"I did not wish to show you that, but it cannot last any longer--the
time has come. Give me the genealogical tree of Rougon-Macquart."

Yes! The genealogical tree of Rougon-Macquart! The reading of it
begins: There was one Adelaïde Fouqué, who married Rougon-Macquart's
friend. Rougon had Eugene Rougon, also Pascal Rougon, also Aristides,
also Sidonie, also Martha. Aristides had Maxyme, Clotilde, Victor, and
Maxyme had Charles, and so on to the end; but Sidonie had a daughter
Angelle, and Martha, who married Mouret, who was from Macquart's
family, had three children, etc.

The night passes, pales, but the reading continues. After Rougons come
Macquarts, then the generations of both families. One name follows
another. They appear bad, good, indifferent, all classes, from
ministers, bankers, great merchants, to simple soldiers or rascals
without any professions--finally the doctor stops reading--and looking
with his eyes of savant at his niece, asks: "Well, what now?"

And beautiful Clotilde throws herself into his arms, crying:
"_Vicisti! Vicisti!_"

And her God, her church, her flight toward ideals, her spiritual needs
disappeared, turned into ashes.

Why? On the ground of what final conclusion? For what good reason?
What could there be in the tree that convinced her? How could it
produce any other impression than that of tediousness? Why did she
not ask the question, which surely must have come to the lips of the
reader: "And what then?"--it is unknown! I never noticed that any