The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dream, by Emile Zola

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Title: The Dream

Author: Emile Zola

Translator: Eliza E. Chase

Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #9499]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAM ***

Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; Roger Proctor

THE DREAM

(LE REVE)

By Emile Zola

Translated by Eliza E. Chase

CHAPTER I

During the severe winter of 1860 the river Oise was frozen over and the
plains of Lower Picardy were covered with deep snow. On Christmas Day,
especially, a heavy squall from the north-east had almost buried the
little city of Beaumont. The snow, which began to fall early in the
morning, increased towards evening and accumulated during the night;
in the upper town, in the Rue des Orfevres, at the end of which, as if
enclosed therein, is the northern front of the cathedral transept,
this was blown with great force by the wind against the portal of Saint
Agnes, the old Romanesque portal, where traces of Early Gothic could be
seen, contrasting its florid ornamentation with the bare simplicity of
the transept gable.

The inhabitants still slept, wearied by the festive rejoicings of the
previous day. The town-clock struck six. In the darkness, which was
slightly lightened by the slow, persistent fall of flakes, a vague
living form alone was visible: that of a little girl, nine years of age,
who, having taken refuge under the archway of the portal, had passed the
night there, shivering, and sheltering herself as well as possible. She
wore a thin woollen dress, ragged from long use, her head was covered
with a torn silk handkerchief, and on her bare feet were heavy shoes
much too large for her. Without doubt she had only gone there after
having well wandered through the town, for she had fallen down from
sheer exhaustion. For her it was the end of the world; there was no
longer anything to interest her. It was the last surrender; the hunger
that gnaws, the cold which kills; and in her weakness, stifled by the
heavy weight at her heart, she ceased to struggle, and nothing was
left to her but the instinctive movement of preservation, the desire of