Claude's Confession and Other Early Novels of Émile Zola. Ðмиль ЗолÑ
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to revive all his old awkwardness.
For eight years he had worked at the Encyclopaedic Dictionary. This anonymous work pleased him. Alone in a corner of the office, he enjoyed a species of delight in reminding himself that he was peaceable and unknown there. He preferred waiting thus, the day when the battle of life should again claim him. At times he raised his head and plunged into dreamland. He pictured the time when Jeanne would come out of her convent and he would be able to see her once more.
That was his great recreation — those his delicious and consoling moments. The remainder of his time, he worked like a machine. In order to leave his mind quite free, he had disciplined his body to carry out his literary labours like clockwork.
The nominal editor or author of the Dictionary very soon perceived the position he could take up with respect to this youth, who worked like a nigger, without complaining, and with a smile even of happiness on his face. For some time past he had been seeking a way to earn his twenty thousand francs without even coming to the office. He was wearied with keeping guard over his prisoners. Daniel was a precious treasure to him. Little by little he entrusted him with the superintendence of the whole business, the distribution of work, the revision of manuscripts, and special researches; and at the cost of only two hundred francs a month, he solved the difficult problem of never touching a pen, and of being the author of a monumental work.
Daniel joyfully allowed himself to be loaded with work. His companions, not having the terrible author at their backs, compiled as little as possible, and Daniel found himself positively doing a part also of their task. He thus acquired a mass of knowledge; his powerful mind retained and classified all the different sciences for which he was obliged to make research, and this Encyclopaedia which he was compiling himself was thus graven in his brain. Those eight years of incessant research made him one of the most learned young men in France. From a humble perfunctory clerk he became a scholar of the first order.
He delighted, above all, in the study of mathematical truths. He kept the scientific part of the work for himself, and in the evening when he got home he still went on with his work, passionately poring over scientific formulas. In the chaste solitude in which he lived, his head wrapped up in reminiscences of the child of six, he dearly loved to analyse himself, to study impulses of his ardent soul.
Several times George Raymond had tried to make him resign this thankless employment to which he gave the best part of himself. He desired to have him with him, that they might work together on an important work he was engaged in.
But Daniel did not want his freedom; he was quite satisfied with his state of slavery, which gave him what he most desired — incessant and furious toil. George was no longer the poor wretch thankful to read a book humbly on a seat in the Luxembourg gardens. He had used his arms so energetically in gaining a living that he put by enough at last to be able to devote himself entirely to literary work. He began to be known in the scientific world by some very remarkable essays he wrote on certain points of natural history.
However, at last Daniel decided to give up his employment and accept George’s offer. The Encyclopaedic Dictionary was very nearly finished; all that was wanting for its full publication was a few extracts, of which the material was ready.
The two young men did not leave each other again. They had never since their first meeting ceased living in the closest intimacy. They used their brains for a common object, and wrote several essays on their researches, which made a great stir. Daniel agreed to divide the profits, but he would never put his name on the manuscripts. He looked on all this period of his life as time lost, reserving himself for his true work, which was to look after Jeanne’s happiness. He made progress in science, unwillingly in repute, solely not to remain idle.
George having become well-known, even celebrated, had gone to live in an apartment in the rue Soufflot. Daniel was not pleased to leave the old house in the impasse St. Dominique d’Enfer. He found himself at home there in that out-of-the-way corner, far from the noises of the city. His heart expanded the moment he mounted the broken steps of the wide staircase. His narrow room, with its high ceiling and sensation of the tombs, pleased him. He shut himself up in it, and the only wish he ever had was that he might see Jeanne. He loved the sight of the sky and the trees through the window, because very often in his hours of meditation he had looked at them and thought of his dear little girl.
For twelve years he remained thus in that silent room. It was so full to him of his cherished and one idea that he experienced a great sadness at the mere thought of leaving it. It seemed to. him that nowhere else would he have seen Jeanne in every object before him.
Sometimes in the evening George accompanied Daniel as far as his lodgings. Then they had a good long chat on the first years of their friendship, when both of them lodged in the house.
So they lived on now almost alone, only now and then seeing a few friends. And in this solitude their sympathy had ended by becoming affection founded on esteem. They learned to love each other, reason and heart thus going hand in hand. Daniel had quite the feeling of a brother for George. He rested on the loyalty of his character; he knew well his strength and gentleness. George was the third person he had loved in his life, and sometimes he asked himself what would become of him if he had not met him.
When he asked himself this question, he was not thinking of the material assistance his friend had given him; no, it was that eternal want of the human heart to love and be loved that stirred him, and he thanked Providence for having sent him this great friendship which gave zest to life George, whose nature was more reserved, did not have the same effusiveness as Daniel. He treated Daniel slightly as a child and loved him as an elder brother. He had quickly discerned the deep affection of his heart, he knew well what a self-sacrificing spirit was hidden in that ungainly body, and he ended by no longer seeing Daniel’s ugly face. When people laughed at his friend he was astonished; he could not understand why the whole world did not admire his high and delicate order of intelligence.
He had noticed that Daniel had a secret hidden away in the depths of his heart; yet he never questioned him and never tried to force his confidence. He knew Daniel was an orphan, that a pious woman had adopted and educated him, and that this woman was dead. That was enough for him. He felt convinced that his friend could only be hiding some good intention in his heart.
During the twelve years that passed Daniel went every month to the rue d’Amsterdam, but he did not go in. He only walked up and down in front of the house; but at times he ventured to ask for news of Jeanne. On those days he rose early and went there on foot, a good three miles. He walked quickly, happy to be in the streets alone in the midst of crowds, without even George by his side; and there was, moreover, in a corner of his heart a secret hope of at last seeing his child once more.
When he reached the convent he for a long time strolled up and down the pavement, backwards and forwards, looking from a distance at the gates of her home. Then he went nearer and waited for a servant to come out if he saw no one he could make enquiries of. At times he went home sad and cast down; at others he used to decide to go in and speak to the doorkeeper, who received him very sharply and with mistrustful looks.
But how happy he was when he could stop some one belonging to the house and make enquiries at his leisure. Now he had grown very cunning. He made up all kinds of stories, and he drew Mademoiselle de Rionne’s name in quite naturally, and waited anxiously to hear what answer he should get. When they said to him: “She is in good health, she is tall and pretty,” he felt inclined to thank the speaker as if he had congratulated him on the graces of his own child.
And then, lighthearted and happy, he went away, elbowing the passersby like a drunken man, repressing with difficulty his desire to sing aloud. He went up the faubourgs again, building all kinds of castles in the air. He turned down a side street, had some food in a little restaurant, laughing all the time, covered with mud and dust, and half-dead with fatigue and happiness, and only reached the impasse St. Dominique d’Enfer in the evening.
George was used to these little trips of Daniel. The first few times when his friend came in he joked him and almost scolded him, and as the truant kept a sullen silence he merely smiled now after every fresh excursion of Daniel, thinking to himself: “Well, I suppose my friend has been to pay a visit to