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THE MONOMANIAC

(_LA BÊTE HUMAINE_)


By ÉMILE ZOLA


Translated and Edited, with a Preface
By EDWARD VIZETELLY


London
HUTCHINSON & CO
Paternoster Row. 1901

_All rights reserved._




[Illustration: "SÉVERINE UTTERED AN INVOLUNTARY CRY, AND ROUBAUD TURNED
ROUND, TERRIFIED." _p._ 196.]




TABLE OF CONTENTS

 PREFACE
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII




PREFACE

This striking work, now published for the first time in England, but a
hundred thousand copies whereof have been sold in France, is one of the
most powerful novels that M. Émile Zola has written. It will be doubly
interesting to English readers, because for them it forms a missing
link in the famous Rougon-Macquart series.

The student of Zola literature will remember in the _Assommoir_ that
"handsome Lantier whose heartlessness was to cost Gervaise so many
tears." Jacques Lantier, the chief character in this _Bête Humaine_,
this _Human Animal_ which I have ventured to call the _Monomaniac_, is
one of their children. It is he who is the monomaniac. His monomania
consists in an irresistible prurience for murder, and his victims
must be women, just like that baneful criminal who was performing his
hideous exploits in the streets of the city of London in utter defiance
of the police, about the time M. Zola sat down to pen this remarkable
novel, and from whom, maybe, he partly took the idea.

Every woman this Jacques Lantier falls in love with, nay, every girl
from whom he culls a kiss, or whose bare shoulders or throat he happens
to catch a glimpse of, he feels an indomitable craving to slaughter!
And this abominable thirst is, it appears, nothing less than an
irresistible desire to avenge certain wrongs of which he has lost the
exact account, that have been handed down to him, through the males of
his line, since that distant age when prehistoric man found shelter in
the depths of caverns.

Around this peculiar being, who in other respects is like any ordinary
mortal, M. Émile Zola has grouped some very carefully studied
characters. All are drawn with a firm, masterly hand; all live and
breathe. Madame Lebleu, caught with her ear to the keyhole, is worthy
of Dickens. So is Aunt Phasie, who has engaged in a desperate underhand
struggle with her wretch of a husband about a miserable hoard of £40
which he wants to lay hands on. The idea of the jeering smile on her
lips, which seem to be repeating to him, "Search! search!" as she lies
a corpse on her bed in the dim light of a tallow candle, is inimitable.

The unconscious Séverine is but one of thousands of pretty Frenchwomen
tripping along the asphalt at this hour, utterly unable to distinguish
between right and wrong, who are ready to do anything, to sell
themselves body and soul for a little ease, a few smart frocks, and
some dainty linen. The warrior girl Flore, who thrashes the males, is a
grand conception.

But the gem of the whole bunch is that obstinate, narrow-minded,
self-sufficient examining-magistrate, M. Denizet; and in dealing with
this character, the author lays bare all the abominable system of
French criminal procedure. Recently this was modified to the extent
of allowing the accused party to have the assistance of counsel while
undergoing the torture of repeated searching cross-examinations at
the hands of his tormentor. But in the days of which M. Émile Zola is
writing, the prisoner enjoyed no such protection. He stood alone in the
room with the examining-magistrate and his registrar, and while the
former craftily laid traps for him to fall into, the latter carefully
took down his replies to the incriminating questions addressed to him.
It positively makes one shudder to think how many innocent men must
have been sent to the guillotine, or to penal servitude for life,
like poor Cabuche, during the length of years this atrocious practice
remained in full vigour!

The English reader, accustomed to open, even-handed justice for one and
all alike, and unfamiliar with the ways that prevail in France, will
start with amazement and incredulity at the idea of shelving criminal
cases to avoid scandal involving persons in high position. But such is
by no means an uncommon proceeding on the other side of the straits.
Georges Ohnet introduces a similar incident into his novel _Le Droit de
l'Enfant_.

M. Émile Zola has made most of his books a study of some particular
sphere of life in France. In this instance he introduces his readers
to the railway and railway servants. They are all there, from the
station-master to the porter, and all are depicted with so skilful a
hand that anyone who has travelled among our neighbours must recognise
them.

By frequent runs on an express engine between Paris and Havre, and
vice versâ, the author has mastered all the complicated mechanism of
the locomotive; and we see his trains vividly as in reality, starting
from the termini, gliding along the lofty embankments, through the
deep cuttings, plunging into and bursting from the tunnels amidst the
deafening riot of their hundred wheels, while the dumpy habitation of
the gatekeeper, Misard, totters on its frail foundations as they fly by
in a hurricane blast.

The story teems with incident from start to finish. Each chapter is a
drama in itself. To name but a few of the exciting events that are
dealt with: there is a murder in a railway carriage; an appalling
railway accident; a desperate fight between driver and fireman on the
foot-plate of a locomotive, which ends in both going over the side
to be cut to pieces, while the long train of cattle-trucks, under no
control, crammed full of inebriated soldiers on their way to the war,
who are yelling patriotic songs, dashes along, full steam, straight
ahead, with a big fire just made up, onward; to stop, no one knows
where.

This is certainly one of the best and most dramatic novels that M.
Émile Zola has ever penned; and I feel lively pleasure at having
the good fortune to be able, with the assistance of my enterprising
publishers, to present it to the English reading public.

   EDWARD VIZETELLY.

    SURBITON,
    _August_ 20, 1901.




THE MONOMANIAC

CHAPTER I


Roubaud, on entering the room, placed the loaf, the pâté, and the
bottle of white wine on the table. But Mother Victoire, before going
down to her post in the morning, had crammed the stove with such a
quantity of cinders that the heat was stifling, and the assistant
station-master, having opened a window, leant out on the rail in front
of it.

This occurred in the Impasse d'Amsterdam, in the last house on the
right, a lofty dwelling, where the Western Railway Company lodged some
of their staff. The window on the fifth floor, at the angle of the
mansarded roof, looked on to the station, that broad trench cutting
into the Quartier de l'Europe, to abruptly open up the view, and which
the grey mid-February sky, of a grey that was damp and warm, penetrated
by the sun, seemed to make still wider on that particular afternoon.

Opposite, in the sunny haze, the houses in the Rue de Rome became
confused, fading lightly into distance. On the left gaped the gigantic
porches of the iron marquees, with their smoky glass. That of the main
lines on which the eye looked down, appeared immense. It was separated
from those of Argenteuil, Versailles, and the Ceinture railway, which
were smaller, by the buildings set apart for the post-office, and for
heating water to fill the foot-warmers. To the right the trench was
severed by the diamond pattern ironwork of the Pont de l'Europe, but it
came into sight again, and could be followed as far as the Batignolles
tunnel.

And below the window itself, occupying all the vast space, the three
double lines that issued from the bridge deviated, spreading out like
a fan, whose innumerable metal branches ran on to disappear beneath
the span roofs of the marquees. In front of the arches stood the three
boxes of the pointsmen, with their small, bare gardens. Amidst the
confused background of carriages and engines encumbering the rails, a
great red signal formed a spot in the pale daylight.

Roubaud was interested for a few minutes, comparing what he saw with
his own station at Havre. Each time he came like this, to pass a day at