1975.12 埃米尔-左拉和他的朋友保罗-塞尚

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Emile Zola and His Friend Paul Cezanne
By Rolaine Hochstein
DECEMBER 1975 ISSUE
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A story by Rolaine Hochstein

When Emile Zola was forty-five and fat from overeating, he went down to Aixen-Provence to visit his friend Paul Cézanne. He took a fast train south from Paris with his idolatrous young secretary sitting opposite him in the plush of their private compartment. His eyebrows made a horizontal bar above his squint. His head hair had been cleverly tonsured to lap boyishly over his wrinkled forehead.

The southern sun struck Zola as he backed off the train, carefully outmaneuvering the stiffness in his knees and hip joints, and climbed into the hired buggy. His coat was cashmere. His soft leather shoes reflected the sunlight. He looked like a million and was worth almost that much.


Paul Cézanne was sitting on a wooden bench built around the trunk of an oak tree when he heard the creak of the buggy. He walked slowly toward the gate to see who was there. His torn straw hat wobbled on his head over eyes like bright blue peach pits. He saw it was his dear old friend, and his smile split as wide as a slice of cantaloupe.

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Cézanne came running, wide-legged in washedout, paint-spattered overalls, and grabbed his friend by the shoulders and kissed him more than once on both cheeks. These men were French, you know. This was in the middle 1880s. They were in their middle forties. Forty was older then than it is now. “1 suppose you want to know what brings me here?” Emile said to Paul.

Cezanne’s polished cheeks turned redder. He never knew what reactions were expected of him. “Where will I put you?” he said. “All dressed up like a Christmas goose. We must find you a place where you won’t get dirty.”

Madame Cezanne watched from a side porch where she sat with her legs spread making a table of her skirt as she cut apples into a bowl. From the distance she looked like a wood carving with its bright paint fading. She stood up slowly, slowly set down the bowl of apples, and came slowly down from the porch (in wooden shoes!). Emile had not seen her since before the marriage. She was heavy but still healthy. She had, he thought, grown to look like her husband.

Mme. Cezanne wiped her hands on her long apron as she approached the city people. The short man, glossy with pomade and self-content. The tall young woman, slim as a dandelion with a frizz of hair over a pale pink face, eyebrows like question marks.

Paul didn’t know what to do about the young woman—she was not Mme. Zola, certainly; she was not a daughter—so he ignored her. Mme. Cezanne asked her if she would like to come in and wash up. She gave them separate bedrooms, of course, and Zola made it clear to Monique, Brigitte, whatever her name was, that there would be no afterhours visiting.



In 1886 Emile Zola wrote a book about a crazy stubborn artist who never made it because he was too crazy and too stubborn to paint the kind of pictures that people wanted to look at. Zola’s friend Edouard Manet had died three years earlier, and a lot of people thought this book by Zola was really about Manet.

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I understand that Manet was social, liked to be seen at the right places, in good clothes, with pretty women. He seems to have ended pretty much as he started except minus a leg (amputated: an undiagnosed disease) and plus a reputation as leader of the oddball painters that some critics derisively called “impressionists” but that Zola insisted on referring to as “naturalists.” Maybe Manet would have liked having a novel written about him. It doesn’t matter. The artist Zola had in mind was a total unknown, a weird, antisocial character from the provinces, who had in fact gone to school with Zola and who had been his friend for more than thirty years before Zola wrote the book. He knew who it was about, all right. After he read the book, glowering at page after page with his closely set, farseeing eyes, hurt and anger wringing his heart down into his belly until he couldn’t sit straight; after he thought it was bad enough doing what he had to do and always wondering if it was really junk as so many people said it was but doing it anyway because that was what he saw; after thinking on high days he had a masterpiece going and thinking on low days he ought to do something constructive like take up house painting, knowing it’s only one life and he’s spending it as a failure; after forgetting rejection, forgetting Paris, the expositions, Zola with his ease and his acclaim and his women (it was hard to forget the women), now to find himself used, reduced to words—facts of his life, small and secret experiences, his doubts, his torment, all used. Paul Cézanne was not a man to howl. The shape of his friend’s treachery filled his mind. He never spoke to Zola again.

He was right. You don’t do that to a friend. You don’t put yourself up high and mighty after you’ve had successes, bought yourself a closetful of clothes and a house in the country, and then turn out an isn’t-that-too-bad kind of book about the failure of your old buddy. I only wonder why Zola sent him a copy of the book. He hadn’t sent a book since the first novel, which Cézanne faithfully read and praised. Was this Zola’s idea of courtesy, or was it an act of hatred? Cézanne didn’t analyze. He felt the hatred. But me—I want to know why.

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Rolaine Hochstein is a free-lance writer who lives in New Jersey. This is her first appearance in The Atlantic.
You’d have taken Emile as the rich kid of the two. His mother dressed him in white suits while Paul ran around in peasant shirts and baggy pants. Emile, being small, sat up front under the teacher’s hairy nose. Paul sat with the big boys in the back. Played cards. Passed around dirty pictures. Farted freely. Scratched. His old man, though rich, was tight, and Paul, never having an extra centime to bet on card games, bets with dares. He loses and has to put a very ripe Camembert on the teacher’s high-seated chair. He often gets caught. M. Spilo, all arms, legs, and hollow chest, a spider in his black suit, waves Paul into a corner and switches him on his bare behind. Only Emile didn’t laugh.

In the heavy rain, Emile walks along the high middle of the dirt road. Paul sloshes in the ruts. “Does it still hurt?” Emile asks.

“A small thing. A small sting.” Paul watches the advance of his booted feet on the slippery edges of red mud pools. “I’ve got a hard ass by now.”

“He should not be allowed to use the whip.” Emile had a snub nose, neat hands and feet, nearsighted, ovine eyes. He was invited to the birthday parties of the daughter of the mayor.

On a freezing morning, Emile, bundled against the cold and with more books than necessary tied in a leather strap, knocks on the door of the Cézanne farmhouse, runs down the long hall and raps on Paul’s bedroom door. “Hurry or you’ll make me late again!” His weak eyes in pre-daylight make out his friend in a shirt and stockings squatting on the terra-cotta floor, tracing with his finger. Emile droops into a laughing fit, kicks at his friend. “You nut! You’ll ruin me!”

Emile was faster at schoolwork, but Paul’s voice had thickened, and wisps of yellow whiskers had sprouted along the sides of his pimply (I hope not) face. Paul had hair in other places, too. He wished he could talk about the hair and the strange, terrible stiffening, but there were only the boys in the back of the room, who could not be trusted to sustain a serious moment. Emile was out of the question. Though only a year younger, he seemed to be constructed without the usual pipes and sewers that were responsible for Paul’s excitement and disgust. They spent an hour watching two black ants in a death struggle on a boulder under a bridge. They talked about other things. Paul’s eyes, cagey and blue over the crack of his nose, never met the soft gaze of his reasonable friend.

Zola at eighteen packed three cases with books and clothes and boarded the coach for Paris. The University. A career in law. To make the world a better place. The widowed mother came to see him off although Emile had asked her, in all common sense, to stay home and save herself a lot of unproductive tears. Zola felt he had been a decent son, considerate and affectionate, so he left the ministrations of his mother with more relief than regret. “If you have any problems, call me immediately,” they told one another. She stands on her toes below the coach window and offers a face flowery with tears, her brimmed purple bonnet falling back on black taffeta shoulders. At this moment, up rushes Paul—lanky, lopsided. “You can’t go without a present.” He makes an awkward bow to Mme. Zola as through the window he passes to Emile a little basket covered with a napkin. The coach takes off. Zola lifts the napkin. Twelve beautiful flounder! Freshly caught, so there is no feel of slime. It is fully two hours before they start to stink.

Paul stayed home, where he was expected to shape up, learn accounting, take over his father’s banking business.

What a success, Zola in Paris! Never in the sleepy South had he felt such energy, never had he seen his goals so clearly before him! The University was no more than his base of operations. He took his time, looked around, asked discreet questions. He was friendly, but careful—like a real Lord Chesterfield’s son. Once he had appropriate friends, he’d think about women. It was time. His long friendship with prudish Cezanne had left him fit for a monastery. In Paris, with friends who knew their way around, he could get that over with.

I don’t know why I have it in for Zola. There’s no reason to put a man down, just because he knows what he wants and goes after it. Why shouldn’t he make his way? The widow had taught him good manners, but the ease, the confidence— they came from a different source. He was born with a silver tongue in his mouth, something like that. Mention the book of the day, the play of the hour, the new opera from Italy, the new treatise from Germany—young Zola had seen it, read it, loved it, hated it. He could make his words flow like the most symmetrical of Paris fountains, or crash like the ocean against the Brittany rocks. The Great Critic was most taken with him:

“Strong opinions for such a young man, yet well defended.”

“Monsieur is very kind.”

“You should write lest your words blow away.”

“To write for a drawer is no better than to speak in the air.”

The point is made. The Great Critic drops a word to an editor. Talent is always welcome when it is flexible. Zola gives up the study of law: the pen is mightier.

You can see Zola in a group portrait by his friend Henri Fantin-Latour, which hangs in the Jeu de Paume among vastly better works by many of the people therein portrayed. Vastly better works is the kind of phrase Zola might use in his art criticism but would certainly delete from his novels. There he stands with his good-boy face, his hair slicked back, his boxy body elegantly dressed, his new pince-nez suspended on a satin cord. He looks very comfortable among his friends. (Monet and Renoir are there, looking like characters from La Bohème.) They’re all standing round Manet.

Zola had a tiny nose, luckily for Paul Muni, who also had a small one and got to play Zola in the movies. You can see him again, toward the back of the museum. He is a little older, thinner, sitting at his writing table. No provincial, he. A fine Japanese screen is painted in to break the space and to show that Zola is up on Japanese art. On a shelf above the desk is a print of a famous painting by Zola’s friend Manet, who not at all coincidentally was the painter of the very portrait we’re talking about.

None of this is exactly true, you understand. I take a fact here, an impression there, an inkling. I know nothing about these men. In fact, I think Zola and Cézanne went to Paris together, two men not much younger than I am, hoping to make good in the city. Cézanne has a little problem. He wants to be an artist but he can’t draw. The other artists who are going to be the French Impressionists are having their own troubles rebelling—you know—against their Old School teachers. But Cézanne . . . Get this: Cézanne can’t even pass the entrance examination! Cézanne can’t even get into school!

He has no grace. No sense of direction. But somehow, bumping against doors, he comes to meet those other artists who will have nothing to do with shapely Venuses stepping out of shells. He meets roughhouse Courbet and suave Manet, and he introduces them to his buddy Zola. Zola’s ears stand up. These artists, he thinks, paint like he writes. Naturalists. Comers, like him. Working from life. No pretense. No frosting. Oh, thinks Zola, if these dudes would forget their pretty colors and lighting effects, if they’d focus on underwear.

garbage, deathbeds, they would really have something going!

Cézanne, of course, is a hopeless case. Everybody laughs at his paintings, awkward and rough, like Paul himself. With every rejection his accent gets coarser, his manners get worse. Dapper Manet moves to shake his hand late one afternoon on the Boulevard St. Germain. Cézanne pulls away in horror. “Don’t touch!” he croaks. “I haven’t bathed in two weeks!”

Zola, meantime, is busy writing about Paul’s friends. He has become an art critic. Zola is in. Cézanne is out. Paul goes back to Provence. Manet paints the Zola portrait. Zola sits at his businesslike desk, in a profile that looks both sensitive and resolute, holding an art book. On the wall above, very clear, is a print of Manet’s famous Olympia. Among a fan of pamphlets on the desk, the first, clearly titled, is Zola’s monograph on Manet. One hand washes the other.

By this time Zola is a married man.

He didn’t marry Céleste, Renoir’s model, who worshiped Zola, her eyes an incredible wash of blue, blinking in agreement to his harangue on social injustice.

Nor Francine, who took him in her arms when depression (at the smallest disappointment) floored him, whose enormous, pale-nippled breasts flattened like soufflés as he sank against them, and who crooned into his ear reminders of his accomplishments and expectations.

Nor the fanciful Liliane, with the wicked nose and sharp chin, a teaser and tweaker who could make him hot and then freeze him with laughter: “A real intellectual would be in a library studying.”

No. Emile Zola, having known many women, knew enough to choose a suitable wife. He needed regulation, stability, a graceful hostess, a tactful associate who could, when the need arose, smooth the prickles of parties who might possibly feel themselves attacked in one way or another by her husband’s written or spoken opinions. He needed, in addition, a self-contained woman, who would understand that many of his hours must be spent apart, writing, reading, keeping up a large correspondence (Paris, after all, was not the world), visiting editorial offices, circulating at conventions, conferences, and of course the salons frequented by important people in politics and the arts, getting about to the theater, the galleries, and even, on occasional evenings, to Latin Quarter cafes with his old friends the artists, who were still shouting and banging on tables about the way an Irish setter’s hair looks when it is ruffled by wind in full sunlight . . .

Jacqueline Dudevant (let’s say her name was) was the daughter of a rich lawyer. She was nineteen. docile, fastidious, dressed in expensive good taste, and accomplished in small ways at many small things. She played a little at the piano. She painted tiny flowers on bone-china plates. Everyone marveled at her English (which was terrible, spoken in a—pardon the expression—froglike gargle, in memorized phrases seldom appropriate to the moment, and with the animation of one of Madame Alexandre’s bisque dolls). Her German was worse. Zola thought he saw intelligence behind the practiced brightness of her extremely round eyes. She was tall, broad-boned, tiny-breasted, freckled under creams and powder. People said she was a great beauty, and maybe, if she’d been allowed to run loose in the country for a few months, she might have turned into something frisky and unpredictable and loving. Zola didn’t speculate. The mother was worried about his temperament—perhaps too fiery, too aggressive. Was he dependable? Would he be gentle? The father wanted him. He saw a great future in Zola and a strong hand to guide the pliant Jacqueline, a grand ménage to occupy her. He offered a formidable dowry and the promise of an inheritance.

Poking along country roads, his head full of the shapes and colors of distant hills, houses, trees, Cézanne gradually acknowledged his love for Henriette, who sometimes walked beside him, quiet as he. She was a broad, sober peasant, maybe a couple of years older than he was: he didn’t ask; she didn’t tell. She was everything he needed, a clean, strong woman who made him comfortable when she could. He lived behind his easel, often driving himself crazy, but he liked to pass the rest of his time in the atmosphere of her serenity. He loved to watch her strong, sure movements as she peeled potatoes, scrubbed a table, hiked up her heavy skirts for a muddy walk to the well. Old Man Cézanne disapproved; even if the boy was slightly deranged—as they suspected he was—there was no call to marry a stupid, untaught, not even beautiful peasant. There were others—the daughter of a foreman, if not one of the homelier of the eligible girls from good families. The old man had supported his son’s follies for many years. Crazy pictures not fit for an outhouse wall. But this latest caprice he would not permit. It was not to be discussed.

So Paul spent some years as a more or less permanent visitor chez Henriette, whose parents weren’t happy with the arrangement either. An engagement to a gentleman would ordinarily be a good thing, but this one was a kind of cucumber. Money couldn’t excuse everything. Henriette, a decent, hard-working girl, very good with cows, could still make a marriage. She was not yet thirty. There were many childbearing years ahead. Instead, she stood without a contract, depending only on the whim of a man who was likely to fall into a mood and remain speechless for days. One could see him in the field painting his distorted scenes with murky colors running together, the unfortunate trees with leaves like feathers. The parents of Henriette were not pleased, but what could they do?

Zola had problems too. Every morning he woke up with a battle going on in his head. A woman in his head said, “I want. I want. As a child I had only one toy, a headless doll that my father had found in a garbage can.”

Zola soothed her. He saw only that she was scrawny as an icicle, with yellow hair so thin it seemed to hang in shreds. He would have to decide about her age and the condition of her clothing, what were her eating habits, how did she walk. “I will come to you,” he promised. His wife slept beside him, snoring delicately. Zola could not send her away or move to the country himself in order to write his story. He had responsibilities. But maybe, this morning, since the woman (what would he call her? Germaine? Nanette?) was so importunate, maybe he could hurry to his writing desk and set her down fresh from these thoughts.

Here’s exactly how it happened. Zola rolled out of bed. took a fast leak (where did they go in Paris in those days?), rinsed his mouth with the 1870s equivalent of Listerine, threw a dressing gown over his striped nightshirt, and, damn the servants, hurried to his desk, where the pens were always sharp.

He sat down. He selected a pen and arranged some paper . . .

But there was the in-box with important letters to be answered. A reminder about his tailor’s bill. Invitations to speak. Requests for charity. A photograph of a starving child in India. How could he refuse while his own family flourished? He had to call a publisher who owed him money. Another was yelling for a manuscript. Zola loved organizing his business affairs. Business was neat and finite. There would be lunch today at Victor’s with the editor Nicolet and the beautiful Englishwoman he traveled with. What would Zola wear? The article for Le Monde Nouveau was due on Friday. He’d have to start right away if he expected to enjoy a long lunch. Money was important. Rent was high. Jacqueline’s frail health required expensive medical consultations.

Poor Nanette. Or Germaine. She would have to wait until the article was finished. Because, Zola promised himself, he would not rush this story. When it was time for Germaine or Lili, he would clear his head of everything else. No other commitment. He would open himself to her and she would grow inside him. slowly taking life on his sheets of paper until she burst into the world as Zola’s masterpiece, as alive to the world as she was in the brief, painful, tantalizing morning visits to Zola in his bed.

When Cézanne showed up in Paris he looked worse than usual. He tried to look spruce but looked instead like a newly released jailbird buttoned into a charity suit. With the scrubbed face and the big hands sticking out of his sleeves, he looked like a man hanging, and felt like one, too.

Zola hugged him in the uninhibited new Paris style. Cézanne blushed with happiness and embarrassment. Emile had become so dashing. His clothes and hair were rumpled. Everything moved when he talked, and he always talked. Now Paul was the sober one. “I want to tell you,” Cézanne begins.

“Yes. do. I’m dying to hear.”

“What I’m working on. Some of the old men from the countryside . . .”

“Using models? Portraits from life? That’s beautiful, Paul. You should have been at that a long time ago. I’ve been painting from life, so to speak, from the beginning. It’s the only way . . .”

Zola, despite the fear of losing regard, took Cézanne to any dealer who would look. Paul, in his current phase, thought his work had to be worthwhile because he put so much effort into it. He held up the canvases hopefully. He told the dealer to stand at the far end of the shop. He took him outside into the daylight. The dealers were polite because Zola was present. Nobody laughed until Zola and his friend were out the door.

Zola took Cézanne to see Manet and Pissarro, both of whom were in Paris at the time. Paul could surely use some technical help, some solid intelligence about brushwork. composition, colorwell, everything, really. Cézanne respectfully studied the work of the Impressionists. He listened to them politely.

Generous, expansive, Zola brought Cézanne among his literary friends. They, with cigars and wristwatches, sat back in their chairs with their legs crossed at the knee (showing off their silk stockings), thinking what a splendid fellow their Emile must be to take on this ludicrous bumpkin in loyalty to childhood friendship. (Be sure Cézanne recognized none of this. What did he think? Maybe he was considering the shape of the space between this man’s ear and his shoulder.)

“Sit down,” says Zola, “and tell my friends what you saw in the Louvre this morning. I’ll get us an apéritif. What’ll it be? Pernod? Vermouth?”

Cézanne pulls out a chair. “Just get me a beer.” He hands Zola a filthy hundred-franc note. He blinks at the dandies around the table. “At the Louvre today I saw the Captive Slave. Tomorrow I will return with a drawing book.”

“What will you draw?”


“The ribs and back of the Captive Slave.”

“So. You are interested in anatomy.”

Paul crashes his fist against the table. Saucers clatter. “I am interested in strain!”

Zola was annoyed with his friend. He was acting like a professional failure. Every year he sent canvases to be judged for showing at the great Salon exposition. Every year they were summarily rejected. Once, at Zola’s urging, the judges took pity on the poor, dogged fellow and arranged to hang one of his works—four or five scrawny blue naked men standing around a swimming hole—in a sideshow of “interesting new directions.” Spectators were so enraged that the thing was soon taken down and returned to Provence.

“You have a reasonable choice,” Zola told Cezanne over beers in Brasserie Lipp. “Consider the public and be shown, or do what you like and forget the public. You are a lucky man. Unlike Renoir, you don’t have to paint for a living.”

Cézanne’s laugh made people stare. “But I have to paint to live.” Remember, this was a hundred years ago, and people weren’t as sophisticated as we are now. Cézanne scratched at Zola’s lapel and laughed with tears coming down all over his face. “Hang the public,” Paul said. “And hang the pictures in my barn.”


Zola, a positive thinker, a problem solver, blamed his friend for self-indulgence. The man made no effort to keep up. He probably didn’t even vote. His wife was no challenge. He had insisted on marrying Henriette the day after the ending of the mourning period for his father. She remained passive and grateful, the perfect wife for a man who wishes to scoop himself out and smear his insides on a canvas.

Zola shut his eyes. He had nothing to be ashamed of. None of his work had to hang in barns. His novels were published and popular, yet he was uncompromised. Never did he spray eau de cologne over a foul odor, nor pretend that street people talk like professors, or that the poor are content in their privation. Zola was not squeamish. Pus. Vomit. He rubbed the public face in it. That was his power.

He imagined Henriette sitting in the garden watching her husband work. She, with hands like scraped beets, did not long to be taken out to tea. She probably liked to make love.

Inever saw the Paul Muni movie. I don’t watch TV much. But I always get Zola as an old man mixed up in my mind with Chopin’s piano teacher, another Muni role. A big head of gray hair. Mine is already beginning to thin.


Recognition came early to Zola. Plaques. Medals. Foreign translations. He was voted one of the ten best-dressed men in France. Great statesmen confided in him. Strangers on the street came up to shake his hand. By the time he was forty he no longer had to be introduced anywhere. Always the best table. The upstairs room at the Vingt-et-un.

Jacqueline (Mme. Zola) was not unhappy. Clothes and parties, calls paid and received, the occasional pleasures of a young man’s attentions helped to lighten the steps (in the most painful of pointed shoes) which moved her toward the day when she would put on bedroom slippers and acknowledge herself an old woman. Zola saw his wife growing old but hated more the signs of age on his own face. His beard covered a chin that was beginning to puff like that on a caricature of Pantalone. He wondered why he didn’t feel better about himself. Lately his brilliant friends had become less interesting than the wine seller on the corner. Zola had never been much of a ladies’ man, but—in an effort to put some sparkle into his life—he tried. There was a little laundress . . .

Now, with Manet dead, the barbarian Americans were snatching at Impressionist paintings. A railroad entrepreneur offered Zola a thousand dollars for a medium-sized street scene that was hung on the wall of his foyer. “Take money for Manet?” Zola punned. The visitor thought Zola was mocking his pronunciation. “Monet, Manet,” he said. “Name your price and I’ll pay it.” Zola disappeared into a closet and returned with a canvas of a bowl of apples by his friend Cézanne. “I’ll sell you this one. Take my word, he’s better than both of the others.” The American was enraged at the joke.


In truth, Zola was tired of the so-called Impressionists now that they were popular. He smiled into his beard, rubbing his tongue over the spaces where he had lost three teeth. “If you live long enough,” he told the dealer Armand-Ruel, “all your bizarre ideas become commonplace.” He was happy to see Monet at last getting his hands on some cash, but that didn’t change Zola’s life. If anything, it made him feel more banal. He began a reassessment in his art columns. He wrote that the Impressionists had been grossly overrated, by him especially.

One day when he was feeling restless, worthless, close to the edge of a frightening hole, he suddenly decided to pay a visit to Old Paul.

“I suppose you want to know what brings me here,” Emile said jauntily.

“What does it matter?” Paul managed to reply. “As long as you are here.” He was obviously overjoyed and did his best to make them both comfortable, Emile and the unexplained young woman. They all sat in the back yard under the trees. Henriette brought out food, hot bread, fresh butter, fruit, cheese. Paul opened a bottle of chateau wine. Probably there were frisky children running around.

Paul, you swine! Zola thought. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see how old you’re getting? Pebbles under your eyes, veins in your cheeks, skin coarse, jaw falling away. Paul, tell me the truth. Doesn’t it hurt you?


Paul answered him directly. “My face is becoming more interesting. It will be a better subject the next time I paint it.” He saw the pain under his friend’s ironic smile and knew he had again given the unasked-for response. “Why should I worry about the loss of youth?” He listened affectionately for Zola’s explanation so that he could share his friend’s feeling. But it was impossible to understand all this concern over occasional dyspepsia, a stiff’ back.

“The choice,” Cézanne said at last, “is to grow old or to die. One is lucky to grow old. There is always one’s work.”

Zola was stung with envy. He cut his visit short on an absurd pretext. He took his secretary and fled. Two months later (no time at all) he had a new book, l’Oeuvre. Paul felt that he had been violated. He threw the book into the kitchen fire and never again spoke of his friendship with Emile Zola.

Years later, when Zola rose as the champion of Captain Dreyfus, Cézanne took the other side. □





埃米尔-左拉和他的朋友保罗-塞尚
作者：Rolaine Hochstein
1975年12月号
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Rolaine Hochstein的故事

当埃米尔-左拉四十五岁，因暴饮暴食而发胖时，他去了艾桑-普罗旺斯，拜访他的朋友保罗-塞尚。他从巴黎乘快车南下，在他们的私人包厢里，他那崇拜的年轻秘书坐在他对面。他的眉毛在他的斜视上方形成了一道横杠。他的头发被巧妙地修剪过，在他布满皱纹的前额上拍打着，显得十分稚嫩。

南方的阳光打在左拉身上，他从火车上退下来，小心翼翼地避开膝盖和髋关节的僵硬，爬上租来的马车。他的外套是羊绒的。他的软皮鞋反射着阳光。他看起来像个百万富翁，而且几乎值那么多钱。


当保罗-塞尚听到马车的吱吱声时，他正坐在围绕橡树树干的木凳上。他慢慢地向大门走去，想看看是谁在那里。他的破草帽在头上晃动，遮住了像明亮的蓝色桃核的眼睛。他看到那是他亲爱的老朋友，他的笑容像一片哈密瓜一样灿烂。

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塞尚跑了过来，宽腿穿着洗得发白、油漆飞溅的工作服，抓住他朋友的肩膀，不止一次地亲吻他的双颊。这些人是法国人，你知道。这是在19世纪80年代中期。他们都是四十多岁的人。四十岁在当时比现在要大。"我想你想知道是什么让我来到这里？" 埃米尔对保罗说。

塞尚光洁的脸颊变得更加红润。他从不知道人们对他有什么反应。"我要把你放在哪里？"他说。"都打扮得像只圣诞鹅。我们必须给你找一个不会弄脏的地方。"

塞尚夫人在边上的门廊里看着，她坐在那里，张开双腿，把裙子做成一张桌子，她把苹果切到碗里。从远处看，她就像一个木雕，鲜艳的油漆已经褪去。她慢慢地站起来，慢慢地放下那碗苹果，慢慢地从门廊下来（穿着木鞋！）。埃米尔从结婚前就没有见过她。她很重，但仍然健康。他想，她已经长得像她丈夫了。

塞尚夫人在她的长围裙上擦了擦手，她走到城里人面前。矮个子男人，涂着油彩，自得其乐。高个子的年轻女人，瘦得像一朵蒲公英，头发蓬松，覆盖着一张淡粉色的脸，眉毛像问号。

保罗不知道该如何对待这个年轻女人--她当然不是左拉夫人；她也不是女儿，所以他没有理会她。塞尚夫人问她是否愿意进来洗一洗。当然，她给了他们单独的卧室，左拉向莫妮克、布丽吉特，不管她叫什么名字，都明确表示下班后不允许来访。



1886年，埃米尔-左拉写了一本书，讲述了一个疯狂固执的艺术家，他从未成功过，因为他太疯狂，太固执，无法画出人们想看的那种画。左拉的朋友爱德华-马奈在三年前去世，很多人认为左拉的这本书确实是关于马奈的。

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我知道马奈是个社会人，喜欢在合适的地方出现，穿着好衣服，和漂亮的女人在一起。他的结局似乎和他的起点差不多，只是少了一条腿（截肢：一种未确诊的疾病），加上作为怪人画家的领袖的名声，一些批评家嘲笑地称之为 "印象派"，但左拉却坚持称之为 "自然派"。也许马奈会喜欢有一本关于他的小说。这并不重要。左拉心目中的艺术家是一个完全不知名的人，一个来自外省的怪异的反社会人物，事实上，他和左拉是同学，在左拉写这本书之前，他已经和他做了三十多年的朋友。他知道那是关于谁的，没错。在他读完这本书后，用他那双密切关注的眼睛盯着一页又一页的书，伤害和愤怒把他的心拧到肚子里，直到他无法坐直；在他认为做他必须做的事情已经够糟了，而且总是怀疑它是否真的像许多人说的那样是垃圾，但还是要做，因为这是他看到的。在高潮时认为自己有一幅杰作，在低谷时认为自己应该做一些有建设性的事情，比如画房子，他知道人生只有一次，而他是以失败者的身份度过的；在忘记拒绝，忘记巴黎，忘记博览会，忘记左拉的轻松和他的赞誉以及他的女人（很难忘记女人）之后，现在发现自己被利用了，沦为文字--他生活的事实，小而秘密的经历，他的怀疑，他的折磨，都被利用。保罗-塞尚不是一个会嚎叫的人。他的朋友的背叛行为的形状充满了他的头脑。他再也没有和左拉说过话。

他是对的。你不能对一个朋友这样做。你不能在你获得成功，给自己买了一柜子的衣服和乡下的房子之后，还把自己抬得高高的，然后出一本关于你的老伙计的失败的书，这不是太糟糕了吗？我只想知道为什么左拉给他寄了一本这本书。自从第一部小说之后，他就再也没有寄过书了，塞尚忠实地阅读并赞扬了这本书。这是左拉的礼节性想法，还是仇恨的行为？塞尚没有进行分析。他感受到了仇恨的存在。但我--我想知道为什么。

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Rolaine Hochstein是一位住在新泽西的自由撰稿人。这是她第一次出现在《大西洋》杂志上。
你会认为埃米尔是两个人中的富家子弟。他的母亲给他穿白色的西装，而保罗则穿着农民的衬衫和宽松的裤子到处跑。埃米尔个子小，坐在老师的毛鼻子下面的前面。保罗和大男孩们坐在后面。打牌。传递肮脏的照片。自由放屁。挠痒痒。他的老爹虽然有钱，但手头很紧，而保罗，从来没有多余的一毛钱去赌牌局，就用大冒险来赌。他输了，不得不把一个非常成熟的卡门培尔奶酪放在老师的高脚椅上。他经常被抓住。斯皮罗先生，所有的胳膊、腿和空洞的胸膛，在他的黑西装里就像一只蜘蛛，把保罗挥到角落里，把他换到他的光屁股上。只有艾米尔没有笑。

在大雨中，埃米尔沿着土路中间的高处行走。保罗在车辙里滑行。"还疼吗？" 埃米尔问道。

"一件小事。一个小的刺痛。" 保罗看着他的脚在红色泥潭湿滑的边缘前进。"我现在的屁股已经很硬了。"

"不应该让他使用鞭子。" 埃米尔有一个鼻梁，手脚很整齐，近视眼，卵圆形的眼睛。他被邀请参加市长女儿的生日聚会。

在一个寒冷的早晨，埃米尔裹着衣服抵御严寒，用皮筋绑着更多的书，敲开塞尚农舍的门，跑下长长的大厅，拍打着保罗的卧室门。"快点，否则你会让我再次迟到！" 他虚弱的眼睛在日光下看到他的朋友穿着衬衫和丝袜，蹲在赤土的地板上，用手指画着。埃米尔笑得前仰后合，踢了他的朋友一脚。"你这个疯子！你会毁了我的！你会毁了我！"

埃米尔做作业的速度更快，但保罗的声音变粗了，他那张长满疙瘩（我希望不是）的脸两侧长出了几缕黄色的胡须。保罗在其他地方也有了头发。他希望他能谈谈这些头发和奇怪的、可怕的僵硬，但房间后面只有那些男孩，不能相信他们能维持一个严肃的时刻。埃米尔也不在问题之列。虽然只小一岁，但他的构造似乎没有通常的管道和下水道，而这些管道和下水道正是保罗兴奋和厌恶的原因。他们花了一个小时看两只黑蚂蚁在桥下的一块巨石上进行死亡挣扎。他们谈论了其他事情。保罗的眼睛，在他的鼻子的裂缝上笼罩着蓝色，从来没有遇到他的理智的朋友的柔和的目光。

十八岁的左拉收拾了三个箱子的书和衣服，登上了去巴黎的马车。上大学。从事法律工作。为了使世界变得更美好。寡居的母亲来送他，尽管埃米尔按常理要求她留在家里，为自己省去许多无益的眼泪。左拉觉得自己是个正派的儿子，体贴入微，感情丰富，所以他离开母亲的服侍时，欣慰多于遗憾。"如果你有任何问题，请立即打电话给我，"他们互相说。她用脚尖站在马车窗下，献上了一张满是泪水的脸，有边的紫色帽子落在黑色塔夫绸的肩上。这时，保罗-兰奇冲了上来，歪歪斜斜的。"没有礼物你不能走。" 他向左拉夫人尴尬地鞠了一躬，透过窗户，他把一个盖着餐巾的小篮子递给了埃米尔。马车开走了。左拉掀开餐巾。12条漂亮的比目鱼！这是新钓上来的，所以没有任何问题。新捕的，所以没有粘液的感觉。足足两个小时后，它们才开始发臭。

保罗留在家里，在那里他被期望塑身，学习会计，接管他父亲的银行业务。

多么成功啊，左拉在巴黎! 在沉睡的南方，他从未感受到如此的能量，他从未如此清晰地看到自己的目标！大学不过是他的基地。大学不过是他的行动基地。他慢慢地看，到处看，谨慎地问。他很友好，但很小心，就像一个真正的切斯特菲尔德勋爵的儿子。一旦他有了合适的朋友，他就会考虑女人的问题。现在是时候了。他与谨慎的塞尚的长期友谊使他适合在修道院里生活。在巴黎，有了懂行的朋友，他就可以把这些事做完了。

我不知道为什么我对左拉有好感。没有理由把一个人放倒，只因为他知道自己想要什么，并去追求它。他为什么不能走自己的路？寡妇教给他良好的礼仪，但轻松、自信--它们来自另一个来源。他生来就有一条银色的舌头在嘴里，类似这样的东西。提到当天的书，当下的戏剧，意大利的新歌剧，德国的新论文--年轻的佐拉看过，读过，喜欢，讨厌它。他可以让他的文字像巴黎最对称的喷泉一样流淌，也可以像海洋一样撞击布列塔尼的岩石。大批评家对他非常欣赏。

"对于这样一个年轻人来说，他的观点很强烈，但又能很好地捍卫。"

"先生非常善良。"

"你应该写作，以免你的文字被吹走。"

"为一个抽屉写东西并不比在空气中说话好。"

问题已经提出来了。伟大的批评家给编辑留下了一句话。只要是灵活的人才总是受欢迎的。左拉放弃了法律研究：笔更有力量。

你可以在他的朋友亨利-方丹-拉图尔（Henri Fantin-Latour）的群像中看到左拉的身影，这幅画挂在Jeu de Paume博物馆中，其中许多人的作品都好得多。更好的作品是左拉在他的艺术评论中可能使用的短语，但肯定会从他的小说中删除。他站在那里，带着他那张好孩子的脸，头发向后梳理，他方正的身体穿得很优雅，他的新眼镜挂在缎子上。他在他的朋友中看起来非常舒服。(莫奈和雷诺阿也在那里，看起来像《波希米亚人》中的人物。

左拉有一个小鼻子，对保罗-穆尼来说很幸运，他也有一个小鼻子，可以在电影中扮演左拉。你可以再次看到他，在博物馆的后面。他有点老了，瘦了，坐在他的写字台前。没有外省人，他。一个精致的日本屏风被画了进来，打破了空间，显示出左拉对日本艺术的了解。书桌上方的架子上放着左拉的朋友马奈的一幅名画的印刷品，而马奈正是我们正在谈论的这幅肖像画的画家，这并不是什么巧合。

你知道，这些都不完全是事实。我在这里记下一个事实，在那里记下一个印象，在那里记下一个暗示。我对这些人一无所知。事实上，我认为左拉和塞尚一起去了巴黎，这两个人比我年轻不了多少，希望能在这个城市里有所作为。塞尚有一个小问题。他想成为一名艺术家，但他不会画画。其他要成为法国印象派的艺术家们也有自己的麻烦，他们在反抗--你知道--反抗他们的旧派老师。但是塞尚. . . 得到这个。塞尚甚至不能通过入学考试! 塞尚甚至连学校都进不去！他没有风度。

他没有风度。没有方向感。但不知何故，他撞到了门上，遇到了那些其他艺术家，他们对从壳里走出来的漂亮的维纳斯毫无兴趣。他遇到了粗野的库尔贝和风度翩翩的马奈，并把他们介绍给他的朋友佐拉。左拉的耳朵竖起来了。他想，这些艺术家就像他写的那样作画。自然主义者。来者不拒，像他一样。从生活中来。没有矫揉造作。不加修饰。哦，佐拉想，如果这些家伙能忘记他们漂亮的颜色和灯光效果，如果他们能把注意力集中在内衣上。

垃圾，死亡之床，他们就会有真正的东西了!

塞尚，当然，是一个无望的案例。每个人都嘲笑他的画，笨拙而粗糙，就像保罗自己。每一次被拒绝，他的口音就变得更粗，他的举止就变得更差。一个午后，在圣日耳曼大道上，潇洒的马奈主动与他握手。塞尚惊恐地抽出手来。"别碰！"他呱呱叫。"我已经两个星期没有洗澡了！"

与此同时，左拉正忙着写关于保罗的朋友的文章。他已经成为一个艺术评论家。左拉加入了。塞尚被淘汰了。保罗回到了普罗旺斯。马奈画了左拉的画像。左拉坐在他的办公桌前，轮廓看起来既敏感又坚定，拿着一本艺术书。上面的墙上，非常清晰地挂着马奈著名的《奥林匹亚》的印刷品。在桌子上的一扇小册子中，第一本有明确的标题，是左拉关于马奈的专著。一只手在洗另一只手。

这时的左拉已经是一个已婚男人。

他没有娶雷诺阿的模特Céleste，她崇拜左拉，她的眼睛是不可思议的蓝色水洗，眨眼同意他对社会不公的咆哮。

也没有娶弗朗辛，她在他感到沮丧（最微小的失望）的时候把他抱在怀里，当他靠在她的乳房上时，她巨大的、苍白的乳房像蛋奶酥一样变平，并在他耳边唱着歌，提醒他的成就和期望。

也没有那个充满幻想的莉莉安，她有着邪恶的鼻子和尖锐的下巴，是个挑逗者和调侃者，能让他热血沸腾，然后用笑声把他冻住。"一个真正的知识分子会在图书馆里学习"。

不，埃米尔-左拉认识很多女人，知道如何选择一个合适的妻子。他需要规范、稳定、一个优雅的女主人，一个机智的伙伴，在需要的时候，可以抚平那些可能觉得自己在某种程度上受到丈夫书面或口头意见攻击的当事人的刺痛。此外，他还需要一个自给自足的女人，她会理解他的许多时间必须分开，写作，阅读，保持大量的通信（巴黎毕竟不是世界），访问编辑部，在会议上流通，会议。当然还有政界和艺术界重要人物常去的沙龙，去剧院、画廊，甚至在偶尔的晚上，和他的老朋友艺术家们一起去拉丁区的咖啡馆，他们还在大喊大叫，敲打桌子，谈论爱尔兰猎犬的头发在阳光下被风吹动时的样子...... . .

杰奎琳-杜德文特（我们说她的名字）是一位富有的律师的女儿。她十九岁。温顺、快活，穿着昂贵的好衣服，在许多小事上都很有成就。她会弹一点儿钢琴。她在骨瓷盘上画小花。每个人都对她的英语感到惊奇（她的英语很糟糕，用一种--请原谅我的说法--青蛙式的漱口，用背下来的短语，很少适合当时的情况，而且还像亚历山大夫人的平底锅娃娃一样生动）。她的德语更糟糕。左拉认为他在她那双极其圆润的眼睛里看到了智慧。她身材高大，骨架宽阔，胸脯娇小，在奶油和粉底下有雀斑。人们说她是个大美人，也许，如果让她在乡下散养几个月，她可能会变成一个活泼的、不可预测的、有爱心的人。佐拉没有猜测。母亲担心他的性情--也许太火爆，太有攻击性。他是可靠的吗？他会不会很温柔？父亲想要他。他在左拉身上看到了一个伟大的未来，看到了一只强有力的手来引导柔顺的杰奎琳，看到了一个盛大的婚姻来占据她。他提供了丰厚的嫁妆和继承权的承诺。

塞尚沿着乡间小路走着，脑子里满是远山、房屋、树木的形状和颜色，他逐渐承认自己对亨丽埃特的爱，她有时走在他身边，和他一样安静。她是一个宽大、清醒的农民，也许比他大几岁：他没有问，她也没有说。她是他所需要的一切，一个干净、强壮的女人，只要她能让他舒服。他住在他的画架后面，经常把自己逼疯，但他喜欢在她宁静的气氛中打发其余的时间。他喜欢看她削土豆皮、擦桌子、撩起厚厚的裙子走到井边的泥泞中时，她那强壮而肯定的动作。塞尚老人不同意；即使这个男孩有点精神错乱--他们怀疑他是--也没有必要嫁给一个愚蠢的、没有受过教育的、甚至不漂亮的农民。还有其他人--一个工头的女儿，如果不是来自良好家庭的合格女孩中的一个的话。老人多年来一直支持他儿子的愚蠢行为。疯狂的照片不适合放在外屋的墙上。但最近的这种任性行为，他是不允许的。这是不可以讨论的。

因此，保罗在亨利特家或多或少地做了几年的常客，而亨利特的父母对这种安排也不满意。与一位绅士订婚通常是件好事，但这个人是个黄瓜。钱不能成为一切的借口。亨丽埃特，一个体面的、勤劳的女孩，很会养牛，仍然可以结婚。她还没到三十岁。未来还有很多生育期。相反，她却没有签约，只靠一个可能陷入情绪的男人的一时兴起，几天都不说话。人们可以看到他在田野里画着他那扭曲的场景，颜色混浊，不幸的树木的叶子像羽毛一样。亨丽埃特的父母并不高兴，但他们能做什么呢？

左拉也有问题。每天早上，他醒来时脑子里都在进行着一场战斗。他脑子里的一个女人说："我想要。我想要。小时候我只有一个玩具，一个无头的娃娃，是我父亲在垃圾桶里找到的。"

左拉安抚了她。他只看到她瘦得像根冰柱，黄色的头发稀稀拉拉的，似乎挂着碎屑。他将不得不决定她的年龄和她的衣服状况，她的饮食习惯是什么，她是如何走路的。"我会去找你的，"他承诺道。他的妻子睡在他身边，打着细微的鼾声。左拉不能把她送走，也不能为了写他的故事而自己搬到乡下去。他有责任。但是，也许，今天早上，既然这个女人（他怎么称呼她？ 杰曼？ 纳内特？）如此急切，也许他可以赶到他的写字台前，让她从这些想法中清醒过来。

事情的经过是这样的。左拉从床上滚下来。快速地撒了一泡尿（那些日子他们在巴黎去哪儿了？），用相当于19世纪70年代的李斯特林漱口，在他的条纹睡衣外面套上一件睡袍，然后，该死的仆人，匆匆赶往他的书桌，那里的笔总是很锋利。

他坐下来。他选择了一支笔，安排了一些纸张......。

但是有一个收件箱，里面有重要的信件需要回复。关于他的裁缝账单的提醒。演讲的邀请。慈善的请求。一张关于印度饥饿儿童的照片。他怎么能在自己的家庭兴旺的时候拒绝呢？他不得不给一个欠他钱的出版商打电话。另一个人嚷嚷着要一份手稿。左拉喜欢组织他的商业事务。生意是整洁而有限的。今天将在维克托家与编辑尼科莱和与他一起旅行的美丽英国女人共进午餐。左拉会穿什么？为《新世界》写的文章周五就要交稿了。如果他想享受一顿长长的午餐，他就得马上开始。钱很重要。房租很高。杰奎琳身体虚弱，需要昂贵的医疗咨询。

可怜的纳内特。或者杰曼。她将不得不等待，直到文章完成。因为，左拉向自己保证，他不会催促这个故事。当到了杰曼或莉莉的时候，他就会把脑子里的其他东西都清空。没有其他承诺。他将向她敞开自己的心扉，她将在他体内成长。在他的纸上慢慢获得生命，直到她作为左拉的杰作突然出现在这个世界上，就像她在左拉的床上短暂的、痛苦的、诱人的晨访中那样活着。

当塞尚出现在巴黎时，他看起来比平时更糟糕。他试图让自己看起来很精神，但看起来却像一个刚出狱的囚犯，被扣上了一件慈善服。他的脸被擦洗过，大手从袖子里伸出来，看起来像个被吊死的人，而且感觉也像。

左拉以无拘无束的新巴黎风格拥抱了他。塞尚因幸福和尴尬而脸红。埃米尔变得如此潇洒。他的衣服和头发都皱巴巴的。他说话时一切都在动，而他总是在说话。现在保罗是那个清醒的人。"我想告诉你，"塞尚开始说。

"是的。"做。我很想听。"

"我正在做的事。一些来自乡下的老人......"

"用模特儿？生活中的肖像画？那很美，保罗。你很早以前就应该从事这个工作了。我从一开始就在画生活，可以说是在画生活。这是唯一的方法......"

左拉，尽管害怕失去重视，还是把塞尚带到了任何愿意看的画商那里。保罗，在他目前的阶段，认为他的作品一定是有价值的，因为他投入了如此多的精力。他满怀希望地举起画布。他让画商站在商店的最里面。他把他带到外面的日光下。因为佐拉在场，经销商们都很有礼貌。直到左拉和他的朋友出了门，才有人笑了起来。

左拉带塞尚去见马奈和毕沙罗，这两个人当时都在巴黎。保罗肯定需要一些技术上的帮助，一些关于笔法、构图、色彩、一切的可靠情报，真的。塞尚恭敬地研究了印象派的作品。他有礼貌地听取他们的意见。

慷慨的，宽广的，左拉把塞尚带到他的文学朋友中间。他们带着雪茄和腕表，坐在椅子上，双腿交叉在膝盖处（展示他们的丝袜），认为他们的埃米尔一定是个了不起的家伙，为了忠于童年的友谊而对这个可笑的乡巴佬下手。(可以肯定的是，塞尚没有认识到这一点。他是怎么想的呢？也许他在考虑这个人的耳朵和肩膀之间的空间形状）。

"坐下，"左拉说，"告诉我的朋友们你今天早上在卢浮宫看到了什么。我给我们拿点开胃酒。要什么？佩尔诺酒？苦艾酒？"

塞尚拉出一把椅子。"给我来杯啤酒吧。" 他递给左拉一张肮脏的一百法郎的纸币。他向桌子周围的花花公子们眨眨眼。"今天在卢浮宫，我看到了《被俘的奴隶》。明天我将带着一本画册回来。"

"你会画什么？"


"被俘虏的奴隶的肋骨和背部。"

"那么，你对解剖学感兴趣。"

保罗用拳头砸向桌子。碟子哗哗作响。"我对应变能力感兴趣！"

佐拉对他的朋友很恼火。他表现得像一个职业失败者。每年他都把画布送去评比，以便在伟大的沙龙博览会上展出。每年，他们都被轻易地拒绝。有一次，在左拉的怂恿下，评委们同情这个可怜的、顽固的家伙，安排把他的一幅作品--四五个瘦弱的蓝色裸体男人站在一个游泳圈周围--挂在 "有趣的新方向 "的侧边。观众们被激怒了，这幅作品很快就被取下来，送回了普罗旺斯。

"你有一个合理的选择，"左拉在Brasserie Lipp喝着啤酒对塞尚说。"考虑到公众并被展示，或者做你喜欢的事并忘记公众。你是个幸运的人。不像雷诺阿，你不必为生计而作画"。

塞尚的笑声让人们瞪大了眼睛。"但我必须画画才能生活。" 请记住，这是一百年前，人们不像我们现在这么复杂。塞尚抓了抓左拉的衣襟，笑得眼泪都下来了。"把公众挂起来，"保罗说。"还要把画挂在我的谷仓里。"


左拉，一个积极的思想家，一个问题解决者，责备他的朋友自我放纵。这个人没有努力跟上。他可能甚至没有投票。他的妻子也不是什么挑战。他坚持在他父亲的哀悼期结束后的第二天与亨丽埃特结婚。她仍然是被动的、感激的，对于一个希望把自己挖出来并把自己的内脏涂抹在画布上的男人来说，她是一个完美的妻子。

左拉闭上了眼睛。他没有什么可羞愧的。他的作品不需要挂在谷仓里。他的小说出版了，而且很受欢迎，但他却毫不妥协。他从来没有把古龙水喷在臭味上，也没有假装街头的人像教授一样说话，或者假装穷人满足于他们的贫困。左拉并不胆怯。脓包。呕吐物。他把公众的脸抹在上面。这就是他的力量。

他想象着亨丽埃特坐在花园里看着她丈夫工作。她的手像刮过的甜菜一样，并不渴望被带出去喝茶。她可能喜欢做爱。

我从来没有看过保罗-穆尼的电影。我不怎么看电视。但我总是把左拉这个老人和肖邦的钢琴老师混为一谈，这是牟尼的另一个角色。一头大大的白发。我的已经开始稀疏了。


人们对左拉的认可来得很早。匾额。奖章。国外的翻译。他被评为法国十大最佳着装者之一。伟大的政治家们向他倾诉。街上的陌生人都来和他握手。在他四十岁的时候，他在任何地方都不再需要被介绍。总是最好的桌子。在Vingt-et-un酒店的楼上房间。

杰奎琳（左拉夫人）没有不高兴。衣服和聚会，电话的支付和接收，一个年轻人偶尔的快乐帮助她减轻了脚步（穿着最痛苦的尖头鞋），使她走向穿上卧室拖鞋，承认自己是个老女人的那一天。左拉看到他的妻子在变老，但更痛恨自己脸上的岁月痕迹。他的胡子遮住了一个开始膨大的下巴，就像潘塔隆的漫画上的那样。他想知道为什么他对自己没有更好的感觉。最近，他那些聪明的朋友们已经变得不如街角的卖酒人那么有趣了。左拉从来都不太喜欢女人，但为了给他的生活增添一些光彩，他尝试过。有一个小洗衣女工......。

现在，随着马奈的死亡，野蛮的美国人开始抢购印象派的画作。一位铁路企业家向左拉出价1000美元，购买他挂在门厅墙上的一幅中型街景。"拿钱买马奈？" 左拉打趣道。来访者以为左拉在嘲笑他的发音。"莫奈，马奈，"他说。"说出你的价格，我就付钱。" 左拉消失在一个壁橱里，然后带着他的朋友塞尚画的一碗苹果的画布回来。"我把这幅画卖给你。听我一句话，他比其他两幅都好。" 美国人被这个笑话激怒了。


事实上，左拉已经厌倦了所谓的印象派，因为他们现在很受欢迎。他对着自己的胡子笑了笑，用舌头在他掉了三颗牙的地方摩擦。"如果你活得够久，"他对经销商Armand-Ruel说，"你所有的怪异想法都会变得平凡。" 他很高兴看到莫奈终于得到了一些现金，但这并没有改变左拉的生活。如果有的话，它使他感到更加平庸。他开始在他的艺术专栏中进行重新评估。他写道，印象派被严重高估了，尤其是被他高估了。

有一天，当他感到烦躁不安，毫无价值，接近一个可怕的洞的边缘时，他突然决定去拜访老保罗。

"我想你想知道我为什么来这里，"埃米尔轻快地说道。

"这有什么关系呢？" 保罗勉强回答。"只要你在这里。" 他显然喜出望外，并尽力使他们两个人都感到舒适，埃米尔和那个不知名的年轻女人。他们都坐在后院的树下。亨丽埃特端出食物，热面包、新鲜黄油、水果、奶酪。保罗打开了一瓶酒庄的葡萄酒。可能有活泼的孩子跑来跑去。

保罗，你这头猪! 左拉想。你是怎么了？你没看到你变得多老了吗？你的眼睛下有卵石，你的脸颊上有青筋，皮肤粗糙，下巴脱落。保罗，告诉我真相。你不觉得痛吗？


保罗直接回答他。"我的脸变得更有趣了。下次我画它时，它将是一个更好的主题。" 他看到了他朋友讽刺性微笑下的痛苦，知道他又一次给出了未被要求的回答。"我为什么要担心青春的流失？" 他深情地听着左拉的解释，以便他能分享他朋友的感受。但他不可能理解这一切对偶尔的消化不良、腰部僵硬的担忧。

"选择，"塞尚最后说，"是变老还是死亡。一个人能够变老是幸运的。总是有一个人的工作"。

左拉被羡慕的眼光刺痛了。他以一个荒唐的借口缩短了他的访问。他带着他的秘书逃走了。两个月后（根本没有时间），他有了一本新书，《作品》。保罗觉得自己被侵犯了。他把书扔进了厨房的火堆里，再也不提他与埃米尔-左拉的友谊。

几年后，当左拉作为德雷福斯上尉的支持者崛起时，塞尚站在了另一边。□