FOR A
NIGHT OF LOVE
By
EMILE ZOLA
THE WARREN PRESS
New York
Copyright 1911, by
The Warren Press
FOR A NIGHT OF LOVE
I
The little town of P.... is built on a hill. At the foot of the oldramparts runs a deep brook, the Chanteclair, doubtless so named from thecrystalline sound of its limpid waters. When one arrives by theVersailles road, one crosses the Chanteclair at the south gate of thecity, over a stone bridge with a single arch, of which the broadparapets, low and rounded, serve as benches for all the old people ofthe suburbs. Opposite, rises Beau-Soleil Street, at the end of which isa silent square, Quatre-Femmes, paved with huge cobbles and invaded by athickset weed which makes it green as a meadow. The houses sleep. Everyhalf hour, the dragging step of a passer-by starts a dog barking behinda stable-door, and the one excitement in the square is the regularappearance, twice a day, of officers who go to their table d'hôte inBeau-Soleil Street.
In the house of a gardener, to the left, lived Julien Michon. Thegardener had rented him a large room, on the first floor; and, as thelandlord occupied the other side of the house, facing his garden, Julienwas left to himself. Having his own private entrance and stairway, healready lived, although only twenty-five years of age, like a retiredbourgeois of small means.
The young man had lost his father and his mother while very young. Anuncle had sent the child to a boarding-school. Then, the uncle died, andJulien had been filling a position as clerk in the post-office for thepast five years. His salary was fifteen hundred francs, without any hopeof ever getting more. But he could economize on that, and he did notimagine a larger or a happier life than his.
Tall, strong, bony, Julien had large hands that seemed in his way.
He felt himself to be ugly, with his square head left in a sketchy stateas if roughly modeled by an indifferent sculptor. And that made himtimid, especially in the presence of young women. His awkwardnessengendered a startled attitude of mind, and a morbid desire formediocrity and seclusion. He seemed resigned to grow old thus, without acomrade, without a love affair, with his tastes of a cloistered monk.
And that life did not weigh heavily upon his broad shoulders. Julien wasvery happy. He had a calm, transparent soul. His daily existence, withits fixed rules, was serenity itself. In the morning, he went to hisoffice, peacefully took up the work left off the preceding day; thenlunched on a small loaf, and continued his work. Afterwards, he dined,he went to bed and slept. The next day, the sun brought with it the sameroutine.
On holidays, he would go off on a tramp all alone, happily reeling offthe miles, and returning broken with fatigue.
He had never been seen in the company of a petticoat, in the evenings onthe ramparts. The working girls of P...., sharp-tongued wantons, hadended by leaving him alone, after seeing him, on several occasions,stand before them almost suffocated from embarrassment, and taking theirlaughs of encouragement for mockery.
Julien's paradise, the one place where he breathed freely, was his room.There only, he felt sheltered from the world. There, he straightened up;he laughed to himself; and, when he caught sight of himself in themirror, he was surprised to find himself so young.
His room was vast. He had furnished it with a large canopy bed, a roundtable, two chairs and an armchair. But there still remained ple