A Love Episode

One morning in May, Rosalie ran in from the kitchen, dish-cloth in hand, screaming out in the familiar fashion of a favorite servant: “Oh, madame, come quick! His reverence the...

In the hall of the doctor’s house stood Pierre, in dress coat and white cravat, throwing open the door as each carriage rolled up. Puffs of dank air rushed in; the afternoon was...

Two years were past and gone. One morning in December the little cemetery lay slumbering in the intense cold. Since the evening before snow had been falling, a fine snow, which...

Next day all sorts of practical ideas took possession of Hélène’s mind. She awoke impressed by the necessity of keeping watch over her happiness, and shuddering with fear lest b...

On rising from the dinner-table the doctor spoke to his wife of a confinement case, in close attendance on which he would doubtless have to pass the night. He quitted the house...

That night Hélène was unable to sleep. She turned from side to side in feverish unrest, and whenever a drowsy stupor fell on her senses, the old sorrows would start into new lif...

It was nearly nine o’clock the next morning before Rosalie was able to serve the coffee. Hélène had risen late. She was weary and pale with the nightmare that had broken her res...

During August Doctor Deberle’s garden was like a well of foliage. The railings were hidden both by the twining branches of the lilac and laburnum trees and by the climbing plant...

When evening came Jeanne was somewhat better. She was able to get up, and, in order to remove her mother’s fears, persisted in dragging herself into the dining-room, where she t...

When Madame Deberle was apprised of Jeanne’s death she wept, and gave way to one of those outbursts of emotion that kept her in a flutter for eight-and-forty hours. Hers was a n...

Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the door, remained plunged in grief over her mother’s sudden departure. She gazed around her; the room was empty and silent; but she could still h...

Every Tuesday Hélène had Monsieur Rambaud and Abbé Jouve to dine with her. It was they who, during the early days of her bereavement, had broken in on her solitude, and drawn up...

The finger-glasses had been handed round the table, and the ladies were daintily wiping their hands. A momentary silence reigned, while Madame Deberle gazed on either side to se...

One morning Hélène was arranging her little library, the various books of which had got out of order during the past few days, when Jeanne skipped into the room, clapping her ha...

Months slipped away, and Jeanne was still convalescent. August came, and she had not quitted her bed. When evening fell she would rise for an hour or two; but even the crossing...

Night had long gathered in when Hélène returned. From her umbrella the water dripped on step after step, whilst clinging to the balusters she ascended the staircase. She stood f...

Upstairs, in her own room, in the peaceful, convent-like atmosphere she found there, Hélène experienced a feeling of suffocation. Her room astonished her, so calm, so secluded,...

“You know what you promised me,” she said, on the threshold, as she was going off. “The first fine day we have, you must come down to the garden, and bring Jeanne with you. It i...

Jeanne was reflecting as she gazed gravely on her last spoonful of vermicelli; and at last her thoughts took shape in words: “Rosalie said you wouldn’t come because of the wretc...

The night was falling. From the grey heaven, where the first of the stars were gleaming, a fine ashy dust seemed to be raining down on the great city, raining down without cessa...

It was a month of exquisite mildness. The April sun had draped the garden in tender green, light and delicate as lace. Twining around the railing were the slender shoots of the...

Both windows of the bedroom were wide open, and in the depths below the house, which was perched on the very summit of the hill, lay Paris, rolling away in a mighty flat expanse...

Next day Hélène thought it right and proper to pay a visit of thanks to Doctor Deberle. The abrupt fashion in which she had compelled him to follow her, and the remembrance of t...

The night-lamp with a bluish shade was burning on the chimney-piece, behind a book, whose shadows plunged more than half the chamber in darkness. There was a quiet gleam of ligh...

Leaning back in an easy-chair, with his legs stretched out before the huge, blazing fire, Malignon sat waiting. He had considered it a good idea to draw the window-curtains and...

Émile Zola was born in Paris, April 2, 1840. His father was Francois Zola, an Italian engineer, who constructed the Canal Zola in Provence. Zola passed his early youth in the so...