leave my faith and throw your fancy into the fire."

But Clotilde does not answer anything like this. On the contrary, she
eats at once the apple from this tree--passes soul and body into the
doctor's camp, and she does it because Zola wishes to have it that
way. There is no other reason for it and cannot be.

Had she done that on account of love for the doctor, had this reason,
which in a woman can play such an important part, acted on her,
everything would be easy to understand. But there is no such thing!
In that case what would become of all of Zola's doctrine? It acts
exclusively upon Clotilde, the author wishes to have only such a
reason. And it happens as he wishes, but at the cost of logic and
common sense. Since that time everything would be permitted: one will
be allowed to persuade the reader that the man who is not loved makes
a woman fall in love with him by means of showing her a price list
of butter or candies. To such results a great and true talent is
conducted by a doctrine.

This doctrine conducts also to perfect atrophy of moral sense. This
heredity is a wall in which one can make as many windows as one
pleases. The doctor is such a window. He considers himself as being
degenerated from the nervousness of the family; it means that he is
a normal man, and as such he would transmit his health to his
descendants. Clotilde thinks also that it would be quite a good idea,
and as they are in love, consequently they take possession of each
other, and they do it as did people in the epoch of caverns. Zola
considered it a perfectly natural thing, Doctor Pascal thinks the
same, and as Clotilde passed into his camp, she did not make any
opposition. This appears a little strange. Clotilde was religious only
a little while ago! Her youth and lack of experience do not justify
her either. Even at eight years, girls have some sentiment of modesty.
At twenty years a young girl always knows what she is doing, and she
cannot be called a sacrifice, and if she departs from the sentiment of
modesty she does it either by love, which makes noble the raptures,
or because she does it by the act of duty, but at the same time
she wishes to be herself a legitimated duty. Even if a woman is an
irreligious being and she refuses to be blessed by religion, she can
desire that her sentiment were legitimated. The priest or _monsieur le
maire_? Clotilde, who loves Doctor Pascal, does not ask for anything.
Marriage, accomplished by a