The novel is widely held to have put an end to the relationship. Zola sent Cézanne a copy, as always. Cézanne’s enigmatic acknowledgement of April 4 1886 was the last letter ever to pass between them. And yet they never lost sight of one another. Sixteen years later, news of Zola’s death reached Cézanne in Aix. He shut himself in his room and wept. No one dared to go in. For hours, the gardener could hear him howl. Later he wandered in the countryside, alone in his landscape and his grief.
Alex Danchev
The envelope of a letter from Cézanne to Monsieur Geffroy, 17th May 1898 (PRIVATE COLLETION/ COURTESY MUSEE DES LETTRES ET MANUSCRITS, PARIS)
To Émile Zola
Aix, July 29 1858
Mon cher,
Not only did your letter make me happy, getting it made me feel better. I’m gripped by a certain internal sadness and, my God, I dream only of that woman I told you about. I don’t know who she is; I sometimes see her out in the street as I’m going to the monotonous college. I sigh, morbleu, but sighs that do not give themselves away, these are mental sighs. I thoroughly enjoyed that poetic morsel you sent me, I really liked to see you remember the pine that provides shade for the riverbank of the Palette, the pine that I love, how I should like to see you here – damn everything that keeps us apart. If I didn’t restrain myself, I should let off a whole string of nom de Dieu, de Bordel de Dieu, de sacrée putain, etc; but what’s the point of getting in a rage, that wouldn’t get me any further, so I put up with it.
Yes, as you say in another piece no less poetic – though I prefer your piece about swimming – you are happy, yes you [are] happy; but I suffer in silence, my love (for it is love that I feel) will not come bursting out. A certain ennui is always with me, and when I forget my sorrow for a moment it’s because I’ve had a drink. I’ve always liked wine, but now I like it more. I’ve got drunk, I’ll get drunker, unless by chance I should succeed, my God! I despair, I despair, so I’m going to deaden the pain. […]
P Cézanne
To Émile Zola
June 20 1859
Mon cher,
Yes mon cher, it’s really true, what I told you in my last letter. I tried to deceive myself, by the tithe of the Pope and his cardinals, I was very much in love with a certain Justine who is truly very fine; but since I don’t have the honour to be [a great beauty], she always turned away. When I trained my peepers on her, she lowered her eyes and blushed. Now I thought I noticed that when we were in the same street, she executed a half-turn, as one might say, and took off without a backward glance. Quanto à della donna, I’m not happy, and to think that I risk bumping into her three or four times a day. What is more, mon cher, one fine day a young man accosted me, a student in his first year, like me, [Paul] Seymard, whom you know. “Mon cher,” he said, taking my hand, then clinging on to my arm and continuing to walk towards the Rue d’Italie, “I’m about to show you a sweet little thing whom I love and who loves me.” I confess that just then a cloud seemed to pass before my eyes, I had a premonition that my luck had run out, as you might say, and I was not wrong, for just as the clock struck midday, Justine came out of the dressmaker’s where she works, and my word, as soon as I saw her in the distance, Seymard indicated, “There she is.” From then on I saw no more, my head was spinning, but Seymard dragged me along, I brushed against her dress […]
Since then I have seen her nearly every day and often Seymard in her tracks. Ah! What fantasies I built, as mad as can be, but you see, it’s like this: I said to myself, if she didn’t despise me, we should go to Paris together, there I should become an artist, we should be happy, I dreamt of pictures, a studio on the fourth floor, you with me, how we should have laughed. I did not ask to be rich, you know how I am, me, with a few hundred francs I thought we could live happily, but by God, it was a really great dream, that, and now I’m so idle that I’m only happy when I’ve had a drink; I can hardly do anything, I am inert, good for nothing.
My word, your cigars are excellent, I’m smoking one as I write; they taste of caramel and barley sugar. Ah! But look, look, there she is, it’s her, how she glides and sways, yes, that’s my little one, how she laughs at me, she floats on the clouds of smoke, look, look, she goes up, she comes down, she frolics, she rolls, but she laughs at me. Oh Justine, tell me at least that you don’t hate me; she laughs. Cruel one, you enjoy making me suffer. Justine, listen to me, but she disappears, she goes up and up and up for ever, finally she disappears. The cigar falls from my lips, straightaway I go to sleep. For a moment I thought I was going mad, but thanks to your cigar my spirit has revived, another 10 days and I shall think of her no more, or else glimpse her only on the horizon of the past, as a shadow in a dream.
Ah! Yes, it would give me ineffable pleasure to see you. You know, your mother told me that you would be coming to Aix towards the end of
July. You know, if I’d been a good jumper, I would have touched the ceiling, I leapt so high. In fact for a moment I thought I was going mad, it was dark, evening had fallen, and I thought that I was going mad, but it was nothing, you know. Only that I’d drunk too much, then I saw phantoms in front of my eyes, fluttering around the tip of my nose, dancing and laughing and jumping fit to upset everything.
Adieu, mon cher, adieu.
P Cézanne
Émile Zola to
Paul Cézanne
Paris, March 25 1860
Mon cher ami,
You must make your father happy by studying law as assiduously as possible.
But you must also work hard at drawing – unguibus et rostro [tooth and nail]. […] As for the excuses you make, about sending engravings, or the supposed boredom your letters cause me, allow me to say that that is the height of bad taste. You don’t mean what you say, and that is some consolation. I have only one complaint, that your epistles are not longer and more detailed.
I await them impatiently, they make me happy for a day. And you know it: so no more excuses. I’d rather stop smoking and drinking than corresponding with you.
Then you write that you are sad: I reply that I am very sad, very sad. It’s the wind of time blowing around our heads, no one is to blame, not even ourselves; the fault lies in the times in which we live. Then you add, if I understand you, that you don’t understand yourself. I don’t know what you mean by the word understand. This is how it is for me: I saw in you a great goodness of heart, a great imagination, the two foremost qualities before which I bow. And that’s enough; from that moment on, I understood you, I judged you. Whatever your failings, whatever your errings, for me you’ll always be the same … What do your apparent contradictions matter to me? I’ve judged you a good man and a poet, and I shall go on repeating: “I have understood you”. Away with sadness! Let’s end with a burst of laughter. In August, we’ll drink, we’ll smoke, we’ll sing.
Émile Zola to
Paul Cézanne
Paris, March 3 1861
You pose an odd question. Of course one can work here, as anywhere, given the willpower. Moreover Paris has something you can’t find anywhere else, museums in which you can study from the masters from 11 till four. Here is how you could organise your time. From six to 11 you’ll go to an atelier and paint from the live model; you’ll have lunch, then from midday till four, you’ll copy the masterpiece of your choice, either in the Louvre or in the Luxembourg. That will make nine hours of work; I think that’s enough and that, with such a regime, it won’t be long before you do something good. You see that that leaves us all evening free, and we can do whatever we like, without impinging at all on our studies. Then on Sundays we’ll take off and go to some places around Paris; there are some charming spots, and if so moved you can knock off a little canvas of the trees under which we’ll have lunched …
As for the question of money, it’s true that 125 francs a month [Cézanne’s allowance] won’t allow you any great luxury. I’ll give you an idea of what you’ll have to spend: 20 francs a month for a room; 18 sous for lunch and 22 sous for dinner, making two francs a day or 60 francs a month; with 20 for the room, that’s 80 francs per month. Then you’ve got the studio to cover; the Suisse, one of the least expensive, is 10 francs, I believe; in addition I reckon 10 francs for canvases, brushes and paints; that makes 100 francs. So that leaves you 25 francs for your laundry, light, the thousand little things that come up, your tobacco, your amusements: you see that you’ll have just enough to get by.
Madame Cézanne and Hydrangea/Hortensias, c. 1885 (PRIVATE COLLECTION)
Émile Zola to
Baptistin Baille
Paris, June 10 1861
[Baptistin Baille was a mutual childhood friend]
I rarely see Cézanne. Hélas! It’s not like Aix any more, when we were 18, and free and without a care about the future. The pressure of life, working separately, keeps us apart now. In the mornings Paul goes to the Suisse and I stay and write in my room. We lunch at 11, each to his own. Sometimes at midday I go to his room and he works on my portrait. Then he goes to draw for the rest of the afternoon with [Joseph] Villevieille; he has supper, goes to bed early, and I see him no more. Is this what I’d hoped for?
Paul is still that excellent capricious youth I knew in college. As proof that he’s lost nothing of his originality, I need only tell you that no sooner had he got here than he was talking of going back to Aix, after struggling for three years to make the journey and seemingly unbothered. With a character like that, in the face of such unexpected and unreasonable changes of behaviour, I admit that I hold my tongue and rein in my logic. Convincing Cézanne of something is like persuading the towers of Notre Dame to execute a quadrille. […]
Émile Zola to
Baptistin Baille
Paris, August 1861
No sooner had he returned from Marcoussis [a village south of Paris] than Paul came to see me, more affectionate than ever; since then, we’ve been together six hours a day; our meeting place is his little room; there, he’s doing my portrait, during which time I read or we chat together, then, when we’ve had enough of work, we usually go and smoke a pipe in the Luxembourg [gardens]. Our conversations ramble over everything, especially painting; our recollections also loom large; as for the future, we touch lightly on it, in passing, either to wish for our complete reunion or to pose for ourselves the terrible question of success.
Sometimes Cézanne gives me a lecture on the economy, and, in conclusion, forces me to go and have a beer with him. At other times, he sings an idiotic refrain for hours on end; then I openly declare my preference for the lectures on the economy. […] Paul paints on relentlessly; I pose like an Egyptian sphinx. […]
Work on the portrait began in June and continued without incident for a month, though Cézanne was never happy with the results. He started afresh, twice, and then asked for a final sitting. Zola came round the following day to find him stuffing clothes into a suitcase.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he announced calmly. “And my portrait?” “Your portrait,” he replied, “I’ve just torn it up. I wanted to redo it this morning, and as it went from bad to worse, I destroyed it; and I’m leaving.”
At which point lunch intervened, and after they had talked into the evening Cézanne undertook to stay, at least until September. But this was merely a postponement, as Zola realised well enough.
If he doesn’t leave this week, he’ll leave the week after; you can expect to see him go at any moment. Still, I believe he does right. Paul may have the genius of a great painter; he will never have the genius to become one.
The slightest obstacle sends him into despair. […]
Émile Zola to
Paul Cézanne
July 4 1871
I was very glad to get your letter, as I was beginning to worry about you. It’s now four months since we heard from one another. Around the middle of last month I wrote to you in L’Estaque, then I found out that you’d left and that my letter might have gone astray. I was having great difficulty finding you when you helped me out.
You ask for my news. Here is my story in a few words. I wrote to you, I think, just before I left for Bordeaux, promising another letter as soon as I returned to Paris. I got to Paris on March 14. Four days later, on the 18th, the insurrection broke out, postal services were suspended, I no longer thought of giving you any sign of life. For two months I lived in the furnace: cannon fire day and night, and towards the end shells flying over my head in my garden. Finally, on 10 May, I was threatened with arrest as a hostage; with the help of a Prussian passport I fled and went to Bonnières [north-west of Paris] to spend the worst days there. Today I’m living quietly in Batignolles, as though waking from a bad dream. My pavilion is the same, my garden hasn’t moved, not a single piece of furniture or plant has suffered, and I could almost believe that the two sieges were bad jokes invented to frighten the children.
What makes these bad memories more fleeting for me is that I haven’t stopped working for a minute. Since I left Marseille, I’ve been earning a good living … I tell you this so that you won’t feel sorry for me. I’ve never been more hopeful or keen to work. Paris is reborn. As I’ve often told you, our reign has begun!
My novel La Fortune des Rougon is being published. You wouldn’t believe the pleasure I’ve taken once more in correcting the proofs. It’s as if my first book were appearing … I do feel a little sorry to see that all the imbeciles aren’t dead, but I console myself with the thought that none of us has gone. We can resume the fight. I’m a bit rushed, I’m writing in haste only to reassure you about my situation. Another time I’ll tell you at greater length. But you who have all the long day ahead of you, don’t wait for months to reply. Now you know that I’m in Batignolles and your letters won’t go astray, write to me without fear. Give me the details. I’m almost as alone as you, and your letters help me a lot to live. […]
This letter seems to have made a strong impression on Cézanne – an impression interestingly shaded. The intermission was a consequence of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 – which resulted in a humiliating defeat for France – and the bloodletting of the Paris Commune (the “insurrection” to which Zola refers). It must also have stirred memories of painting Alexis reading to Zola in that pavilion and in that garden, the writer sitting cross-legged on the grass, robed for the part of “the morose pasha of realism”, receiving the reading like a tribute. [See preceding pages.] When his dealer Ambroise Vollard later asked him about his war, Cézanne launched immediately into a reminiscence of Zola and his letter:
I haven’t really got anything extraordinary to tell you about the years 70–71. I divided my time between the landscape and the studio. But if I didn’t have any adventures during that troubled epoch, it wasn’t the same at all for my friend Zola, who had all sorts of misadventures, especially after his final return to Paris from Bordeaux. He had promised me to write when he got to Paris. Only after four long months could he keep his promise!
Faced with the refusal of the Bordeaux government to make use of his services, Zola decided to go back to Paris. The poor man arrived in the middle of March 1871; a few days later, the insurrection broke out. …
Monsieur Vollard, I regret not having kept that letter. I would have shown you a passage where Zola lamented that all the imbeciles were not dead. Poor Zola! He would have been the first to be sorry if all the imbeciles were dead. In fact, I reminded him just recently of that phrase in his letter, for a laugh, on one of the last evenings that I saw him. He told me that he was going to dine with a big cheese to whom he’d been introduced by Monsieur Frantz Jourdain [later president of the Salon d’Automne]. All the same, I couldn’t help saying, if all the imbeciles were gone, you’d be forced to eat the rest of your casserole at home, tête-à-tête with your bourgeois! Well, would you believe that our old friend looked none too happy?
Surely, Monsieur Vollard, one can have a little joke when one has worn out our trousers on the same school bench. … Zola ended his letter by urging me to return, too. “A new Paris is in the process of being born,” he explained to me, “it’s our reign that’s coming!”
Our reign that’s coming! I thought that Zola was exaggerating a little, at least in relation to me. But, all the same, that told me to return to Paris. It had been too long since I’d seen the Louvre! It’s just that, you understand, Monsieur Vollard, at that moment I had a landscape that wasn’t going well.
So I stayed a while longer in Aix.
To Émile Zola
March 28 1878
Mon cher Émile,
Like you, I think I should not be too quick to renounce the paternal allowance.
But from the traps that have been set for me, which I’ve managed to escape so far, I foresee that the great debate will concern the money, and what I should do with it. As like as not I’ll get only 100 [francs] from my father, though he promised me 200 when I was in Paris. So I’ll have to rely on your good offices, especially since the little one [his son, Paul] has been ill for a fortnight with an attack of mucous fever.
I’m taking every precaution to ensure that my father does not obtain definitive proof.
Forgive me for making the following remark: but your notepaper and envelopes must be heavy: I had to pay 25 centimes at the post office to make up the postage – and your letter contained only one double sheet.
When you write to me, would you mind using only one sheet folded in half?
If in the end my father doesn’t give me enough, I’ll be coming back to you again during the first week of next month, and I’ll give you Hortense’s address, if you would be good enough to send it there. Greetings to Madame Zola; and my best wishes to you.
Paul Cézanne
There will probably be an Impressionist exhibition; then I’ll ask you to send in the still life that you have in your dining room [The Black Clock, above left].
In that connection I received a letter of notification for the 25th of this month. Naturally, I wasn’t there.
Has Une Page d’amour come out?
Bathing, 20 June 1859. Pen drawing on a letter to Emile Zola (PRIVATE COLLECTION)
To Émile Zola
April 4 1878
Mon cher Émile,
Please send 60 francs to Hortense at the address below, Madame Cézanne, 183 Rue de Rome, Marseille.
Despite the honour of treaties, I’ve been able to secure only 100 fr[ancs] from my father, and I was even afraid that he might not give me anything at all. He’s heard from various people that I have a child, and he’s trying by every means possible to catch me out. He wants to rid me of it, he says. I’ll say nothing more. It would take too long to explain the good man to you, but with him appearances are deceptive, believe you me. If you could write to me when you can, you’ll gladden my heart. I’m going to try and get to Marseille; I slipped off last Tuesday, a week ago, to see the little one, he’s better, and I had to return to Aix on foot [a distance of some 30km, or 19 miles], since the train shown in my timetable was wrong, and I had to be there for dinner, I was an hour late.
My respects to Madame Zola and my best wishes to you.
Paul Cézanne
To Émile Zola
Melun, October 9 1879
Mon cher Émile,
I’m very glad I went to see L’Assommoir. I couldn’t have had a better seat, and I didn’t fall asleep once, even though I usually go to bed just after 8. Interest never flags, but having seen this play, I dare say that the actors, who seemed to me remarkable, must be able to make a success of lots of plays that are plays in name only. Literary form must be unnecessary for them. The end of Coupeau is truly extraordinary, and the actress who played Gervaise is captivating. But they all act very well.[…]I saw the forthcoming appearance of Nana advertised for the 15th, on a huge canvas that covers the entire curtain.
Hearty thanks, and when my colleagues with the big brushes have finished, write to me.
Please give my respects to Madame Zola, and your mother and yourself.
Best wishes,
Paul Cézanne
To Émile Zola
[Paris] May 10 1880
Mon cher Émile,
I’m enclosing a copy of a letter that Renoir and Monet are going to send to the Ministre des Beaux-Arts, to protest against their poor hanging [in the Salon] and to demand an exhibition of the group of pure Impressionists next year. Here’s what I’ve been asked to beg you to do.
That would be to get this letter published in Le Voltaire, with a brief foreword or afterword on the group’s previous shows. The few words would be designed to demonstrate the importance of the Impressionists and the wave of real interest they have prompted. I needn’t add that whatever decision you decide to take with regard to this request will in no way influence your warm feelings towards me, or the good relationship that you have always encouraged between us. For I have more than once made demands on you that may have been a nuisance. I’m acting as go-between and nothing more.
I learnt yesterday of the very unhappy news of Flaubert’s death. So I fear that this letter may land on you in the midst of a lot of other cares.
My sincere respects to Madame Zola and your mother.
My warmest wishes to you,
Paul Cézanne
To Émile Zola
[Paris, July 4 1880]
Mon cher Émile,
[…] I’ve read the articles that you’ve been publishing in Le Voltaire, beginning with number II. And I thank you on my own behalf and on behalf of my colleagues. According to what I’ve heard, Monet has sold some of the canvases exhibited at Monsieur Charpentier’s, and Renoir has got several good portrait commissions.
I wish you good health, and please give my sincere respects to Madame Zola and your mother, I am, with gratitude, your devoted
Paul Cézanne
To Émile Zola
April 12 1881
Mon cher Émile,
The Cabaner sale is due to take place in a few days’ time. [Ernest Cabaner was an eccentric and consumptive musician who gave piano lessons to Arthur Rimbaud. The sale was being held to raise money for him.] Here, then, is what I’d like to ask you: whether you would be good enough to undertake to write a short announcement, as you did for the Duranty sale [the year before]. For there’s no doubt that the backing of your name alone would be a great draw for the public, to bring in art lovers and promote the sale.
Here is a list of some of the artists who have offered their works:
[Édouard] Manet
[Edgar] Degas
[Pierre] Frank Lamy [Franc-Lamy]
[Camille] Pissarro
[Jean] Bérand
[Henri] Gervex
[Antoine] Guillemet
[Charles Henri] Pille
[Frédéric] Cordey; etc;
and your humble servant.
As one of your oldest acquaintances, I was the one entrusted with making this request.
Warmest good wishes, and please give my respects to Madame Zola.
Yours ever,
Paul Cézanne
Cicero striking down Catiline, 29 July 1858. Sketch on letter to Emile Zola (PRIVATE COLLECTION)
To Émile Zola
Jas de Bouffan,
November 27 [1882]
Mon cher Émile,
I’ve decided to make my will, because it appears that I can. The annuities on which I receive interest are in my name. So I’m writing to ask your advice.
Could you tell me the form of words to be used when drawing it up? In the event of my death, I wish to leave half of my income to my mother and the other half to the little one. If you know anything of this, would you tell me about it? For if I were to die in the near future, my sisters would inherit from me, and I believe my mother would be deprived, and I think the little one (being recognised, when I notified the town hall) would still be entitled to half of my estate, but perhaps not without contestation. In the event that I can make a holograph will [in his own hand], if it wouldn’t be any trouble, I’d like to ask if you could please hold a duplicate of same. Provided that doesn’t cause you any inconvenience, because someone could get their hands on said document here. That’s what I wanted to put to you. I salute you and wish you good day, not forgetting to send my respects to Madame Zola.
Yours ever,
Paul Cézanne
To Émile Zola
La Roche-Guyon, July 5 1885
Mon cher Émile,
Owing to unforeseen circumstances, my life here is becoming rather difficult.
Could you let me know if I could come and visit you.
In the event that you’re not yet installed at Médan, be good enough to drop me a line and let me know,
Warmest wishes and many thanks,
Paul Cézanne
To Émile Zola
Gardanne, April 4 1886
Mon cher Émile,
I’ve just received L’Œuvre, which you were kind enough to send me. I thank the author of the Rougon-Macquart for this kind token of remembrance, and ask him to allow me to wish him well, thinking of years gone by.
Ever yours with the feeling of time passing,
Paul Cézanne
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