Other editions of book The Dream

`The Dream' is the sixteenth volume in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series of novels of the Second Empire. Perhaps as a reaction to the criticism received by his preceding books - works of almost unrelenting, gritty realism - Zola here shows that his talents range beyond describing the corruption and oppression of the second, farcical, Napoleonic regime, and the daily struggle for survival. Here he portrays the very heart and feelings of an idealistic young girl, raised in a cloistered corner of a disappearing France, and now emerging from a childhood of security, love and certainty, into beautiful womanhood. ...On the morning after Christmas, as a snowstorm is burying the town of Beamont-l'Eglise, a young girl is found huddling in the doorway of the cathedral. She is taken in and raised by a childless couple - ecclesiastical embroiderers - in happy innocence and far from the harsh realities of the world. While she learns her trade and becomes a highly-skilled embroideress, she loses herself in dreamlike visions inspired by her confused religious belief, legend, fantasy and hope. Her only education comes from reading stories in the `Golden Legend' about the martyrs of the early Catholic Church . Her life is guided by the example of virgin saints - Agnes, Genevieve, Dorothy, Christine and Cecilia - who she believes watch over her, to help make her dream come true. She can see no reason why her dream of love and marriage to the most handsome and richest man in her little world, even if he is a Bishop's son, and a nobleman, will not be turned into miraculous reality. But, can a foundling girl, abandoned by her mother -now lost in the Parisian underworld, fallen into a life of depravity and crime - really rise to such heights from her lowly place, or dare even to think such thoughts? Especially when those all around her think her dream can never, must never, come true? And, if it should ever be realised, can her innocence and saintliness, can she herself, in her ignorance and naivety, hope to survive the world outside?

Written as a "passport to the Academy," this novel stands alone among the Rougon-Macquart series for its pure, idyllic grace. Angelique, a daughter of Sidonie Rougon (La Curee), had been deserted by her mother, and was adopted by a maker of ecclesiastical embroideries, who with his wife lived and worked under the shadow of an ancient cathedral. In this atmosphere the child grew to womanhood, and as she fashioned the rich embroideries of the sacred vestments she had a vision of love and happiness which was ultimately realized, though the realization proved too much for her frail strength... The vast cathedral with its solemn ritual dominates the book and colours the lives of its characters. (J. G. Patterson)

Émile François Zola is one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, and one of France’s best known citizens. In his life, Zola was the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. Around the end of his life, Zola was instrumental in helping secure the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, a victim of anti-Semitism. The Dreyfus Affair was encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse. More than half of Zola's novels were part of this set of 20, collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Honore de Balzac, who compiled his works into La Comedie Humaine midway through, Zola mapped out a complete layout of his series. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "environmental" influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution which became more prevalent during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution. The series examines two branches of a family: the respectable Rougons and the disreputable Macquarts for five generations. Zola explained, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world."

During the severe winter of 1860 the river Oise was frozen over and the plains of Lower Picardy were covered with deep snow. On Christmas Day, especially, a heavy squall from the north-east had almost buried the little city of Beaumont. The snow, which began to fall early in the morning, increased towards evening and accumulated during the night; in the upper town, in the Rue des Orfevres, at the end of which, as if enclosed therein, is the northern front of the cathedral transept, this was blown with great force by the wind against the portal of Saint Agnes, the old Romanesque portal, where traces of Early Gothic could be seen, contrasting its florid ornamentation with the bare simplicity of the transept gable.

Angelique, a daughter of Sidonie Rougon, has been deserted by her mother, and adopted by a maker of ecclesiastical embroideries, who with his wife lives and works under the shadow of an ancient cathedral. Angelique grows to womanhood, and as she fashions the rich embroideries of the sacred vestments she has a vision of love and happiness. The vision is ultimately realized, but the realization proves too much for her frail strength. The vast cathedral with its solemn ritual dominates the book and colors the lives of its characters.

Emile Zola's novel Le Rêve (1888) is a love idyll concerning a poor embroideress, Angelique, and the son of a wealthy aristocratic family, set against the backdrop of a sleepy cathedral town in northern France. A far cry from the seething, teeming world evoked in Zola's best-known novels, it may at first seem a strange interlude between La Terre and La Bête humaine in the twenty-volume sequence known as the Rougon-Macquart Novels.

Émile Zola is one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, and one of France’s best known citizens. In his life, Zola was the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. Around the end of his life, Zola was instrumental in helping secure the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, a victim of anti-Semitism. The Dreyfus Affair was encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse.More than half of Zola's novels were part of this set of 20 collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Honore de Balzac, who compiled his works into La Comedie Humaine midway through, Zola mapped out a complete layout of his series. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "environmental" influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution which became more prevalent during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution. The series examines two branches of a family: the respectable Rougons and the disreputable Macquarts for five generations. Zola explained, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world."

During the severe winter of 1860 the river Oise was frozen over and the plains of Lower Picardy were covered with deep snow. On Christmas Day, especially, a heavy squall from the north-east had almost buried the little city of Beaumont. The snow, which began to fall early in the morning, increased towards evening and accumulated during the night; in the upper town, in the Rue des Orfevres, at the end of which, as if enclosed therein, is the northern front of the cathedral transept, this was blown with great force by the wind against the portal of Saint Agnes, the old Romanesque portal, where traces of Early Gothic could be seen, contrasting its florid ornamentation with the bare simplicity of the transept gable. The inhabitants still slept, wearied by the festive rejoicings of the previous day. The town-clock struck six. In the darkness, which was slightly lightened by the slow, persistent fall of flakes, a vague living form alone was visible: that of a little girl, nine years of age, who, having taken refuge under the archway of the portal, had passed the night there, shivering, and sheltering herself as well as possible. She wore a thin woollen dress, ragged from long use, her head was covered with a torn silk handkerchief, and on her bare feet were heavy shoes much too large for her. Without doubt she had only gone there after having well wandered through the town, for she had fallen down from sheer exhaustion. For her it was the end of the world; there was no longer anything to interest her. It was the last surrender; the hunger that gnaws, the cold which kills; and in her weakness, stifled by the heavy weight at her heart, she ceased to struggle, and nothing was left to her but the instinctive movement of preservation, the desire of changing place, of sinking still deeper into these old stones, whenever a sudden gust made the snow whirl about her.