Therese Raquin is a work of another kind, for into it Zola put the best that was in him, and elaborated the story with the greatest care.  It is a tale of Divine Justice, wherein a husband is murdered by his wife and her lover, who, though safe from earthly consequence, are yet separated by the horror of their deed, and come to hate each other for the thing they have done.  The book is one of remarkable power, and it is interesting to note that in the preface to it Zola first made use of the word naturalisme as describing that form of fiction which he was afterwards to uphold in and out of season.  A violent attack in the Figaro gave opportunity for a vigorous reply, and the advertisement so obtained assisted the sales of the book, which from the first was a success.  It was followed by Madeleine Ferat, which, however, was less fortunate.  The subject is unpleasant, and its treatment lacks the force which made Therese Raquin convincing.

Up to this time Zola’s life had been a steady struggle against poverty.  He was terribly in earnest, and was determined to create for himself a place in literature; to accomplish this end he counted no labour too arduous, no sacrifice too great.  His habits were Spartan in their simplicity; he was a slave to work and method, good equipment for the vast task he was next to undertake.  He had long been an earnest student of Balzac, and there is no doubt that it was the example of the great Comedie Humaine which inspired his scheme for a series of novels dealing with the life history of a family during a particular period; as he described it himself, “the history natural and social of a family under the Second Empire.”  It is possible that he was also influenced by the financial success of the series of historical novels written by Erckmann-Chatrian, known as the Romans Nationaux.  It was not, however, the past about which he proposed to write; no period was more suitable for his purpose than that in which he lived, that Second Empire whose regime began in blood and continued in corruption.  He had there, under his own eyes and within his personal knowledge, a suitable mise-en-scene wherein to further develop those theories of hereditary influence which had already attracted his attention while he was writing Madeleine Ferat.  The scheme was further attractive in as much as it lent itself readily to the system of treatment to which he had applied the term naturalisme, to distinguish it from the crudities of the realistic school.  The scientific tendency of the period was to rely not on previously accepted propositions, but on observation and experience, or on facts and documents.  To Zola the voice of science conveyed the word of ultimate truth, and with desperate earnestness he set out to apply its methods to literary production.  His position was that the novelist is, like the scientist, an observer and an experimentalist combined.