Zola's Labyrinths Author(s): Mario Maurin Reviewed work(s): Source: Yale French Studies, No.

42, Zola (1969), pp. 89-104 Published by: Yale University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929508 . Accessed: 02/12/2011 03:28
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Mario Maurin

Zola's labyrinths

with the past, with doubles, with the The maze, incest,fascination formor at least a a specific characterize stage theserelatedmotifs and in a numberof nineteenthtendency of the creativeimagination I have been led For wantof a better novelists. twentieth-century term, to call thisform(or tendency)labyrinthism.1 Eroticism, voyeurism, of the labyhallmarks pantheism and the grotesqueare also frequent If I givethelabyrinth rinthian writer. prideofplace amongthesemotifs it is because it oftenserves and use it to designatetheirconjunction, as their framework and suggests thekindof quest in the topographical courseof whichtheyappear and play their part. is fundamentally The labyrinth ambiguous:it is thelocus of love, and its meandersinsureprotection as theylead to a centralrefuge. But it is also a realmof danger.Within its narrowlanes lurkfearand death.In Zola as in otherlabyrinthian it preserves thisdouble writers, For them, love and deathare thetwofacesof a singlereality, character. a single experience. Theydo notmerely constitute an antithetical polarity,theydialectically engender each other.Hence, love is experienced as bothtriumph and transgression. It exalts and it destroys. It brings to their fullest expansionthepowersof beingand it disintegrates them. This is notthemereamplification of commonphysiological experience, to the perpetualself-renewal whichno doubt does contribute of both The labyrinth imageand myth. is terrifying primarily because it is the realmof theMotherand of thePast, and because the regressive labyrinthine quest is experienced simultaneously as an awesome infringe3Cf. "H. de R6gnieret I'art du roman," Mercurede France, CCCLII (Jan. 1965); "P. Loti et les Voies du Sacr6," Modern Language Notes, LXXXI, 3 (May 1966); "Valera y la Ficci6n encadenada," Mundo Nuevo, XIV & XV (Aug. & Sept. 1967); "H. de Rhgnieret le Passe vivant,"

French Review, XLI, 2 (Nov. 1967).

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Yale FrenchStudies satisfaction of naturaldrives. mentof naturallaws and as a powerful Whenthemaskof love is stripped This ambiguity givesriseto anxiety. Motherbecomes away,thefaceof deathappears: theGreatBeneficent all themore theTerrible Mother.The wanderer in themaze is trapped, an enticement. sincethetrapwas at first Dependingupon disturbingly inebriatthe the writer underscore now vital, erotic, circumstances, may nowitsthreatening and devouring quality. ingaspectof theexperience, But the balance remainsprecariousat best, and the outcomeof the ominous. adventure, One of Zola's youthful tales, "Simplice"(Contes a Ninon), preIn this of themotif. illustration almostschematic sentsa concentrated, Simplice kind of fairytale containedwithina satiricalframework, thenwithFleur-des-Eaux, fallsin love, first withtheforest, "daughter their of a sun-beam and a dew-drop." At theprecisemoment lips meet, lover- "Simforest's unfortunate theyboth die. Thus, the maternal Zola - dies upon plice . . . was theson of the ancientwoods," writes theobject of his love. thecreature who personifies touching Zola willreturn muchlaterto thisLiebestodin themostethereal of the Rougon-Macquart series,Le Reve. It will thenbe his avowed of La Terre to achieve a carefulcontrast withthe crudities intention of and to show himself an different vein entirely thanthatof capable not to say muddy, the earthy, him mired epic in whichmanythought for good. He did not have to inventa new themeor tone for this purpose: he merelyhad to step back into his own past. Demurely capping the heavy frame of the Rougon-Macquart,the fairy-tale flowers it had in "Simplice." anew, but it stillretainsthe significance Love mergesinto death: Le Reve's Ang6liquedies as she kisses Felicienupon leavingtheir wedding ceremony. perfectly suitedforan In "Simplice,"the forest was a labyrinth an "immense whoseteemnestofgreenery," erotico-pantheistic revery: In characterZola emphasizesin his description. ing and sheltering anothertale of the same collection, "The Thieves and the Donkey," still.The narthelove-episode getsunderway morecharacteristically ratorstartsout on a walk withhis friend Leon, and theysoon find a narrowpath across the fields. themselves following 90

Mario Maurin on. The hedgerows, highand thick,were The path stretched and notto know To be in thiskindofprison, our onlyhorizon. theway,raisedour highspirits. We had to walk Little by littlethe path became narrower. took sudden detours,the path in singlefile.The hedgerows intoa labyrinth. (Contes a Ninon,p. 130)2 was transformed

with her silly-looking Whereuponthe two friendsmeet Antoinette theirpicnicon a again during escorts.The two groupscome together bower to which the the well-hidden riverisland, which represents wall rose thereeveryspring,a labyrinth has led. "An impenetrable in the water wall of leaves, branchesand mosses,whichits reflection of intertwined boughs;within, stillfurther. Outside,a rampart enlarged of intimacy one did not know" (p. 136). Respondingto the inviting irresistible, each other and Leon, who seemto find thespot,Antoinette the labyrinthian wanderoffinto the bushes.Withefficient simplicity, of love. its function as a harbinger preludehas fulfilled A third These two examplesshow the use of naturallabyrinths. a varitheNouveaux contesa Ninon,"The Bath," presents tale,from novel,a antwhichis also quitecommonin thelate nineteenth-century in whichnature on theordermanhad once brought is gaining labyrinth to it: the abandonedpark.

To the right,to the left,virgincopses, crossed by infrehands quentpathsblack withshadows,whereyou go forward, stretched aside theundergrowth. And fallen tree forth, pushing impassable,whileovergrown trunks made the shortstretches were like wells open to the blue of the sky . . . the clearings of insectsand the droning of unseen birdsgave a swarming lifeto thisenormous mass of foliage(op. cit.,p. 286). strange

2All references to the Rougon-Macquart are taken from the Pl6iade edition. All other referencesare takenfromOeuvres completes (Paris, 1927-1929).Quotationstranslated by J. L. Logan.

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Yale FrenchStudies or rather theimagination thatinforms Such a setting, it,can only wherea statueof Cupid prelead to a clearing witha pool and grotto sides over the episode withwhich the storyis concerned.A young widow,Adeline,is in the habit of takingan eveningdip in the pool; one day she findsOctave who has precededher there.Though until to hatehim,she is impressed thenshe has professed by his gentlemanly consents to marry him. behavioron thisoccasion,and eventually outone ofthefrequent Thisepisodeallowsus to bring components in labyrinthian It was not absentfrom of eroticism writers: voyeurism. thetwo previoustales: discreet and maudlinin "Simplice,"it is more obvious in "The Thievesand the Donkey,"whose narrator chooses a privileged positionon the island,a vantagepointfromwhichhe can observeeverything and everyone without beingseen. how voyeurism We willmoreeasilydetect and labyrinthism interto the beginning of Zola's first twineif we refer novel,La Confession in theform de Claude. The narrative is presented of letters by a young to his friends. Little time is wasted in preliminary would-bewriter Claude sitsthrough the night stage-setting. by the bedsideof a prostitutewho livesin thesame building and who has had a violentseizure. When she recovers, she promptly seduces him. The description of the roomis important. Withitsirregular shape and ramshackle sordidness, it is an ominousabbreviation of the labyrinth. "The bare and slanted walls turntheroom intoa kindof corridor out in the whichstretches shape of a bier" (p. 11). In the processof becomingurbanized,the verdant nestof thepreceding taleshas turned intoa coffin. The irreguof the setting, larity the disorderand the intimacy of the night-scene, instead of being symbolsof vital profusion, underscorethe lurking senseof dangerwhilemaintaining their eroticvalue.

Finally I made out the bed: the sheets,thrownback and twisted, had slid to thefloor;scattered pieces of clothing were lying about on theblanket. In the midst of these tatters,a blurredwhite shape was out. I shouldhave thought it a corpsebeforeme, if stretched 92

Mario Maurin a hand hangthecandlehadn'tat timesallowedme to glimpse withrapidconvulsions(p. 18). ingout of thebed, shaking

detailspointtowarderoticconsummation, Here also, labyrinthian stage. "The girl and possession by sightserves as an intermediary theblanketback, uncovering turned overin herbed. She threw sighed, of thiskindof voyeurism among herbosom" (p. 21). The persistence writers can probablybe explained by the anxietyand labyrinthian To gaze upon naked thattheyassociatewitheroticactivity. ambiguity of desire to the limitbeyond which fleshis to carrythe fulfillment loom. dangerand destruction links There are strong betweenLa Confessionde Claude and L'Oeuvre. They go beyond the fact that both main charactersare started named Claude, and make it seem as if Zola had compulsively all over again fromthe same obsessive situation.In L'Oeuvre, the and finds a frightened night Lantierreturns home on a stormy painter detailsall belongto girlin the doorwayof his house. The descriptive thatturnsParis intoa city thelightning imagination: thelabyrinthian the Seine severaltimescomparedto a "deep ditch" (the of fantasy, in La Confessionde Claude), the corridor analogue of the funereal at anchoron the river.Zola is intent of the shapes riding strangeness the"extraordinary up at theoutsetof his openingchapter on conjuring a whole world filling the enormoustrench, of things, complication enutheditchdug acrossthehorizon"(p. 13). The almostobligatory in tableauxsuch as theseservea double purpose: theyexmerations whilestriving overabundance and uncanny ofoppressive pressa feeling to exorcizeit by precisedenomination. The girlLantiermeetson his doorstepis literally lost. Though herstory of a trainaccident, he decidesto giveher onlyhalf-believing forthenight. As he leads herin thedarktoward hisstudioalong shelter and flights of steps,we finda new versionof the narrowcorridors for path. "It seemed to her thatshe had been climbing labyrinthine in of a amid a of floors such complication hours, themidst such maze, and turns, thatshe would nevercome down again" (p. 15). To the 93

Yale FrenchStudies of the ascentcorresponds in the the staticdisarray dynamicintricacy of and its"landslide canstudio,withits ancientand wobblyfurniture vasses thrown helter-skelter" on thefloor(p. 23). Like his namesake in La Confessionde Claude, the painter Claude is of chastehabits.Bothnarratives beginwithan act of charity: whereastheformer watchesover the ailingLaurence,thelatteroffers In bothcases shelter In bothcases thisleads to an affair. to Christine. the first sexual overtoneis introduced by a voyeuristic episode. Like in hersleep and Claude is able to herself Laurence,Christine uncovers possess her onlyinsofar as he sketches her,by means of an artwhich will soon possess him in turn.Finally,thereis in L'Oeuvre a happy It labyrinthian periodwhichprecedesthe painter'sslow degradation. to the earliercouple's walk in the dingysuburbstoward corresponds a poplar-shaded seem to patch whereClaude and Laurence fleetingly is the recovertheir youthand lost innocence.In L'Oeuvre the setting banksof theSeine to whichZola had so often giventhesame function in his earlynarratives: "Amongtheislandsscattered alongthestream, therestretched a whole movingand mysterious city,a maze of waterlanes through which theyglided softly, brushedand strokedby the low-spreading branches"(p. 148). to whichI referred The incestmotif, at the beginning, is slowly comingto the fore in the early novels. It is barelyhintedat in La de Claude, and remains Confession subduedin Le Voeu d'une morte, but it appears much more starkly in Madeleine Ferat withits labyrinthian accompaniment. Madeleine is an ambiguouscreature, both woman and child,sweet-tempered and severe.For Guillaume,she is as mucha mother as a mistress. "There was in herkissesmorematerZola (p. 63). The plot hingeson the nitythan passion," comments thatMadeleine had once been the mistress discovery of Jacques,who had played the part of mentorand elder brother to the adolescent Guillaume.Guillaumehas thusunwittingly succeededhim.Madeleine reactswith violenceto thediscovery, and thewriter explains: "She saw a kindof incestin her double love" (p. 67). Later, when Guillaume also learnsof herformer his reaction is identical:"He saw in it affair, an incest, a sacrilege"(p. 164). 94

Mario Maurin walk, The whole first episode of the novel relatesa labyrinthine in the course of which Madeleine guides Guillaume toward an inn where she had already stayed in the past and where theyfindthe nuptial chamber thatusuallyloomsat theend of themaze. "The young in a lane thatstretches betweentwogrey, couple . . . foundthemselves dismalwalls. They hastenedtheirwalk across country, monotonously by barely travelledpaths" (p. 5). The lane "climbs with sudden look," the road veers into curves,"the place has a "wild and solitary hollow."All thesedetailsare typicalof the labyrin"a sortof sinister ordeal whichis always an unsettling thinelandscape and adventure, drawnby it intothe cycleof life finds himself insofar as thewanderer implications. and deathwithstrongly regressive The room at the inn in whichGuillaumeand Madeleine become sordid; lovers translates this mood in termsof decor. It is slightly air fellfrom theceildampnesshas stainedthewallpaper."A freezing is ing,smellsof mould hoveredin the corners"(p. 18). The setting de Claude: poverty, age, unobviously the same as in La Confession healthiness, degradationgive concrete evidence of the labyrinth's ambiguity. Afterseveralyearsof quiet bliss forMadeleine and Guillaume, dead, reappearson Jacques,the former loverwhomtheyhad thought the scene. His sudden returndrives the couple to flee as froman avengingghost; they strugglethroughstorm and mud and finally decide to beginlifeanew in Paris. They stop at Mantes to spend the night,and Madeleine experiencesan unexplainableanxietyas they entertheinn,whichZola describes as follows:

It was built practicallylike a village, with its stables, its thethree were mainpartsof thebuilding sheds,itscourtyards; of different Crossed by endless corridors, traversed heights. staircasesthathaphazardly joined the floors, by innumerable Now the innused to be fullof thelifeof a worldof travelers. it was almostalwaysdeserted(p. 188).

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Yale FrenchStudies The reference to the past is symptomatic and would suffice to revealthepresence of a labyrinthine locus,had nottheirregularity and the intricacy of the building alreadywarnedthe attentive reader.But thedescription proceedsmoreunequivocally still.The bell-boy "guided thetravelers through a maze of smallstaircases thewornstepsofwhich forward . . . Madeleine was stillglancingaround sloped disturbingly her,but she could not recognizeanything in thislabyrinth of landings and corridors"(p. 189-190). Thus theyreach the inevitable end of theirjourney,the room withthe dirtywall-paper,the damp-stained to theroomthey whichcorresponds walls,thecrackedceiling occupied of their at thebeginning affair. Madeleine finally recognizes theplace: in thatroomwithher former she once spentthenight lover. The forout to be extraordinarily mula herehas turned pure,and its developThe labyrinth mentis perfect. has led notonlyto thewedding chamber, of but to the originaleroticevent; it marks the path of repetition, to the impotent subservience past. Most of the precedingexamples were taken fromZola's early an abundanceof similar, and just as works,but his laternovelsafford evidence.Kenneth on Zola's article convincing, Cornell,in a perceptive Paris (Yale FrenchStudies,XXXII), has veryaccurately pointedout in the Rougon-Macquart. the part played by the capital as monster I would add thatParis is monstrous an area because it is a labyrinth, ideally suited for aimless wanderingand perdition.The composite of the monster in traditional the infringement on character imagery, orderthatitrepresents, are notarbitrary. For itsveryshape thenatural at itsmostterrifying, disorder and thelabyrinth represents is eminently to its But in Zola the distinction suited be between dwelling-place. dwellerand habitattendsto disappear: thelabyrinth is monstrous, the is labyrinthine. monster One need onlyrecallPere Colombe's distilling in withits "long-necked coils plunging machine L'Assommoir, retorts, in front a hell's kitchen of whichdrunken laborersstood underground, storeintent on devouring bemused" (p. 404); or thehugedepartment in Au Bonheur des the small neighboring shops Dames, the picture in L'Oeuvre, the Stock Exchange in L'Argent or, more exhibition 96

Mario Maurin memorably still, theminein Germinal, thatpitch-black maze in which love and deathonce moreseal their fateful pact. It is a rarevolumein the Rougon-Macquart thatdoes not begin witha labyrinthian scene,latertakenup again,developedand brought to ambiguousfruition: thisseems to be the fundamental formulaof the novel forZola. We need not analyze everynovel in the seriesin order to establishthe permanenceof the motifand the variantsto whichit lends itself. A few examplesshould suffice to confirm what of L'Oeuvre's initial our examination chapter has alreadybrought out. La Fortune des Rougon,with which theseriesbegins, immediately launchesintoa description of the Saint-Mittre area, givenover to an exuberantvegetationand to "monstrously gnarled pear-treeswith of whichis the crookedbranches"(p. 5-6), the convulsive character of the labyrinthian verysignature The groundsare now imagination. occupied by a lumberyard with beams, and between the cluttered wood-piles"mysterious, and narrowpaths" (p. 8) windtheir discreet way. Obviously made to orderfortheyounglovers'trysts, theplace is typicalof the labyrinthine and verdanthollows which Zola usually choosesforhislove scenes.This mythical is clearly topography regresfortheSaintMittre area is an ancientburial-ground, sive in character, and the shelterin which Silveremeets Miette lies near a half-worn tombstone on whichthenameofMarie (i.e. Miette) can stillbe spelled out. This is not merely a macabre premonition, like JulienSorel's in at Verrieres, thechurch buta reminder thattheliving are bound to the are acting out former and thatthepast weighs dead, thatthey destinies of whichZola thinks heavilyupon them- a weight he has foundthe formulaand explanationin theoriesof heredityand determinism, writers. The wild grass of the but which oppresses all labyrinthian "whichon fiery ancientcemetery bound theirfeet and made nights themstumble, were theynot slender,emaciatedfingers reachingout of theearthto hold themback, to throwthemin each other'sarms?" to combinemoresuccinctly themotifs of (p. 207). It wouldbe difficult amorousexaltationand ubiquitousdeath. labyrinthine imprisonment, La Curee, on the otherhand, beginswitha peculiarlymodern and urbanversionof labyrinthine thetraffic-jam. In one of intricacy: 97

Yale FrenchStudies the carriagesinvolved are sittingRenee Saccard and her stepson Maxime. She is in love with him, for her spleneticboredom needs later resomething rich and strangeto feed upon. The incestmotif, is thus of Phedrewhichtheyboth attend, flected by the performance pattern. introduced fromthe veryoutsetby the formallabyrinthine Other episodes follow suit. When the husband, Saccard, arrivesin and promptly becomeslost.Similarly, Paris,he goes out intothestreets whichwill end whenRenee crossesthe Parc Monceau on theevening for her in her stepson's arms, she too almost loses her way. The is a greenhouse, a patchof naturearticouple's favorite trysting-place whose exotic exuberanceacts on the lovers' senses ficially sustained, (which or indeedliketheforest offormer narratives likea headyphilter in La Faute de l'abbe Mouret). "At founditsmostelaboratetreatment filled withteeming life,witha heavy their feetthepool was smoking, withungrasschasingitself tangleof roots. . . It was a swirlof living theobscure ... All thispullulation aroundthem, assuaged tenderness of the pool, the naked shamelessness of the foliage,threw swarming of passion" (p. 486-488). themheadlonginto a Dantesque inferno such as these make it plain that sexualityhas become Descriptions is rather and thatthe dizzinessit engenders voracity thanexaltation, of disgust reaction and rejection. inseparable from a fundamental of and teeming, manifestations thus,are labyrinthian Swarming the eroticand the uncanny.Indeed, things swarmand teem not only of settings. Theretoo thephenomin nature, butalso in a wide variety ena have the same "natural" implications. For example, Renee first of Maxime in the privatedining-room of a resbecomesthe mistress taurant. is not directly located at the end Now, whilethe place itself of a labyrinthine the view of theBoulevardfromthewinwandering, dows of the dining-room, as Zola undertakes to describe it, points strollers" to thepresence and the"black swarmof evening ofthemotif to the scene. providestherequiredaccompaniment

And the processionwentendlessly reguby,witha wearying a strangely disparategroup of people yet always the larity, 98

Mario Maurin same, in the midstof bright colors: patches of shadows in thefairy-tale confusion ofthesethousand dancing flames. They were comingout of theshops like a wave, coloring the transin thewindowsand kiosks,running parencies overthefagades like sticks,like letters, like sketchings of fire, puncturing the shadows withstars,scuttling continually along the road (p. 450).

Ever-renewed beginning, commingling, strangeness, monotony in diversity, such are unquestionably the characteristics of labyrinthine wandering. Here, they have become spectacular,they are watched rather thanexperienced; but in the novelist's imagination theyremain compulsively associatedwiththe fulfillment of eroticdrives.The collective labyrinthine wandering of Gervaise'sparty through thedizzying halls of the Louvre, in L'Assommoir,similarly takes place on her wedding-day. All the processions,cavalcades, whirlingdances and milling crowds whichhave almostbecomeZola's trade-mark belongto a single imaginative complex, and thesame appliesto theinterminable descriptionsoffurniture or decorso generously provided. Theyare notmerely dictated For thenovby an insistance on documentary exhaustiveness. of the elisttheseorgiesof description are a half-disguised debauchery imagination. A particularly telling example is the lengthy description in La Curee. But forbrevity's of Saccard's residence sake I will turn to Rougon'svisitto ClorindeBalbi in Son ExcellenceEugene Rougon. The first detailsprovided, insofaras theyassociate Clorinda and her Zola's fascinated room,underscore disgust forsexuality:

Even thoughit was fouro'clock, the room had not yet been screenin front of the bed half-hid straightened up; a folding the and thrown over its trailingblankets; screen,all mudweredrying. On the stainedat thehem,yesterday's petticoats floorbeforethe window was the wash basin full of soapy 99

Yale French Studies thecat of thehouse, water, while a grey cat,slept curled up inthemidst ofa pileofclothing (p. 62).

WhenRougonclimbsto Clorinde's he is second-floor studio, greeted bya "hubbub ofvoices, shrill laughter, overturned furniture" notonly (p. 62) andmet, bythegrotesque spectacle ofa Congressman a chair, waltzing with butbya sight which is closer to Zola's familiar of a young obsession: in front manwhois sketching her,"Clorinde, wasposing on a table, standing as Diana thehuntress; herthighs, her werebare;shestoodnaked, arms, herbreasts unperturbed" (p. 62). Hereagain, thedisarray offurniture, thedance, voyeurism andtheatricalism arethe prelude toan attempt atseduction. ButZola goesfurther andclarifies hisdescription as he elaborates:

of was cluttered withan astonishing confusion The gallery a cabinet, a secretary, several objects;piecesof furniture, a labyrinth of tables werepushed outto themiddle, forming narrow Atoneend, hot-house pathways. neglected plants piled their on topof each other weredying, green palmshanging all devoured while at theother end with down, already blight; one couldstill was a great pile of dried-out clay,in which armsandlegsof a statue that thecrumbling Clodistinguish rinde hadbegun.. . (p. 64).

ofdecomposition to thedying The motif which as well applies plants ofstatuary as tothebroken has arisen pieces quite naturally outofthe ofthestudio. labyrinthine configuration inNana,where canbe found is sancThesamecluster voyeurism It hasalmost milieu Zola hasundertaken todescribe. tioned bythe very is busyogling, becomea professional obligation: everybody peering, delicto. is hubbub There peeping, watching, catching couples flagrante at thetheatre, at theraces, at thetable, in andconfusion everywhere,
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MarioMaurin oflovers whirling giddily around theprostitute who bed.A bevy keeps love-goddess. One of these lovers rules overParislikesomebarbaric discovery he is being is comteMuffat, who makesthe unpleasant first then bya very young college cuckolded, byhisownfather-in-law, no less thanamorous. boywith whom Nana's behavior is maternal Zola's fascination with incest has notweakened with the Obviously, inthelastvolume oftheRougonyears (it willreappear triumphantly by attributing the same Macquart)and he emphasizes its presence alluded to in a comreaction to young George that he hadpreviously thathis own parableepisodeof Madeleine Ferat:Georgediscovers of one from brother is also Nana'slovers, andhe suffers this discovery "as from a kindofincest." ofthenovel The main turns outto be admirably suited labyrinth tovoyeuristic since itis thetheatre itself: effects,

Muffat especially, who had neverbeen in the wingsof a was amazed,seizedby an uneasiness, by a vague theatre, fear.He lookedup at theflies where revulsion mixedwith their turned low,were constellations other stage lights, gas-jets where he could oflittle bluish stars in thechaosof thegrid, and backdrops see ropesof all thicknesses, catwalks, spread linen cloths drying (p. 1205). outin theairlikeenormous

Then beginsthe customary wandering along stairsand corridors, half-dressed womenand sordid amongdubiousand headysmells, doors. confusion dressing-room glimpsed through Zola pitsone labyrinth the sometimes against another, Though to rely on a single hispurpose better theblack,it suits green against de Paris, inLe Ventre maze.SucharetheHallestowhich, ambiguous from the after Florent arrives escaped Guyana clandestinely having mainmarket, the noise,the The activity in the city's penitentiary. hisweakthedizzying andgoings, heapsoffoodstuff intensify comings lostin that immense and he soonbecomes covered nessand hunger,
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Yale French Studies over an intricate city which hangs metal on an vegetation. He stumbles
entanglement of carts and wagonssimilarly, La Curee and Pot- retreats, Bouillebegin with traffic-jams wanders aimlessly around.

The description soonfocuses on theimage oftheengulfing vegetation

alreadynoticedin La Fortunedes Rougon:

And he stopped, discouraged, frightened, unableto disengagehimself from this hellish ofgreenery tangle that beganto swirl round him, hobbling hislegswith Farther thin tendrils. on,downtotheruede Rivoli, theendless linesofwheels and ofharnessed animals disappeared intotheconfusion offoodthatwere beingloaded . . . At the rue du Pont-Neuf, stuffs

hecompletely losthisway... Bythe Halleau Ble,theendsof thestreets were barricaded with still another obstacle ofcarts and dumpcarts. He no longer tried to fight: theHalleswere recapturing him, thewavebringing himback (p. 630).

For Florent, themazeis bothshelter and captivity, and he will from it onlyto return to thepenitentiary. emerge have One might that theHalles,with assumed their ofproduce, profusion wouldturn arealso outtobe oneofZola'sgreen labyrinths. On thecontrary: they of stench an "immense charnel-house and decomposition" where the of theunfortunate victims of human are mindlessly corpses appetite andcruelty piledup every are commonplace day.Insensitivity among thepeoplewhoworkin theHalles and,likemostof Zola's heroes, Florent in theblood-stained world thatis experiences mainly disgust of Jonah's He feelsill at forhimtheequivalent habitation. mythical of all flesh, be it quartered on thebutchers' ease in front stallsor women aroundhimwho thrive on their flaunted by thehandsome to thepeaceful he oweshisdownfall and trade. Significantly enough, for head-wound and opulent Lisa,justas sheis responsible Marjolin's No doubt, fat over the the the subsequent imbecility. triumph thin, belly to thebrain, as Lantier but is mightier than explains Florent; beyond 102

MarioMaurin ofsocialcriticism the realm canbe sensed thefear oforganic life which thewholetormented throbs of theRougon-Macquart. through fabric when we first see Jacques Lantier inLa Bete One final example: Humaine, he is on hiswayto visit thewoman whohas raised him.So this noveltoo can be saidto begin with a return to themother. By a itis herdaughter common Florawhoattracts very displacement, him; butwith Lantier At the her, experiences hisoldpsychopathic reaction. moment sheabandons likekilling herself, he feels herandhas to flee. Theusualsequence hasbeeninverted here:thelabyrinthine wandering follows theerotic episode instead ofpreceding it.

fledintothemelancholy Jacques night. He galloped up the pathon one side,camebackdownintoa narrow valley.... He started Nowhe again, climbed up,camedown oncemore. intotheroad,at thebottom of deep trenches keptrunning which carved great chasms intheearth, onthetopofembankments whichblockedthe horizon withgigantic barricades. Thisdeserted broken was likea countryside, up by hillocks, labyrinth without a wayout,where hismadness turned round and round, in thegloomy desolation of uncultivated plotsof land (p. 1042).

Laterin thenovel, Floraherself a similar undergoes experience. She loseshersenseofdirection in thetunnel in which shefrequently likesto walk,and doesnotknowanymore or whether to jumpright left inorder toavoidonrushing trains. "Herfeet caught intherails, she It was tunnel to ranharder. thewallsseemed slipped, fell, madness, closeinon her, thevault reverberated threatenwith imaginary noises, enormous roars"(p. 1250). The apocalyptic ingvoices, description of thederailment, of metaland corpses, is similarly withits tangle in thenovelseemtrapped in their focused. all thecharacters Indeed, or machinations, in quandaries forwhich, from the thoughts caught Zola skillfully oftheintricate usestheanalogy motions very beginning, 103

Yale French Studies oflocomotives intherailroad-yard. It doesseemas ifin La BeteHumaine themazemotif has become fully deliberate at last. that all thelabyrinths inthese Shallweconclude whose frequency has by now,I trust, beensufficiently novels documented, have been a narrow function andthat owe their given symbolic they significance toZola'savowed a complex purpose, which is todescribe andconfused one wouldthen society? In thesamespirit, allegethat thepersistence oftheincest-motif is attributable to themuckraking andperhaps pubof a writer bentupondenouncing theturpilicity-seeking orientation of SecondEmpiresociety tudeand degradation on all its levels.It to conclude that wouldseemmore accurate, however, Zola's political were suited toeachother, beliefs andprivate obsessions admirably that in fact hissincerity as a reformer andintegrity as an observer didnot hisauthenticity damage as an artist. as a comOn theformal plane,labyrinthism maybe dismissed monplace thematic aggregate, inherited from Romanticism by later writers of widely nineteenth-century differing quality and persuasion. is easy: thelabyrinth motif must holda powerful Here,therejoinder to an intense in orderto and correspond attraction psychic reality oftheimagination, promote sucha widespread paralysis sucha fundamental ofliterary monotony resources. It maybe wiseto consider it notas a liability, butrather as thetrue hallmark ofthewriter's humanitchannels ity, since andgives edgetothedouble sense of"horror and oflife" ecstasy which Zola'sworks express with suchunflagging power no writer andwithout which, indeed, mayhopeto approach greatness.

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