"Claude's Confession," by Émile Zola, is one of the most exciting andnaturalistic romances that great author has ever produced. It is foundedon his own life, and he himself, under the name of Claude, figures asthe hero. The book is a deep and searching analysis of human feelings,and surely the miseries of student life in the Paris Quartier Latin werenever set forth in such vivid and startling fashion as in its pages.Claude, Laurence, Marie, Jacques and Pâquerette play parts in a darkdrama of blasted youth and dissipation truly Parisian in all itscharacteristics, and the interest excited in these personages and theireventful careers is simply overwhelming. The plot is well handled, andall the incidents possess dramatic intensity. The description of thepublic ball is a bit of lurid word-painting which Zola has neversurpassed, while that of the trip of Claude and Laurence to the countryin the spring sparkles with romantic and poetic beauty. Marie's deathand the dénouement are depicted in a style that is powerful in thehighest degree. "Claude's Confession" is one of the strongest booksimaginable, and will certainly fascinate all who take it up.
You knew, my friends, the wretched youth whose letters I now publish.That youth is no more. He wished to become a man amid the wreck andoblivion of his early days.
I have long hesitated about giving the following pages to the public. Idoubted my right to lay bare a body and a heart; I questioned myself,asking if it was allowable to divulge the secret of a confession. Then,when I re-read the panting and feverish letters, hanging together by amere thread, I was discouraged; I said to myself that readers would,doubtless, accord but a cold reception to such a delirious and excitedpublication. Grief has but one cry: the work is an incessant complaint.I hesitated as a man and as a writer.
At last, I thought, one day, that our age has need of lessons and that Ihad, perhaps, in my hands, the means of curing a few wounded hearts.People wish poets and novelists to moralize. I knew not how to mount thepulpit, but I possessed the work of blood and tears of a poor soul—Icould, in my turn, instruct and console. Claude's avowals had thesupreme precept of sobs, the high and pure moral of the fall and theredemption.
I then saw that these letters were such as they should be. I have noidea how the public will accept them, but I have faith in theirfrankness, even in their fury. They are human.
Hence, my friends, I resolved to publish this book. I took my decisionin the name of truth and the general good. Besides, looking above themasses, I thought of you: it would please me to relate to you again theterrible story which has already filled your eyes with tears.
This story is bare and true even to crudity. The delicate may not likeit, but it will teach them a lesson they cannot fail to profit by. Ihave not felt at liberty to cut out a single line, being certain thatthese pages are the complete expression of a heart in which there wasmore light than da