Emile Zola

Doctor Pascal Emile Zola

Book Excerpt: ...hat! is it you, grandmother?" cried Clotilde, going to meet her. "Why, this sun is enough to bake one."Felicite, kissing her on the forehead, laughed, saying: "Oh, the sun is my friend!"Then, moving with short, quick steps, she crossed the room, and turned the fastening of one of the shutters."Open the shutters a little! It is too gloomy to live in the dark in this way. At my house I let the sun come in."Through the opening a jet of hot light, a flood of dancing sparks entered. And under the sky, of the violet blue of a conflagration, the parched plain could be seen, stretching away in the distance, as if asleep or dead in the overpowering, furnace-like heat, while to the right, above the pink roofs, rose the belfry of St. Saturnin, a gilded tower with arises that, in the blinding light, looked like whitened bones."Yes," continued Felicite, "I think of going shortly to the Tulettes, and I wished to know if Charles were here, to take him with me. He is not here--I see that--I will take h..