Doctor Pascal, or, Life and heredity / by Émile Zola ; translated by Ernest A. Vizetelly ; with a frontispiece in photogravure by John Cameron.

  • Zola, Émile, 1840-1902.
Date:
[1900?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Doctor Pascal, or, Life and heredity / by Émile Zola ; translated by Ernest A. Vizetelly ; with a frontispiece in photogravure by John Cameron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wretched, diseased swarm with a thunderbolt. However, after so many terrible Rougons, after so many abominable Maequarts, yet another one was born. Life, with the brave defiance of its eternity, was not afraid to create yet another. Yes; life pursued its work, diffused itself according to its laws, indifferent to theories, ever marching on for the accom¬ plishment of its infinite labour. And, indeed, at the risk of forming monsters, it was needful that it should continue to create; we can all see that, despite the sickly and the mad whom it brings into the world, it never wearies of creating, in the hope, no doubt, that the healthy and the wise will some day appear. Life! life which flows in torrents, which con¬ tinues and begins afresh, ever tending towards the unknown goal! Life in whose midst we are immersed, life with itaf infinite, its adverse currents, life ever in motion and immense, like a sea that has no limits! A transport of maternal fervour ascended from the heart of Clotilde, happy at feeling that voracious little mouth imbibe sustenance from herself without a pause. It was a prayer, an invocation—to the unknown child, as to the unknown God! To the child who is to be, to the genius who is pos¬ sibly being born, to the new redeeming leader whom the coming century awaits, and who will extricate the peoples of the earth from their doubts and their sufferings ! And since the nation of mankind had to be reconstituted, had not that one, that child of hers, come to help in the mighty task ? He would take the experiment in hand once more, raise the fallen walls, restore certainty to men now groping in the dark, build up the city of justice, where the one law of work for all would ensure happiness. It is, indeed, in times of trouble that prophets should be expected. Unless, however, he should prove to be Antichrist, the devastating demon, the Beast whose advent was predicted, and who is to purge the world of its impurity. But even then life would subsist, continue ; it would only be needful to remain patient for a few more thousand years, until the other unknown child, the benefactor, should appear. Whilst Clotilde was thus pondering, her infant had