WORK
[TRAVAIL]
BY
ÉMILE ZOLA
TRANSLATED BY
ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1901
PREFACE
'Work' is the second book of the new series which M. Zola began with'Fruitfulness,' and which he hopes to complete with 'Truth' and'Justice.' I should much have liked to discuss here in some detailseveral of the matters which M. Zola brings forward in this instalmentof his literary testament, but unfortunately the latter part of thepresent translation has been made by me in the midst of great bodilysuffering, and I have not now the strength to do as I desired. I willonly say, therefore, that 'Work' embraces many features. It is, first,an exposition of M. Zola's gospel of work, as the duty of every manborn into the world and the sovereign cure for many ills—a gospelwhich he has set forth more than once in the course of his numerouswritings, and which will be found synthetised, so to say, in a papercalled 'Life and Labour' translated by me for the 'New Review' someyears ago.[1] Secondly, 'Work' deals with the present-day conditionsof society so far as those conditions are affected by Capital andLabour. And, thirdly and particularly, it embraces a scheme of socialreorganisation and regeneration in which the ideas of Charles Fourier,the eminent philosopher, are taken as a basis and broadened and adaptedto the needs of a new century. Some may regard this scheme as beingmerely the splendid dream of a poet (the book certainly aboundsin symbolism), but all must admit that it is a scheme of pacificevolution, and therefore one to be preferred to the violent remediesproposed by most Socialist schools.
In this respect the book has a peculiar significance. Though theEnglish press pays very little attention to the matter, things aremoving apace in France. The quiet of that country is only surface-deep.The Socialist schools are each day making more and more progress.The very peasants are fast becoming Socialists, and, as I wrotecomparatively recently in my preface to the new English version of M.Zola's 'Germinal,' the most serious troubles may almost at any momentconvulse the Republic. Thus it is well that M. Zola, who has alwaysbeen a fervent partisan of peace and human brotherliness, should befound at such a juncture pointing out pacific courses to those whobelieve that a bath of blood must necessarily precede all socialregeneration.
Incidentally, in the course of his statements and arguments, M. Zolabrings forward some very interesting points. I would particularly referthe reader to what he writes on the subject of education. Again, hissketch of the unhappy French peasant of nowadays may be scanned withadvantage by those who foolishly believe that peasant to be one of themost contented beings in the world. The contrary is unhappily the case,the subdivision of the soil having reached such a point that the landcannot be properly or profitably cultivated. After lasting a hundredyears, the order of things established in the French provinces by theGreat Revolution has utterly broken down. The economic conditions ofthe world have changed, and the only hope for French agriculture restsin farming on a huge scale. This the peasant, amidst his hard strugglewith pauperism, is now realising, and this it is which i