Frases de Emile Zola

página 2

“El talento no se enseña, crece en el sentido que le place.”

“en lo más hondo de aquel empecinamiento, clamaba la rebelión del modesto fabricante artesano contra la invasora vulgaridad de los artículos de bazar.”

“Repito con la más vehemente convicción: la verdad está en camino, y nada la detendrá.”

“La belleza es un estado de ánimo.”

“Dígame si tengo que ponerme de rodillas para conmoverle el corazón.”

“¿Pero es que no ve lo que estoy sufriendo?… Que estupidez, ¿verdad? ¡Sufro como un niño!”

“Las únicas obras grandes y morales son las obras de la verdad.”

“¡Dios mío! ¡Si es que la quiero! ¡Es que la quiero! ¿Por qué se complace en martilizarme de este modo?”

“Al principio, pretendía aprovechar las ocasiones, a fé de buena ama de casa: luego, se dejaba llevar por la coquetería: al final, se la comían viva.”

“La realidad y la miseria me oprimen y, sin embargo, sueño todavía.”

“¿Cómo hacerla callar? ¿Cómo decirle a Denise que la adoraba, que ahora sólo existía ella?, que le sacrificaba todos sus antiguos amoríos de un día?”

“Yo la quiero… Hace mucho que lo sabe. No juegue el juego cruel de fingir que no entiende… y no tema nada.”

“Le había quedado, de los tiempos en los que soñaba con dedicarse a la literatura y se juntaba con poetas, una desesperación universal.”

“no le había quedado más remedio que hacerse una confesión: aún temblaba al ver pasar a Mouret, pero ahora sabía que no era de miedo.”

“Y a sabe que soy todo suyo - susurró, a modo de conclusión-. Haga conmigo lo que quiera.”

“Una obra de arte es un rincón de la creación visto a través de un temperamento.”

“No hay nada que desconcierte más a unespíritu que una instrucción inconexa: lovuelve vano y presuntuoso.”

“Mientras tenga aceite, un escritor no se muere de hambre.”

“Era casto en palabras como esos borrachos que jamás hablan del vino aunque lo ingieren constantemente.”

“Denuncio, ante la conciencia de la gente decente, esta presión que los poderes públicos ejercen sobre la justicia del país. Son abominables costumbres políticas que deshonran a una nación libre.”

“The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.”

“I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.”

“They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.”

“Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!”

“Violence has never prospered, you can't remake the world in a day. Anyone who promises to change everything for you all at once is either a fool or a rogue!”

“Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?”

“Sir,
Would you allow me, grateful as I am for the kind reception you once extended to me, to show my concern about maintaining your well-deserved prestige and to point out that your star which, until now, has shone so brightly, risks being dimmed by the most shameful and indelible of stains?”

“The truth, first of all, about Dreyfus' trial and conviction: At the root of it all is one evil man, Lt. Colonel du Paty de Clam, who was at the time a mere Major. He is the entire Dreyfus case, and the entirety of it will only come to light when an honest enquiry firmly establishes his actions and responsibilities. … Nobody would ever believe the experiments to which he subjected the unfortunate Dreyfus, the traps he set for him, the wild investigations, the monstrous fantasies, the whole demented torture.
Ah, that first trial! What a nightmare it is for all who know it in its true details. Major du Paty de Clam had Dreyfus arrested and placed in solitary confinement. He ran to Mme Dreyfus, terrorised her, telling her that, if she talked, that was it for her husband. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Dreyfus was tearing his hair out and proclaiming his innocence.”

“It is said that within the council chamber the judges were naturally leaning toward acquittal. It becomes clear why, at that point, as justification for the verdict, it became vitally important to turn up some damning evidence, a secret document that, like God, could not be shown, but which explained everything, and was invisible, unknowable, and incontrovertible. I deny the existence of that document…. a document concerning national defense that could not be produced without sparking an immediate declaration of war tomorrow? No! No! It is a lie, all the more odious and cynical in that its perpetrators are getting off free without even admitting it. They stirred up all of France, they hid behind the understandable commotion they had set off, they sealed their lips while troubling our hearts and perverting our spirit. I know of no greater crime against the state.”

“Paris flared — Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice.”

“Everything is only a dream.”

“It is a crime that those people who wish to see a generous France take her place as leader of all the free and just nations are being accused of fomenting turmoil in the country, denounced by the very plotters who are conniving so shamelessly to foist this miscarriage of justice on the entire world. It is a crime to lie to the public, to twist public opinion to insane lengths in the service of the vilest death-dealing machinations. It is a crime to poison the minds of the meek and the humble, to stoke the passions of reactionism and intolerance, by appealing to that odious anti-Semitism that, unchecked, will destroy the freedom-loving France of the Rights of Man. It is a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred, and it is, finally, a crime to ensconce the sword as the modern god, whereas all science is toiling to achieve the coming era of truth and justice.
Truth and justice, so ardently longed for! How terrible it is to see them trampled, unrecognized and ignored!”

“Feelings were running high, for the conviction of Esterhazy would inevitably lead to a retrial of Dreyfus, an eventuality that the General Staff wanted at all cost to avoid.
This must have led to a brief moment of psychological anguish. Note that, so far, General Billot was in no way compromised. Newly appointed to his position, he had the authority to bring out the truth. He did not dare, no doubt in terror of public opinion, certainly for fear of implicating the whole General Staff, General de Boisdeffre, and General Gonse, not to mention the subordinates. So he hesitated for a brief moment of struggle between his conscience and what he believed to be the interest of the military. Once that moment passed, it was already too late. He had committed himself and he was compromised. From that point on, his responsibility only grew, he took on the crimes of others, he became as guilty as they, if not more so, for he was in a position to bring about justice and did nothing. Can you understand this: for the last year General Billot, Generals Gonse and de Boisdeffre have known that Dreyfus is innocent, and they have kept this terrible knowledge to themselves?”

“Existence is so bitter for every one of us! Ought we not forgive others much, my friend, if we wish to be forgiven ourselves?”

“The Esterhazy affair, thus, Mr. President, comes down to this: a guilty man is being passed off as innocent. For almost two months we have been following this nasty business hour by hour. I am being brief, for this is but the abridged version of a story whose sordid pages will some day be written out in full.”

“One forges one's style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines.”

“How could anyone expect a court martial to undo what another court martial had done?
I am not even talking about the way the judges were hand-picked. Doesn't the overriding idea of discipline, which is the lifeblood of these soldiers, itself undercut their capacity for fairness? Discipline means obedience. When the Minister of War, the commander in chief, proclaims, in public and to the acclamation of the nation's representatives, the absolute authority of a previous verdict, how can you expect a court martial to rule against him?”

“But this letter is long, Sir, and it is time to conclude it.
I accuse Lt. Col. du Paty de Clam of being the diabolical creator of this miscarriage of justice — unwittingly, I would like to believe — and of defending this sorry deed, over the last three years, by all manner of ludricrous and evil machinations.
I accuse General Mercier of complicity, at least by mental weakness, in one of the greatest inequities of the century.
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands absolute proof of Dreyfus’s innocence and covering it up, and making himself guilty of this crime against mankind and justice, as a political expedient and a way for the compromised General Staff to save face.
I accuse Gen. de Boisdeffre and Gen. Gonse of complicity in the same crime, the former, no doubt, out of religious prejudice, the latter perhaps out of that esprit de corps that has transformed the War Office into an unassailable holy ark.
I accuse Gen. de Pellieux and Major Ravary of conducting a villainous enquiry, by which I mean a monstrously biased one, as attested by the latter in a report that is an imperishable monument to naïve impudence.
I accuse the three handwriting experts, Messrs. Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting reports that were deceitful and fraudulent, unless a medical examination finds them to be suffering from a condition that impairs their eyesight and judgement.
I accuse the War Office of using the press, particularly L’Eclair and L’Echo de Paris, to conduct an abominable campaign to mislead the general public and cover up their own wrongdoing.
Finally, I accuse the first court martial of violating the law by convicting the accused on the basis of a document that was kept secret, and I accuse the second court martial of covering up this illegality, on orders, thus committing the judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty man.”

“I would like to point out how this travesty was made possible, how it sprang out of the machinations of Major du Paty de Clam, how Generals Mercier, de Boisdeffre and Gonse became so ensnared in this falsehood that they would later feel compelled to impose it as holy and indisputable truth. Having set it all in motion merely by carelessness and lack of intelligence, they seem at worst to have given in to the religious bias of their milieu and the prejudices of their class. In the end, they allowed stupidity to prevail.”

“And now we come to the Esterhazy case. Three years have passed, many consciences remain profoundly troubled, become anxious, investigate, and wind up convinced that Dreyfus is innocent.”

“We are told of the honor of the army; we are supposed to love and respect it. Ah, yes, of course, an army that would rise to the first threat, that would defend French soil, that army is the nation itself, and for that army we have nothing but devotion and respect. But this is not about that army, whose dignity we are seeking, in our cry for justice. What is at stake is the sword, the master that will one day, perhaps, be forced upon us. Bow and scrape before that sword, that god? No!”

“Ah, what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under their boots, ramming back down their throats the people's cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext.”

“There she was, patiently waiting, alone, formidable in her gentleness.”