoursI scoured the grass and peered into every nook, and as soon as ever Ifound a fresh violet I carried it to her. She bought it of me, andthe price that I exacted was a kiss. . . . And I thought of all thosethings, of all that happiness, amidst the hubbub of the markets ofParis, before those poor dead flowers whose graveyard the footway hadbecome. I remembered my good fairy, who is now dead and gone, and thelittle bouquet of dry violets which I still preserve in a drawer. When Ireturned 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 twentykisses.

  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 differentthings, for some time back a well-known English poet and essayist wroteof the present work that it was redolent of pork, onions, and cheese.To one of his sensitive temperament, with a muse strictly nourished onsugar and water, such gross edibles as pork and cheese and onions werepeculiarly offensive. That humble plant the onion, employed to flavourwellnigh every savoury dish, can assuredly need no defence; in mostEuropean countries, too, cheese has long been known as the poor man'sfriend; whilst as for pork, apart from all other considerations, I canclaim for it a distinct place in English literature. A greater essayistby far than the critic to whom I am referring, a certain Mr. CharlesLamb, of the India House, has left us an immortal page on the origin ofroast pig and crackling. And, when everything is considered, I shouldmuch like to know why novels should be confined to the aspirations ofthe soul, and why they should not also treat of the requirements ofour physical nature? From the days of antiquity we have all known whatbefell the members when, guided by the brain, they were foolish enoughto revolt against the stomach. The latter plays a considerable part notonly in each individual organism, but also in the life of the world.Over and over again--I could adduce a score of historical examples--ithas thwarted the mightiest designs of the human mind. We mortals aremuch addicted to talking of our minds and our souls and treating ourbodies as mere dross. But I hold--it is a personal opinion--that in thevast majority of cases the former are largely governed by the last. Iconceive, therefore, that a novel which takes our daily sustenance asone of its themes has the best of all _raisons d'etre_. A foreign writerof far more consequence and ability than myself--Signor Edmondo deAmicis--has proclaimed the present book to be "one of the most originaland happiest inventions of French genius," and I am strongly inclined toshare his opinion.

  It should be observed that the work does not merely treat of theprovisioning of a great city. That provisioning is its _scenario_; butit also embraces a powerful allegory, the prose song of "the eternalbattle between the lean of this world and the fat--a battle in which, asthe author shows, the latter always come off successful. It is, too, inits way an allegory of the triumph of the fat bourgeois, who lives welland beds softly, over the gaunt and Ishmael artist--an allegory whichM. Zola has more than once introduced into his pages, another notableinstance thereof being found in 'Germinal,' with the fat, well-fedGregoires on the one hand, and the starving Maheus on the other."

  From this quotation from Mr. Sherard's pages it will be gathered that M.Zola had a distinct social aim in writing this book. Wellnigh thewhole social question may, indeed, be summed up in the words "food andcomfort"; and in a series of novels like "Les Rougon-Macquart," dealingfirstly with different conditions and grades of society, and, secondly,with the influence which the Second Empire exercised on France, thepresent volume necessarily had its place marked out from the very first.

  Mr. Sherard has told us of all the labour which M. Zola expended onthe preparation of the work, of his multitudinous visits to the Parismarkets, his patient investigation of their organism, and his keenartistic interest in their manifold phases of life. And bred as I wasin Paris, a partaker as I have been of her exultations and her woes theyhave always had for me a strong attraction. My memory goes back to theearlier years of their existence, and I can well remember many of theold surroundings which have now disappeared. I can recollect the lastvestiges of the antique _piliers_, built by Francis I, facing the Rue dela Tonnellerie. Paul Niquet's, with its "bowel-twisting brandy" andits crew of drunken ragpickers, was certainly before my time; but I canreadily recall Baratte's and Bordier's and all the folly and prodigalitywhich raged there; I knew, too, several of the noted thieves' hauntswhich took the place of Niquet's, and which one was careful never toenter without due precaution. And then, when the German armies werebeleaguering Paris, and two millions of people were shut off from theworld, I often strolled to the Halles to view their strangely alteredaspect. The fish pavilion, of which M. Zola has so much to say, was bareand deserted. The railway drays, laden with the comestible treasures ofthe ocean, no longer thundered through the covered ways. At the most onefound an auction going on in one or another corner, and a few Seine eelsor gudgeons fetching wellnigh their weight in gold. Then, in the butterand cheese pavilions, one could only procure some nauseous melted fat,while in the meat department horse and mule and donkey took the placeof beef and veal and mutton. Mule and donkey were very scarce, andcommanded high prices, but both were of better flavour than horse; mule,indeed, being quite a delicacy. I also well remember a stall at whichdog was sold, and, hunger knowing no law, I once purchased, cooked,and ate a couple of canine cutlets which cost me two francs apiece. Theflesh was pinky and very tender, yet I would not willingly make such arepast again. However, peace and plenty at last came round once more,the Halles regained their old-time aspect, and in the years whichfollowed I more than once saw the dawn rise slowly over the mounds ofcabbages, carrots, leeks, and pumpkins, even as M. Zola describes in thefollowing pages. He has, I think, depicted with remarkable accuracy andartistic skill the many varying effects of colour that are producedas the climbing sun casts its early beams on the giant larder and itsmasses of food--effects of colour which, to quote a famous saying of thefirst Napoleon, show that "the markets of Paris are the Louvre of thepeople" in more senses than one.

  The reader will bear in mind that the period dealt with by the authorin this work is that of 1857-60, when the new Halles Centrales wereyet young, and indeed not altogether complete. Still, although many oldlandmarks have long since been swept away, the picture of life in allessential particulars remained the same. Prior to 1860 the limits ofParis were the so-called _boulevards exterieurs_, from which a girdle ofsuburbs, such as Montmartre, Belleville, Passy, and Montrouge, extendedto the fortifications; and the population of the city was then only1,400,000 souls. Some of the figures which will be found scatteredthrough M. Zola's work must therefore be taken as applying entirely tothe past.

  Nowadays the amount of business transacted at the Halles has verylargely increased, in spite of the multiplication of district markets.Paris seems to have an insatiable appetite, though, on the other hand,its cuisine is fast becomi
ng all simplicity. To my thinking, few moreremarkable changes have come over the Parisians of recent years thanthis change of diet. One by one great restaurants, formerly renowned forparticular dishes and special wines, have been compelled through lackof custom to close their doors; and this has not been caused so much byinability to defray the cost of high feeding as by inability to indulgein it with impunity in a physical sense. In fact, Paris has become acity of impaired digestions, which nowadays seek the simplicity withoutthe heaviness of the old English cuisine; and, should things continuein their present course, I fancy that Parisians anxious for high feedingwill ultimately have to cross over to our side of the Channel.

  These remarks, I trust, will not be considered out of place in anintroduction to a work which to no small extent treats of the appetiteof Paris. The reader will find that the characters portrayed by M. Zolaare all types of humble life, but I fail to see that their circumstancesshould render them any the less interesting. A faithful portrait of ashopkeeper, a workman, or a workgirl is artistically of far more valuethan all the imaginary sketches of impossible dukes and good and wickedbaronets in which so many English novels abound. Several of M.Zola's personages seem to me extremely lifelike--Gavard, indeed, is a_chef-d'oeuvre_ of portraiture: I have known many men like him; and noone who lived in Paris under the Empire can deny the accuracy withwhich the author has delineated his hero Florent, the dreamy and haplessrevolutionary caught in the toils of others. In those days, too, therewas many such a plot as M. Zola describes, instigated by agents likeLogre and Lebigre, and allowed to mature till the eve of an election orsome other important event which rendered its exposure desirable for thepurpose of influencing public opinion. In fact, in all that relates tothe so-called "conspiracy of the markets," M. Zola, whilst changing timeand place to suit the requirements of his story, has simply followedhistorical lines. As for the Quenus, who play such prominent partsin the narrative, the husband is a weakling with no soul above hisstewpans, whilst his wife, the beautiful Lisa, in reality wears thebreeches and rules the roast. The manner in which she cures Quenu of hispolitical proclivities, though savouring of persuasiveness rather thanviolence, is worthy of the immortal Mrs. Caudle: Douglas Jerrold mighthave signed a certain lecture which she administers to her astoundedhelpmate. Of Pauline, the Quenus' daughter, we see but little in thestory, but she becomes the heroine of another of M. Zola's novels, "LaJoie de Vivre," and instead of inheriting the egotism of her parents,develops a passionate love and devotion for others. In a like way ClaudeLantier, Florent's artist friend and son of Gervaise of the "Assommoir,"figures more particularly in "L'Oeuvre," which tells how his painfulstruggle for fame resulted in madness and suicide. With reference to thebeautiful Norman and the other fishwives and gossips scattered throughthe present volume, and those genuine types of Parisian _gaminerie_,Muche, Marjolin, and Cadine, I may mention that I have frequentlychastened their language in deference to English susceptibilities,so that the story, whilst retaining every essential feature, containsnothing to which exception can reasonably be taken.

  E. A. V.

  THE FAT AND THE THIN