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By Root 889 0

for truth, to hear people accuse you of having no other end except that of describing obscene pictures. I am in the same position as one of those painters of nudes who work untouched by a hint of desire, and who are quite astonished when a critic announces that he is scandalized by the living flesh in their paintings. While I was writing Thérèse Raquin, I forgot everybody and lost myself in a precise, minute reproduction of life, giving myself up entirely to an analysis of the working of the human animal; and I can assure you that there was nothing immoral for me in the cruel love of Thérèse and Laurent, nothing that could arouse evil desires. The humanity of the models disappeared as it does in the eyes of an artist who has a naked woman lounging in front of him and who considers only how to put that woman on his canvas in all the truth of her form and colour. So I was greatly astonished when I heard my book described as a pool of mud and gore, a drain, a foul sewer, and heaven knows what else. I know the little games that critics play; I’ve done the same myself. But I must admit, I was a little disconcerted by this single-minded hostility. What! Was there not just one of my colleagues prepared to explain my book, let alone defend it? In the chorus of voices proclaiming: ‘The author of Thérèse Raquin is a wretched hysteric who enjoys exhibiting pornography,’ I waited in vain for a single voice to reply: ‘No, this writer is a mere analyst, who may have turned his attention to human corruption, but in the same way as a doctor becomes absorbed in an operating theatre.’

Notice that I am not at all asking for the sympathy of the press towards a book that, apparently, revolts its delicate senses. I do not hope for so much. I am merely astonished that my fellow writers have turned me into a kind of literary sewage worker, even though their experienced eyes should detect an author’s intentions within ten pages; and I am content merely to beg them humbly to be so kind in future as to see me as I am and to discuss me for what I am.

Even so, it would have been easy for them to understand Thérèse Raquin, to consider it from a viewpoint of observation and analysis and to show me my true faults, without picking up a handful of mud and throwing it in my face, in the name of morality. It would have demanded a little intelligence and a few general notions of real criticism. In the scientific field, the accusation of immorality proves absolutely nothing. I do not know if my novel is immoral; I admit that I have never concerned myself with making it more or less chaste. What I do know is that I never for a moment thought I was putting in the filth that moral individuals find there. I wrote every scene, even the most passionate ones, with the pure curiosity of a scientist. And I defy any of my critics to find a single page that is really licentious or written for the readers of those little pink volumes, those indiscretions of the boudoir and the back stage,3 which are published in editions of ten thousand at a time and warmly recommended by the same newspapers that were so sickened by the truths in Thérèse Raquin.

So, a few insults, a lot of silliness: that is all I have read up to now about my work. I am stating it here calmly, as I would to a friend who asked me privately what I thought of the attitudes of critics towards me. A highly talented writer, to whom I was complaining about the lack of sympathy that I enjoy, replied with this profound observation: ‘You have one huge failing which will close every door to you: you cannot talk for two minutes to a halfwit without letting him know that he is one.’ This cannot be helped. I realize that I am harming myself with the critics by accusing them of lacking in intelligence, yet I cannot prevent myself from showing the contempt that I feel for their narrow outlook and the judgements that they hand down blindly, without any system behind them. Of course, I am referring to everyday criticism, which applies all the literary prejudices of fools and is unable to adopt the broadly human outlook