discussion ensued in print between author and critic, and "Therese
Raquin" promptly went into a second edition, to which Zola appended a
preface.

I have not thought it necessary to translate this preface, which is
a long and rather tedious reply to the reviewers of the day. It will
suffice to say, briefly, that the author meets the strictures of his
critics by pointing out and insisting on the fact, that he has simply
sought to make an analytic study of temperament and not of character.

"I have selected persons," says he, "absolutely swayed by their nerves
and blood, deprived of free will, impelled in every action of life,
by the fatal lusts of the flesh. Therese and Laurent are human brutes,
nothing more. I have sought to follow these brutes, step by step, in the
secret labour of their passions, in the impulsion of their instincts,
in the cerebral disorder resulting from the excessive strain on their
nerves."

EDWARD VIZETELLY SURBITON, 1 December, 1901.





THERESE RAQUIN



CHAPTER I