



Produced by Dagny and Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature




GERMINAL

BY

ÉMILE ZOLA


Translated and Introduced

By

Havelock Ellis


Translated and Introduced by Havelock Ellis

J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.

Aldine House--Bedford St.--London

1885




Introduction By Havelock Ellis


'GERMINAL' was published in 1885, after occupying Zola during the
previous year. In accordance with his usual custom--but to a greater
extent than with any other of his books except _La Débâcle_--he
accumulated material beforehand. For six months he travelled about
the coal-mining district in northern France and Belgium, especially
the Borinage around Mons, note-book in hand. 'He was inquisitive, was
that gentleman', miner told Sherard who visited the neighbourhood at a
later period and found that the miners in every village knew _Germinal_.
That was a tribute of admiration the book deserved, but it was never
one of Zola's most popular novels; it was neither amusing enough nor
outrageous enough to attract the multitude.

Yet _Germinal_ occupies a place among Zola's works which is constantly
becoming more assured, so that to some critics it even begins to seem
the only book of his that in the end may survive. In his own time, as
we know, the accredited critics of the day could find no condemnation
severe enough for Zola. Brunetière attacked him perpetually with a fury
that seemed inexhaustible; Schérer could not even bear to hear his name
mentioned; Anatole France, though he lived to relent, thought it would
have been better if he had never been born. Even at that time, however,
there were critics who inclined to view Germinal more favourably. Thus
Faguet, who was the recognized academic critic of the end of the last
century, while he held that posterity would be unable to understand how
Zola could ever have been popular, yet recognized him as in Germinal
the heroic representative of democracy, incomparable in his power of
describing crowds, and he realized how marvellous is the conclusion of
this book.

To-day, when critics view Zola In the main with indifference rather
than with horror, although he still retains his popular favour, the
distinction of _Germinal_ is yet more clearly recognized. Seillière,
while regarding the capitalistic conditions presented as now of an
ancient and almost extinct type, yet sees _Germinal_ standing out as
'the poem of social mysticism', while André Gide, a completely modern
critic who has left a deep mark on the present generation, observes
somewhere that it may nowadays cause surprise that he should refer with
admiration to _Germinal_, but it is a masterly book that fills him with
astonishment; he can hardly believe that it was written in French and
still less that it should have been written in any other language; it
seems that it should have been created in some international tongue.

The high place thus claimed for _Germinal_ will hardly seem exaggerated.
The book was produced when Zola had at length achieved the full mastery
of his art and before his hand had, as in his latest novels, begun to
lose its firm grasp. The subject lent itself, moreover, to his special
aptitude for presenting in vivid outline great human groups, and to his
special sympathy with the collective emotions and social aspirations of
such groups. We do not, as so often in Zola's work, become painfully
conscious that he is seeking to reproduce aspects of life with which
he is imperfectly acquainted, or fitting them into scientific formulas
which he has imperfectly understood. He shows a masterly grip of each
separate group, and each represents some essential element of the
whole; they are harmoniously balanced, and their mutual action and
reaction leads on inevitably to the splendid tragic dose, with yet its
great promise for the future. I will not here discuss Zola's literary
art (I have done so in my book of _Affirmations_); it is enough to say
that, though he was not a great master of style, Zola never again wrote
so finely as here.

A word may be added to explain how this translation fell to the lot of
one whose work has been in other fields. In 1893 the late A. Texeira de
Mattos was arranging for private issue a series of complete versions of
some of Zola's chief novels and offered to assign _Germinal_ to me. My
time was taken up with preliminary but as yet unfruitful preparation
for what I regarded as my own special task in life, and I felt that I
must not neglect the opportunity of spending my spare time in making
a modest addition to my income. My wife readily fell into the project
and agreed, on the understanding that we shared the proceeds, to act
as my amanuensis. So, in the