It was an ordinary Saturday morning in the winter of 1879, and the entire Paris region was filled with the damp chill of thawing snow, especially in Médan, located in the suburbs.
Although the vegetation had withered here, the dense network of rivers and good ventilation made the air as pure as a maiden's first kiss.
Médan had always been a good place for city dwellers to escape the summer heat, but not many people came in winter. However, a strangely designed country villa in the northwest corner of Médan was exceptionally lively today.
Because here, the new owner of this villa—Monsieur Émile Zola—was preparing a lavish banquet to welcome his friends and to celebrate his official move into the villa.
Although he had bought the villa last year, its condition was very poor at the time; the second-floor planks even almost caused Monsieur Zola to fall to the first floor during an inspection.
Fortunately, the earnings from 'L'Assommoir' were good, allowing him to extensively renovate the villa. He was finally able to move in recently—an excited Zola, disregarding that it was a 'summer retreat' villa, insisted on experiencing the life of a 'great writer' in advance.
After all, he had long envied Flaubert's three-story villa in Paris.
As soon as it was light, the valet was half-kneeling on the stone steps at the villa's entrance, carefully polishing each stone with graphite, ensuring they were as clean as new.
The mistress, with her chest held high, directed the gardener, coachman, and maids, each performing different tasks.
The most important among them was the cook, because by noon, Monsieur Zola's good friends—a group of learned, lively, and food-loving young men: Guy Maupassant, Paul Alexis, Léon Hennique, Henri Céard, and Huysmans—would arrive at the villa to celebrate with Monsieur Zola.
Each of them could eat twice the normal amount—Monsieur Zola could eat three times. If any gentleman felt even a hint of hunger during the gathering, it would be a great disgrace to Madame Zola!
By noon, the villa's dining room was already overflowing with delicious food and joy—
Platters of chilled Normandy crayfish, baskets of fresh butter and various breads, Périgord truffle cream soup, pan-fried fish with champagne sauce, and Rossini-style roasted fillet mignon, served with expensive black truffle slices and seasonal vegetables. In addition, there was sherry, blackcurrant liqueur, absinthe, and of course, no shortage of fine Bordeaux wine.
Zola and his loyal young followers feasted for two whole hours, then contentedly moved to the warm fireplace in the living room, each lighting a cigar or their personal pipe, puffing away.
At this moment, the firewood in the fireplace burned brightly, the flickering orange-red flames greedily licked the air, isolating the bleakness of the riverbank outside the window, leaving only the warm scent of burning pine and the rich aroma of cigars in the room.
As the owner of the villa, the initiator of the gathering, and the eldest among everyone, Émile Zola stroked his large beard, put down his cigar, and walked to the fireplace.
Maupassant and the others knew that this passionate senior was about to deliver another deafening pronouncement—
...That's the problem, my friends!" Émile Zola's voice, with its usual powerful resonance, was like a statue outlined by firelight, his forceful gestures almost stirring the air. "What do our cafes, our taverns, those so-called 'people's places,' serve?
It's bread mixed with sawdust and plaster! It's cheap wine so bad it scratches your throat! And what about those factory owners and bankers? They're in private rooms at 'The Louvre' restaurant, eating fresh oysters brought overnight from Brittany with silver cutlery, and drinking the best vintage wines from Burgundy's grand cru vineyards!"
The listeners, scattered around the fireplace, had various expressions. Maupassant was comfortably sunk into a large velvet armchair, his long legs casually crossed, a faint smile playing on his lips. His gaze wasn't focused on the impassioned Zola, but rather he was observing the villa's newly renovated decor with interest.
Huysmans, on the other hand, sat on a stiff, straight-backed chair, leaning slightly forward, his fingers interlocked on his knees. On his face, with its cold, hard lines and clear expression of world-weariness, his brows were habitually furrowed, as if silently agreeing, or perhaps critiquing Zola's imprecise choice of words.
Paul Alexis was the most composed; he occupied the thickest and most comfortable sofa chair on the other side of the fireplace, slowly taking a pinch of high-quality tobacco from a carved wooden box. With his well-maintained, bony hands, he meticulously and unhurriedly filled his large meerschaum pipe.
The others also held various postures, not all their attention focused on Zola—today's discussion was destined to be very long, and this was just the appetizer.
The burning pine in the fireplace crackled softly, briefly filling the silence after Zola's words faded.
So, Émile—" Huysmans finally broke the silence, his voice, like himself, possessing a cool, sharp quality. "Are you planning to have a starving worker rush into 'The Louvre' restaurant in your next novel and stab some fat banker in the throat with a fork?"
Everyone laughed; it was a good joke.
Zola's broad chest rose and fell, but he wasn't angered: "That's too extreme! What I want is to expose that suffocating festering sore, to let the sunlight in! Violence doesn't solve the fundamental problem!"
He waved his arms, trying to pull the conversation back to his grand framework of social analysis.
A festering sore, Émile, that's a good word choice," Paul Alexis spoke up, his voice clear and resonant. "But you must be careful; excessive passion will only turn your characters into puppets on a string, serving your accusations.
His gray-blue eyes, through the swirling smoke, fixed on Zola: "Balzac also wrote about greed and sin, but his Vautrin, Père Goriot, Rastignac... they are alive, struggling with all their contradictions and vitality, not merely existing to prove that 'society is a big festering sore.'"
Rastignac..." Maupassant seemed to be suddenly awakened by the name, and the wandering interest in his eyes was instantly replaced by a vibrant glow.
He suddenly sat up straight, his languid posture completely gone, his whole body as if wound tight: "Ah! Speaking of Rastignac! Friends, you absolutely won't believe it, a few days ago, in a class at the Sorbonne Faculty of Arts, I saw a living, breathing young man who could accurately throw Rastignac's label back in the face of an arrogant nobleman!"
Huysmans raised an eyebrow, a rare hint of piqued curiosity appearing on his stern face. Zola, his train of thought interrupted, frowned with some displeasure, but seeing the almost feverish excitement in Maupassant's eyes, he temporarily set aside his own topic.
Maupassant was completely engrossed in the excitement of his discovery, speaking as fast as a machine gun: "He's a student named Lionel Sorel, from out of town, poor as a church mouse, wearing a jacket with shiny elbows, commuting by public coach, and living in the Eleventh arrondissement, which is said to reek!"
Zola's curiosity was also piqued; the Sorbonne Faculty of Arts, in his mind, was a playground for a bunch of dissolute young men and a graveyard for a stubborn lot of academics. When did poor students ever get a chance to shine?
Maupassant, seeing that his 'digression' had received Zola's tacit approval, became even more excited.