Fruitfulness

"FRUITFULNESS" is the first of a series of four works in which M. Zola proposes to embody what he considers to be the four cardinal principles of human life. These works spring...

He often made such jesting remarks as these, through which filtered his genuine indignation; for he deemed the young couple to be over-careless of their interests, and declared...

MORANGE, the chief accountant at Beauchêne's works, was a man of thirty-eight, bald and already gray-headed, but with a superb dark, fan-shaped beard, of which he was very proud...

The enraptured Moranges laughed delightedly. And Mathieu, who knew her well, listened in stupefaction. How many times during their short and passionate attachment had she not in...

"Ah! it's you, Monsieur Froment," she said amiably, stepping towards Mathieu and shaking his hand in cavalier fashion. "Is Madame Froment in good health? Are the children flouri...

Whenever Mathieu returned home by the seven o'clock train, as was his wont, Marianne came to meet him at the bridge. Occasionally she brought her two eldest boys, the twins, wit...

She ceased to weep, but she continued silent, clinging to him, with her head resting on his shoulder. And Mathieu, by the side of that loving, trustful woman, all health and rec...

She had seated herself in the armchair vacated by Constance, and Mathieu noticed what a keen expression of anxiety there was in her soft eyes. After mentioning that she also had...

He kept his word that same afternoon, and after a great deal of difficulty he succeeded. At first Beauchêne fumed, stormed, denied, equivocated, almost blamed Mathieu for interf...

He approached her to kiss her gently, and with a fresh laugh she returned his kiss. It was quite true: they were both delighted to be back at Chantebled, which recalled to them...

It was on a Sunday, some ten days later, that the supreme revelation, the great flash of light which was to decide his life and that of those he loved, fell suddenly upon Mathie...

When, however, she saw that tears were Norine's only answer, she made an impatient gesture like an active woman who cannot afford to lose her time. At each of her fortnightly jo...

Then she spoke of her departure, asked the young man if he thought she might regain admittance to the works, and declared that in any case she should go there to see if the mast...

"Ah! so you know La Couteau!" exclaimed Boutan, when Mathieu had told him of his meetings with the woman. "Then you know the depths of crime. La Couteau is an ogress! And yet, t...

"Oh! as for that I'll warrant it," cried the other, with enthusiasm. "Those little ailments don't mean anything--on the contrary. I see plenty of little folks, I do; and so just...

"Well, madame, I tell you that you can take La Catiche with your eyes shut. She's exactly what you want, there's no better in Paris. Just look how she's built, how sturdy and ho...

"But those folks don't love; they are incapable of loving! Money, power, ambition, pleasure--yes, all those things may be theirs, but not love! Even the husbands who deceive the...

FOUR years went by. And during those four years Mathieu and Marianne had two more children, a daughter at the end of the first year and a son at the expiration of the third. And...

On the other hand, there seemed little likelihood of his turning the enclosure to account himself, for he was more disgusted than ever with the tilling of the soil. His disposit...

"Is it my fault?" she angrily exclaimed. "I didn't want to give it to him; you know what my ideas were. And I flew into a passion and almost fought Madame Bourdieu when she put...

And meantime, at Chantebled, Mathieu and Marianne founded, created, increased, and multiplied, again proving victorious in the eternal battle which life wages against death, tha...

As Mathieu and Marianne crossed the courtyard of the works, they felt oppressed by the grave-like silence which reigned in that great city of labor, usually so full of noise and...

Then, while Mathieu completed his work of conquest, Marianne during those two years had the happiness of seeing a daughter born to her son Blaise, even while she herself was exp...

The renewal of the intercourse between the Froments and the Séguins was due to a very happy chance. Mathieu's son Ambroise, on leaving college, had entered the employment of an...

"Oh! monsieur, it won't take me long. You were quite right: there were two apprentices at the wheelwright's at Saint-Pierre, and one of them was Alexandre-Honoré, the pretty blo...

Madame Desvignes' younger daughter, Marthe, was delighted whenever her sister thus came to spend a few weeks in the old home, bringing her little ones with her, and once more oc...

Still this did not disconcert Rose, but rather made her laugh the more. At the first bend of the road she turned her head, and when she saw her rear-guard more than three hundre...

Everybody began to laugh, but she failed to understand the reason. And it was in the same tranquil way as before that she thanked Denis when he brought her the boa: "I am oblige...

He came along. What was it that happened? O God! When he was there, so absorbed in his thoughts that he brushed against her without feeling her, she turned to stone. Her hand be...

_Enceinte_, good heavens! As Constance heard this, it seemed as if a bludgeon were falling on her to make her defeat complete. And so, even if she should now let Denis, in his t...

The cow-houses and stables were on the right hand. But in order to reach them one had to cross the great yard, whence the entire estate could be seen. And here there was a halt,...

Tears rose to Norine's eyes. This was the finishing stroke, the return of that wretched cast-off son, that big suspicious-looking fellow who accused her and complained of starvi...

When Norine, through the boasting of Alexandre and Alfred, who took pleasure in astonishing her, began to suspect the exploits of the band, she felt so frightened that she had a...

At the same time, if Mathieu had renounced the actual exercise of authority, he none the less remained the creator, the oracle who was consulted, listened to, and obeyed. He dwe...

Curiously enough, it came to pass that Grégoire, once married and installed at the mill in accordance with his wife's desire, agreed with his father-in-law far better than had b...

Thus, months and years went by, and almost every evening when Morange for a moment called on Constance, he found her in the same little silent _salon_, gowned in the same black...

As a matter of fact, Morange had been carried away as by a storm, and, walking straight before him, had once more found himself on the Grenelle bridge, where Denis had one day s...

Then, though she still said nothing, she looked at him. For a moment their eyes met. And in her glance he read everything: the murder was begun afresh, effected, consummated. Ov...

"Oh, I'm no longer young, Monsieur Froment," the other replied. "I shall soon have to look somewhere for a hole to lie in. Still, I hope it won't be under an omnibus."

"You know that I have business relations with Nicolas," resumed Ambroise. "Oh! if we had but a few fellows as intelligent and courageous as he is in our colonies, we should soon...

What a moment of sovereign glory it was for Mathieu and Marianne! They found themselves there in a triumph of which they would never have dared to dream. Life, as if to reward t...

Transported with enthusiasm, quivering at the thought of the distant ideal at last revealed to him, Benjamin sat there with tears in his eyes. Ah! the healthy life! the noble li...