THEMONOMANIAC
(LA BÊTE HUMAINE)
By ÉMILE ZOLA
Translated and Edited, with a Preface
By EDWARD VIZETELLY
London
HUTCHINSON & CO
Paternoster Row. 1901
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Page | |
| PREFACE | v |
| CHAPTER I | 1 |
| CHAPTER II | 32 |
| CHAPTER III | 66 |
| CHAPTER IV | 95 |
| CHAPTER V | 132 |
| CHAPTER VI | 168 |
| CHAPTER VII | 198 |
| CHAPTER VIII | 233 |
| CHAPTER IX | 261 |
| CHAPTER X | 299 |
| CHAPTER XI | 338 |
| CHAPTER XII | 370 |
PREFACE
This striking work, now published for the first time inEngland, but a hundred thousand copies whereof havebeen sold in France, is one of the most powerful novels thatM. Émile Zola has written. It will be doubly interesting toEnglish readers, because for them it forms a missing link inthe famous Rougon-Macquart series.
The student of Zola literature will remember in theAssommoir that "handsome Lantier whose heartlessness wasto cost Gervaise so many tears." Jacques Lantier, the chiefcharacter in this Bête Humaine, this Human Animal whichI have ventured to call the Monomaniac, is one of theirchildren. It is he who is the monomaniac. His monomaniaconsists in an irresistible prurience for murder, and hisvictims must be women, just like that baneful criminal whowas performing his hideous exploits in the streets of the city ofLondon in utter defi