205TF

24 Styles

Poster

Poster Regular
Poster Medium
Poster Bold

Display

Display Regular
Display Medium
Display Bold

Text

Text Regular
Text Medium
Text Bold

Caption

Caption Regular
Caption Medium
Caption Bold

Poster Italic

Poster Italic
Poster Medium Italic
Poster Bold Italic

Display Italic

Display Italic
Display Medium Italic
Display Bold Italic

Text Italic

Text Italic
Text Medium Italic
Text Bold Italic

Caption Italic

Caption Italic
Caption Medium Italic
Caption Bold Italic

10 Variables

Poster

Poster Variable

Display

Display Variable

Text

Text Variable

Caption

Caption Variable

Total Roman

Total Variable

Poster Italic

Poster Italic Variable

Display Italic

Display Italic Variable

Text Italic

Text Italic Variable

Caption Italic

Caption Italic Variable

Total Italic

Total Variable Italic
Tritagonist I believe that all men of letters are like myself, that they never reread their works once they have been published. Nothing, indeed, is more disheartening, more painful, than to look back, after years have passed, upon one’s own sentences. They have, in a sense, settled and deposited themselves at the bottom of the book; and, most of the time, volumes are not like wines that improve with age. Once stripped bare by time, the chapters lose their fragrance and their bouquet fades. I experienced this impression with certain bottles arranged in the cabinet of À Rebours, when I was compelled to uncork them. And, somewhat melancholically, I try to recall, as I leaf through these pages, the state of mind I must have been in at the moment I wrote them. We were then in the full tide of Naturalism; but that school, which was destined to render the unforgettable service of situating real characters in exact settings, was condemned to repetition, treading endlessly in place. It scarcely admitted, in theory at least, of exceptions; it confined itself therefore to the depiction of ordinary existence, striving, under the pretext of being lifelike, to create beings as similar as possible to the average run of people. This ideal had, in its own way, been realized in a masterpiece that was far more, even than L’Assommoir, the paragon of Naturalism — Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. That novel was, for all of us of the Soirées de Médan, a veritable Bible; but it allowed for few variations. It was complete — unrepeatable, even for Flaubert himself; and thus all of us, at that time, were reduced to beating about, prowling along more or less explored paths all around it. Virtue — being, it must be confessed, an exception in this world — was thereby excluded from the naturalistic plan. Lacking the Catholic conception of fall and temptation, we were ignorant of the struggles and sufferings from which virtue is born; the heroism of the soul victorious over snares escaped us entirely. It would never have occurred to us to describe that struggle, with its ups and downs, its devious assaults and its feints, and also its skilled helpers who prepare themselves far away, often in the depths of a cloister, from the person whom the Tempter attacks. Virtue seemed to us the attribute of beings without curiosity or devoid of sense — little moving, in any case, from the artistic point of view. There remained the vices; but the field, to be cultivated, was narrow. It was confined to the territory of the Seven Deadly Sins — and even among those seven, only one, the one against the Sixth Commandment of God, was reasonably accessible. The others had been thoroughly gleaned, and there were hardly any clusters left to pluck. Avarice, for instance, had been pressed dry to its last drop by Balzac and by Hello. Pride, Wrath, and Envy had trailed through all the Romantic publications, and those subjects of drama had been so distorted by overuse that it would have required real genius to rejuvenate them in a novel. As for Gluttony and Sloth, they seemed better suited to episodic figures, fit for minor roles rather than for leading characters or prima donnas in novels of manners. The truth is that Pride would have been the most magnificent of crimes to study, with its infernal ramifications of cruelty toward others and of false humility; that Gluttony, dragging after it Lust and Sloth, and even Theft, would have furnished matter for astonishing excavations, had one scrutinized those sins by the lamp and the blowpipe of the Church and with Faith in one’s heart. But none of us was prepared for such work; we were therefore driven to chew over again the easiest of all misdeeds to dissect — the sin of Lust, in all its forms. And God knows how much we chewed it over! Yet that sort of carousel was short-lived. Whatever one invented, the novel could always be summarized in a few lines: to discover why Mr. So-and-So did or did not commit adultery with Mrs. Such-and-Such. If one wished to be distinguished, to reveal oneself as a man of refined taste, one placed the carnal act between a marquise and a count; if, on the contrary, one wished to be a popular writer, a casual proseman, one set it between a working-class suitor and some girl of no consequence. Only the setting differed. The former distinction seems now to have prevailed in the good graces of the reader, for I see that nowadays he seldom feeds upon plebeian or bourgeois loves, but continues to savor the hesitations of the marquise going to join her tempter in a small apartment whose appearance changes with the interior fashions of the time. Will she fall? Will she not? This is called a psychological study. Well, so be it. I confess, however, that when I happen to open a book and see there the eternal seduction and the no less eternal adultery, I hasten to close it again, being in no way eager to know how the announced idyll will end. A volume without authentic documents, a book that teaches me nothing, no longer holds my interest. At the moment when À Rebours appeared, that is to say in 1884, the situation was as follows: Naturalism was running out of breath, turning the millstone in the same circle. The sum of observations each one of us had stored up, taken from ourselves and from others, was beginning to run dry. Zola, who was a great stage decorator, got by by painting backdrops more or less precise; he suggested most skillfully the illusion of movement and of life. His heroes were without souls, governed simply by impulses and instincts, which simplified the labor of analysis. They moved, performed a few summary actions, and filled in with broad silhouettes the settings that became the principal characters of his dramas. In this way, he celebrated the markets, the department stores, the railways, the mines; and the human beings lost within those environments played only the roles of extras and stagehands. But Zola was Zola — that is to say, an artist a bit heavy-handed, but endowed with powerful lungs and mighty fists. Tritagonist
Everyman I believe that all men of letters are like myself, that they never reread their works once they have been published. Nothing, indeed, is more disheartening, more painful, than to look back, after years have passed, upon one’s own sentences. They have, in a sense, settled and deposited themselves at the bottom of the book; and, most of the time, volumes are not like wines that improve with age. Once stripped bare by time, the chapters lose their fragrance and their bouquet fades. I experienced this impression with certain bottles arranged in the cabinet of À Rebours, when I was compelled to uncork them. And, somewhat melancholically, I try to recall, as I leaf through these pages, the state of mind I must have been in at the moment I wrote them. We were then in the full tide of Naturalism; but that school, which was destined to render the unforgettable service of situating real characters in exact settings, was condemned to repetition, treading endlessly in place. It scarcely admitted, in theory at least, of exceptions; it confined itself therefore to the depiction of ordinary existence, striving, under the pretext of being lifelike, to create beings as similar as possible to the average run of people. This ideal had, in its own way, been realized in a masterpiece that was far more, even than L’Assommoir, the paragon of Naturalism — Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. That novel was, for all of us of the Soirées de Médan, a veritable Bible; but it allowed for few variations. It was complete — unrepeatable, even for Flaubert himself; and thus all of us, at that time, were reduced to beating about, prowling along more or less explored paths all around it. Virtue — being, it must be confessed, an exception in this world — was thereby excluded from the naturalistic plan. Lacking the Catholic conception of fall and temptation, we were ignorant of the struggles and sufferings from which virtue is born; the heroism of the soul victorious over snares escaped us entirely. It would never have occurred to us to describe that struggle, with its ups and downs, its devious assaults and its feints, and also its skilled helpers who prepare themselves far away, often in the depths of a cloister, from the person whom the Tempter attacks. Virtue seemed to us the attribute of beings without curiosity or devoid of sense — little moving, in any case, from the artistic point of view. There remained the vices; but the field, to be cultivated, was narrow. It was confined to the territory of the Seven Deadly Sins — and even among those seven, only one, the one against the Sixth Commandment of God, was reasonably accessible. The others had been thoroughly gleaned, and there were hardly any clusters left to pluck. Avarice, for instance, had been pressed dry to its last drop by Balzac and by Hello. Pride, Wrath, and Envy had trailed through all the Romantic publications, and those subjects of drama had been so distorted by overuse that it would have required real genius to rejuvenate them in a novel. As for Gluttony and Sloth, they seemed better suited to episodic figures, fit for minor roles rather than for leading characters or prima donnas in novels of manners. The truth is that Pride would have been the most magnificent of crimes to study, with its infernal ramifications of cruelty toward others and of false humility; that Gluttony, dragging after it Lust and Sloth, and even Theft, would have furnished matter for astonishing excavations, had one scrutinized those sins by the lamp and the blowpipe of the Church and with Faith in one’s heart. But none of us was prepared for such work; we were therefore driven to chew over again the easiest of all misdeeds to dissect — the sin of Lust, in all its forms. And God knows how much we chewed it over! Yet that sort of carousel was short-lived. Whatever one invented, the novel could always be summarized in a few lines: to discover why Mr. So-and-So did or did not commit adultery with Mrs. Such-and-Such. If one wished to be distinguished, to reveal oneself as a man of refined taste, one placed the carnal act between a marquise and a count; if, on the contrary, one wished to be a popular writer, a casual proseman, one set it between a working-class suitor and some girl of no consequence. Only the setting differed. The former distinction seems now to have prevailed in the good graces of the reader, for I see that nowadays he seldom feeds upon plebeian or bourgeois loves, but continues to savor the hesitations of the marquise going to join her tempter in a small apartment whose appearance changes with the interior fashions of the time. Will she fall? Will she not? This is called a psychological study. Well, so be it. I confess, however, that when I happen to open a book and see there the eternal seduction and the no less eternal adultery, I hasten to close it again, being in no way eager to know how the announced idyll will end. A volume without authentic documents, a book that teaches me nothing, no longer holds my interest. At the moment when À Rebours appeared, that is to say in 1884, the situation was as follows: Naturalism was running out of breath, turning the millstone in the same circle. The sum of observations each one of us had stored up, taken from ourselves and from others, was beginning to run dry. Zola, who was a great stage decorator, got by by painting backdrops more or less precise; he suggested most skillfully the illusion of movement and of life. His heroes were without souls, governed simply by impulses and instincts, which simplified the labor of analysis. They moved, performed a few summary actions, and filled in with broad silhouettes the settings that became the principal characters of his dramas. In this way, he celebrated the markets, the department stores, the railways, the mines; and the human beings lost within those environments played only the roles of extras and stagehands. But Zola was Zola — that is to say, an artist a bit heavy-handed, but endowed with powerful lungs and mighty fists. Everyman
Relief & Anxiety I believe that all men of letters are like myself, that they never reread their works once they have been published. Nothing, indeed, is more disheartening, more painful, than to look back, after years have passed, upon one’s own sentences. They have, in a sense, settled and deposited themselves at the bottom of the book; and, most of the time, volumes are not like wines that improve with age. Once stripped bare by time, the chapters lose their fragrance and their bouquet fades. I experienced this impression with certain bottles arranged in the cabinet of À Rebours, when I was compelled to uncork them. And, somewhat melancholically, I try to recall, as I leaf through these pages, the state of mind I must have been in at the moment I wrote them. We were then in the full tide of Naturalism; but that school, which was destined to render the unforgettable service of situating real characters in exact settings, was condemned to repetition, treading endlessly in place. It scarcely admitted, in theory at least, of exceptions; it confined itself therefore to the depiction of ordinary existence, striving, under the pretext of being lifelike, to create beings as similar as possible to the average run of people. This ideal had, in its own way, been realized in a masterpiece that was far more, even than L’Assommoir, the paragon of Naturalism — Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. That novel was, for all of us of the Soirées de Médan, a veritable Bible; but it allowed for few variations. It was complete — unrepeatable, even for Flaubert himself; and thus all of us, at that time, were reduced to beating about, prowling along more or less explored paths all around it. Virtue — being, it must be confessed, an exception in this world — was thereby excluded from the naturalistic plan. Lacking the Catholic conception of fall and temptation, we were ignorant of the struggles and sufferings from which virtue is born; the heroism of the soul victorious over snares escaped us entirely. It would never have occurred to us to describe that struggle, with its ups and downs, its devious assaults and its feints, and also its skilled helpers who prepare themselves far away, often in the depths of a cloister, from the person whom the Tempter attacks. Virtue seemed to us the attribute of beings without curiosity or devoid of sense — little moving, in any case, from the artistic point of view. There remained the vices; but the field, to be cultivated, was narrow. It was confined to the territory of the Seven Deadly Sins — and even among those seven, only one, the one against the Sixth Commandment of God, was reasonably accessible. The others had been thoroughly gleaned, and there were hardly any clusters left to pluck. Avarice, for instance, had been pressed dry to its last drop by Balzac and by Hello. Pride, Wrath, and Envy had trailed through all the Romantic publications, and those subjects of drama had been so distorted by overuse that it would have required real genius to rejuvenate them in a novel. As for Gluttony and Sloth, they seemed better suited to episodic figures, fit for minor roles rather than for leading characters or prima donnas in novels of manners. The truth is that Pride would have been the most magnificent of crimes to study, with its infernal ramifications of cruelty toward others and of false humility; that Gluttony, dragging after it Lust and Sloth, and even Theft, would have furnished matter for astonishing excavations, had one scrutinized those sins by the lamp and the blowpipe of the Church and with Faith in one’s heart. But none of us was prepared for such work; we were therefore driven to chew over again the easiest of all misdeeds to dissect — the sin of Lust, in all its forms. And God knows how much we chewed it over! Yet that sort of carousel was short-lived. Whatever one invented, the novel could always be summarized in a few lines: to discover why Mr. So-and-So did or did not commit adultery with Mrs. Such-and-Such. If one wished to be distinguished, to reveal oneself as a man of refined taste, one placed the carnal act between a marquise and a count; if, on the contrary, one wished to be a popular writer, a casual proseman, one set it between a working-class suitor and some girl of no consequence. Only the setting differed. The former distinction seems now to have prevailed in the good graces of the reader, for I see that nowadays he seldom feeds upon plebeian or bourgeois loves, but continues to savor the hesitations of the marquise going to join her tempter in a small apartment whose appearance changes with the interior fashions of the time. Will she fall? Will she not? This is called a psychological study. Well, so be it. I confess, however, that when I happen to open a book and see there the eternal seduction and the no less eternal adultery, I hasten to close it again, being in no way eager to know how the announced idyll will end. A volume without authentic documents, a book that teaches me nothing, no longer holds my interest. At the moment when À Rebours appeared, that is to say in 1884, the situation was as follows: Naturalism was running out of breath, turning the millstone in the same circle. The sum of observations each one of us had stored up, taken from ourselves and from others, was beginning to run dry. Zola, who was a great stage decorator, got by by painting backdrops more or less precise; he suggested most skillfully the illusion of movement and of life. His heroes were without souls, governed simply by impulses and instincts, which simplified the labor of analysis. They moved, performed a few summary actions, and filled in with broad silhouettes the settings that became the principal characters of his dramas. In this way, he celebrated the markets, the department stores, the railways, the mines; and the human beings lost within those environments played only the roles of extras and stagehands. But Zola was Zola — that is to say, an artist a bit heavy-handed, but endowed with powerful lungs and mighty fists. Relief & Anxiety
Everyman I believe that all men of letters are like myself, that they never reread their works once they have been published. Nothing, indeed, is more disheartening, more painful, than to look back, after years have passed, upon one’s own sentences. They have, in a sense, settled and deposited themselves at the bottom of the book; and, most of the time, volumes are not like wines that improve with age. Once stripped bare by time, the chapters lose their fragrance and their bouquet fades. I experienced this impression with certain bottles arranged in the cabinet of À Rebours, when I was compelled to uncork them. And, somewhat melancholically, I try to recall, as I leaf through these pages, the state of mind I must have been in at the moment I wrote them. We were then in the full tide of Naturalism; but that school, which was destined to render the unforgettable service of situating real characters in exact settings, was condemned to repetition, treading endlessly in place. It scarcely admitted, in theory at least, of exceptions; it confined itself therefore to the depiction of ordinary existence, striving, under the pretext of being lifelike, to create beings as similar as possible to the average run of people. This ideal had, in its own way, been realized in a masterpiece that was far more, even than L’Assommoir, the paragon of Naturalism — Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. That novel was, for all of us of the Soirées de Médan, a veritable Bible; but it allowed for few variations. It was complete — unrepeatable, even for Flaubert himself; and thus all of us, at that time, were reduced to beating about, prowling along more or less explored paths all around it. Virtue — being, it must be confessed, an exception in this world — was thereby excluded from the naturalistic plan. Lacking the Catholic conception of fall and temptation, we were ignorant of the struggles and sufferings from which virtue is born; the heroism of the soul victorious over snares escaped us entirely. It would never have occurred to us to describe that struggle, with its ups and downs, its devious assaults and its feints, and also its skilled helpers who prepare themselves far away, often in the depths of a cloister, from the person whom the Tempter attacks. Virtue seemed to us the attribute of beings without curiosity or devoid of sense — little moving, in any case, from the artistic point of view. There remained the vices; but the field, to be cultivated, was narrow. It was confined to the territory of the Seven Deadly Sins — and even among those seven, only one, the one against the Sixth Commandment of God, was reasonably accessible. The others had been thoroughly gleaned, and there were hardly any clusters left to pluck. Avarice, for instance, had been pressed dry to its last drop by Balzac and by Hello. Pride, Wrath, and Envy had trailed through all the Romantic publications, and those subjects of drama had been so distorted by overuse that it would have required real genius to rejuvenate them in a novel. As for Gluttony and Sloth, they seemed better suited to episodic figures, fit for minor roles rather than for leading characters or prima donnas in novels of manners. The truth is that Pride would have been the most magnificent of crimes to study, with its infernal ramifications of cruelty toward others and of false humility; that Gluttony, dragging after it Lust and Sloth, and even Theft, would have furnished matter for astonishing excavations, had one scrutinized those sins by the lamp and the blowpipe of the Church and with Faith in one’s heart. But none of us was prepared for such work; we were therefore driven to chew over again the easiest of all misdeeds to dissect — the sin of Lust, in all its forms. And God knows how much we chewed it over! Yet that sort of carousel was short-lived. Whatever one invented, the novel could always be summarized in a few lines: to discover why Mr. So-and-So did or did not commit adultery with Mrs. Such-and-Such. If one wished to be distinguished, to reveal oneself as a man of refined taste, one placed the carnal act between a marquise and a count; if, on the contrary, one wished to be a popular writer, a casual proseman, one set it between a working-class suitor and some girl of no consequence. Only the setting differed. The former distinction seems now to have prevailed in the good graces of the reader, for I see that nowadays he seldom feeds upon plebeian or bourgeois loves, but continues to savor the hesitations of the marquise going to join her tempter in a small apartment whose appearance changes with the interior fashions of the time. Will she fall? Will she not? This is called a psychological study. Well, so be it. I confess, however, that when I happen to open a book and see there the eternal seduction and the no less eternal adultery, I hasten to close it again, being in no way eager to know how the announced idyll will end. A volume without authentic documents, a book that teaches me nothing, no longer holds my interest. At the moment when À Rebours appeared, that is to say in 1884, the situation was as follows: Naturalism was running out of breath, turning the millstone in the same circle. The sum of observations each one of us had stored up, taken from ourselves and from others, was beginning to run dry. Zola, who was a great stage decorator, got by by painting backdrops more or less precise; he suggested most skillfully the illusion of movement and of life. His heroes were without souls, governed simply by impulses and instincts, which simplified the labor of analysis. They moved, performed a few summary actions, and filled in with broad silhouettes the settings that became the principal characters of his dramas. In this way, he celebrated the markets, the department stores, the railways, the mines; and the human beings lost within those environments played only the roles of extras and stagehands. But Zola was Zola — that is to say, an artist a bit heavy-handed, but endowed with powerful lungs and mighty fists. Everyman
Casting Intensity I believe that all men of letters are like myself, that they never reread their works once they have been published. Nothing, indeed, is more disheartening, more painful, than to look back, after years have passed, upon one’s own sentences. They have, in a sense, settled and deposited themselves at the bottom of the book; and, most of the time, volumes are not like wines that improve with age. Once stripped bare by time, the chapters lose their fragrance and their bouquet fades. I experienced this impression with certain bottles arranged in the cabinet of À Rebours, when I was compelled to uncork them. And, somewhat melancholically, I try to recall, as I leaf through these pages, the state of mind I must have been in at the moment I wrote them. We were then in the full tide of Naturalism; but that school, which was destined to render the unforgettable service of situating real characters in exact settings, was condemned to repetition, treading endlessly in place. It scarcely admitted, in theory at least, of exceptions; it confined itself therefore to the depiction of ordinary existence, striving, under the pretext of being lifelike, to create beings as similar as possible to the average run of people. This ideal had, in its own way, been realized in a masterpiece that was far more, even than L’Assommoir, the paragon of Naturalism — Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. That novel was, for all of us of the Soirées de Médan, a veritable Bible; but it allowed for few variations. It was complete — unrepeatable, even for Flaubert himself; and thus all of us, at that time, were reduced to beating about, prowling along more or less explored paths all around it. Virtue — being, it must be confessed, an exception in this world — was thereby excluded from the naturalistic plan. Lacking the Catholic conception of fall and temptation, we were ignorant of the struggles and sufferings from which virtue is born; the heroism of the soul victorious over snares escaped us entirely. It would never have occurred to us to describe that struggle, with its ups and downs, its devious assaults and its feints, and also its skilled helpers who prepare themselves far away, often in the depths of a cloister, from the person whom the Tempter attacks. Virtue seemed to us the attribute of beings without curiosity or devoid of sense — little moving, in any case, from the artistic point of view. There remained the vices; but the field, to be cultivated, was narrow. It was confined to the territory of the Seven Deadly Sins — and even among those seven, only one, the one against the Sixth Commandment of God, was reasonably accessible. The others had been thoroughly gleaned, and there were hardly any clusters left to pluck. Avarice, for instance, had been pressed dry to its last drop by Balzac and by Hello. Pride, Wrath, and Envy had trailed through all the Romantic publications, and those subjects of drama had been so distorted by overuse that it would have required real genius to rejuvenate them in a novel. As for Gluttony and Sloth, they seemed better suited to episodic figures, fit for minor roles rather than for leading characters or prima donnas in novels of manners. The truth is that Pride would have been the most magnificent of crimes to study, with its infernal ramifications of cruelty toward others and of false humility; that Gluttony, dragging after it Lust and Sloth, and even Theft, would have furnished matter for astonishing excavations, had one scrutinized those sins by the lamp and the blowpipe of the Church and with Faith in one’s heart. But none of us was prepared for such work; we were therefore driven to chew over again the easiest of all misdeeds to dissect — the sin of Lust, in all its forms. And God knows how much we chewed it over! Yet that sort of carousel was short-lived. Whatever one invented, the novel could always be summarized in a few lines: to discover why Mr. So-and-So did or did not commit adultery with Mrs. Such-and-Such. If one wished to be distinguished, to reveal oneself as a man of refined taste, one placed the carnal act between a marquise and a count; if, on the contrary, one wished to be a popular writer, a casual proseman, one set it between a working-class suitor and some girl of no consequence. Only the setting differed. The former distinction seems now to have prevailed in the good graces of the reader, for I see that nowadays he seldom feeds upon plebeian or bourgeois loves, but continues to savor the hesitations of the marquise going to join her tempter in a small apartment whose appearance changes with the interior fashions of the time. Will she fall? Will she not? This is called a psychological study. Well, so be it. I confess, however, that when I happen to open a book and see there the eternal seduction and the no less eternal adultery, I hasten to close it again, being in no way eager to know how the announced idyll will end. A volume without authentic documents, a book that teaches me nothing, no longer holds my interest. At the moment when À Rebours appeared, that is to say in 1884, the situation was as follows: Naturalism was running out of breath, turning the millstone in the same circle. The sum of observations each one of us had stored up, taken from ourselves and from others, was beginning to run dry. Zola, who was a great stage decorator, got by by painting backdrops more or less precise; he suggested most skillfully the illusion of movement and of life. His heroes were without souls, governed simply by impulses and instincts, which simplified the labor of analysis. They moved, performed a few summary actions, and filled in with broad silhouettes the settings that became the principal characters of his dramas. In this way, he celebrated the markets, the department stores, the railways, the mines; and the human beings lost within those environments played only the roles of extras and stagehands. But Zola was Zola — that is to say, an artist a bit heavy-handed, but endowed with powerful lungs and mighty fists. Casting Intensity
Everyman I believe that all men of letters are like myself, that they never reread their works once they have been published. Nothing, indeed, is more disheartening, more painful, than to look back, after years have passed, upon one’s own sentences. They have, in a sense, settled and deposited themselves at the bottom of the book; and, most of the time, volumes are not like wines that improve with age. Once stripped bare by time, the chapters lose their fragrance and their bouquet fades. I experienced this impression with certain bottles arranged in the cabinet of À Rebours, when I was compelled to uncork them. And, somewhat melancholically, I try to recall, as I leaf through these pages, the state of mind I must have been in at the moment I wrote them. We were then in the full tide of Naturalism; but that school, which was destined to render the unforgettable service of situating real characters in exact settings, was condemned to repetition, treading endlessly in place. It scarcely admitted, in theory at least, of exceptions; it confined itself therefore to the depiction of ordinary existence, striving, under the pretext of being lifelike, to create beings as similar as possible to the average run of people. This ideal had, in its own way, been realized in a masterpiece that was far more, even than L’Assommoir, the paragon of Naturalism — Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. That novel was, for all of us of the Soirées de Médan, a veritable Bible; but it allowed for few variations. It was complete — unrepeatable, even for Flaubert himself; and thus all of us, at that time, were reduced to beating about, prowling along more or less explored paths all around it. Virtue — being, it must be confessed, an exception in this world — was thereby excluded from the naturalistic plan. Lacking the Catholic conception of fall and temptation, we were ignorant of the struggles and sufferings from which virtue is born; the heroism of the soul victorious over snares escaped us entirely. It would never have occurred to us to describe that struggle, with its ups and downs, its devious assaults and its feints, and also its skilled helpers who prepare themselves far away, often in the depths of a cloister, from the person whom the Tempter attacks. Virtue seemed to us the attribute of beings without curiosity or devoid of sense — little moving, in any case, from the artistic point of view. There remained the vices; but the field, to be cultivated, was narrow. It was confined to the territory of the Seven Deadly Sins — and even among those seven, only one, the one against the Sixth Commandment of God, was reasonably accessible. The others had been thoroughly gleaned, and there were hardly any clusters left to pluck. Avarice, for instance, had been pressed dry to its last drop by Balzac and by Hello. Pride, Wrath, and Envy had trailed through all the Romantic publications, and those subjects of drama had been so distorted by overuse that it would have required real genius to rejuvenate them in a novel. As for Gluttony and Sloth, they seemed better suited to episodic figures, fit for minor roles rather than for leading characters or prima donnas in novels of manners. The truth is that Pride would have been the most magnificent of crimes to study, with its infernal ramifications of cruelty toward others and of false humility; that Gluttony, dragging after it Lust and Sloth, and even Theft, would have furnished matter for astonishing excavations, had one scrutinized those sins by the lamp and the blowpipe of the Church and with Faith in one’s heart. But none of us was prepared for such work; we were therefore driven to chew over again the easiest of all misdeeds to dissect — the sin of Lust, in all its forms. And God knows how much we chewed it over! Yet that sort of carousel was short-lived. Whatever one invented, the novel could always be summarized in a few lines: to discover why Mr. So-and-So did or did not commit adultery with Mrs. Such-and-Such. If one wished to be distinguished, to reveal oneself as a man of refined taste, one placed the carnal act between a marquise and a count; if, on the contrary, one wished to be a popular writer, a casual proseman, one set it between a working-class suitor and some girl of no consequence. Only the setting differed. The former distinction seems now to have prevailed in the good graces of the reader, for I see that nowadays he seldom feeds upon plebeian or bourgeois loves, but continues to savor the hesitations of the marquise going to join her tempter in a small apartment whose appearance changes with the interior fashions of the time. Will she fall? Will she not? This is called a psychological study. Well, so be it. I confess, however, that when I happen to open a book and see there the eternal seduction and the no less eternal adultery, I hasten to close it again, being in no way eager to know how the announced idyll will end. A volume without authentic documents, a book that teaches me nothing, no longer holds my interest. At the moment when À Rebours appeared, that is to say in 1884, the situation was as follows: Naturalism was running out of breath, turning the millstone in the same circle. The sum of observations each one of us had stored up, taken from ourselves and from others, was beginning to run dry. Zola, who was a great stage decorator, got by by painting backdrops more or less precise; he suggested most skillfully the illusion of movement and of life. His heroes were without souls, governed simply by impulses and instincts, which simplified the labor of analysis. They moved, performed a few summary actions, and filled in with broad silhouettes the settings that became the principal characters of his dramas. In this way, he celebrated the markets, the department stores, the railways, the mines; and the human beings lost within those environments played only the roles of extras and stagehands. But Zola was Zola — that is to say, an artist a bit heavy-handed, but endowed with powerful lungs and mighty fists. Everyman

OpenType Features

On Standard Ligatures
LIGA
Confidence | Reflection | Gaffer
On Arrows
SS01
--W --E --S --N --NW --NE --SE --SW --NS --WE
On R
SS02
Repertoire | Role | Recitation
On a
SS03
Tragedies | Interpretation | Ranging
On b q
SS04
Soliloquy | Celebrity | Acrobatic
On g
SS05
Backstage | Tragedies | Imagine
On j
SS06
Projection | Objective | Project
On Filleted triangular serifs
SS07
COMEDY | DRAMATIC | VISION

Character Map

Cap Height1638
X Height931
Baseline0
Ascender2172
Descender-700

2

Basic Latin
!
"
#
$
%
&
'
(
)
*
+
,
-
.
/
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
:
;
<
=
>
?
@
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
[
\
]
^
_
`
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
{
|
}
~
Latin-1 Supplement
 
¡
¢
£
¥
¦
§
¨
©
ª
«
¬
­
®
¯
°
±
²
³
´
µ
·
¸
¹
º
»
¼
½
¾
¿
À
Á
Â
Ã
Ä
Å
Æ
Ç
È
É
Ê
Ë
Ì
Í
Î
Ï
Ð
Ñ
Ò
Ó
Ô
Õ
Ö
×
Ø
Ù
Ú
Û
Ü
Ý
Þ
ß
à
á
â
ã
ä
å
æ
ç
è
é
ê
ë
ì
í
î
ï
ð
ñ
ò
ó
ô
õ
ö
÷
ø
ù
ú
û
ü
ý
þ
ÿ
Latin Extended-A
Ā
ā
Ă
ă
Ą
ą
Ć
ć
Ĉ
ĉ
Ċ
ċ
Č
č
Ď
ď
Đ
đ
Ē
ē
Ĕ
ĕ
Ė
ė
Ę
ę
Ě
ě
Ĝ
ĝ
Ğ
ğ
Ġ
ġ
Ģ
ģ
Ĥ
ĥ
Ħ
ħ
Ĩ
ĩ
Ī
ī
Ĭ
ĭ
Į
į
İ
ı
IJ
ij
Ĵ
ĵ
Ķ
ķ
ĸ
Ĺ
ĺ
Ļ
ļ
Ľ
ľ
Ŀ
ŀ
Ł
ł
Ń
ń
Ņ
ņ
Ň
ň
Ŋ
ŋ
Ō
ō
Ŏ
ŏ
Ő
ő
Œ
œ
Ŕ
ŕ
Ŗ
ŗ
Ř
ř
Ś
ś
Ŝ
ŝ
Ş
ş
Š
š
Ţ
ţ
Ť
ť
Ŧ
ŧ
Ũ
ũ
Ū
ū
Ŭ
ŭ
Ů
ů
Ű
ű
Ų
ų
Ŵ
ŵ
Ŷ
ŷ
Ÿ
Ź
ź
Ż
ż
Ž
ž
Latin Extended-B
Ə
ƒ
Ʒ
DŽ
Dž
dž
Ǎ
ǎ
Ǐ
ǐ
Ǒ
ǒ
Ǔ
ǔ
Ǖ
ǖ
Ǘ
ǘ
Ǚ
ǚ
Ǜ
ǜ
Ǣ
ǣ
Ǥ
ǥ
Ǧ
ǧ
Ǩ
ǩ
Ǫ
ǫ
Ǯ
ǯ
DZ
Dz
dz
Ǵ
ǵ
Ǻ
ǻ
Ǽ
ǽ
Ǿ
ǿ
Ș
ș
Ț
ț
Ȳ
ȳ
ȷ
IPA Extensions
ə
ʒ
Spacing Modifier Letters
ʼ
ˆ
ˇ
˘
˙
˚
˛
˜
˝
Combining Diacritical Marks
̀
́
̂
̃
̄
̆
̇
̈
̊
̋
̌
̒
̣
̦
̧
̨
̮
̱
Greek and Coptic
Δ
Ω
μ
π
Armenian
֏
Thai
฿
Latin Extended Additional
General Punctuation
Superscripts and Subscripts
Currency Symbols
Letterlike Symbols
Number Forms
Arrows
Mathematical Operators
Geometric Shapes
Miscellaneous Symbols
Dingbats
Alphabetic Presentation Forms

Supported Languages