6 pages small in-4°.
Very rare, very complete manuscript with deletions, erasures and numerous corrections. "Les Etrennes de la beggar", short stories from "Contes à Ninon", the first novel by the young writer, then head of the advertising department at Hachette, published in November 1864.

From the end of 1859, Zola tried his hand at short stories in the form of tales. The press laws of February 1852 control freedom of opinion. Tales allow you to express your ideas through fiction. Zola finds there a way of expressing himself until 1880, while collaborating with the newspapers, which gives a glimpse of his future commitments.
"The Beggar's Christmas Gifts" Zola gives us the story of destitute parents who send their child to beg in the beautiful neighborhoods for New Year's Day, as was the tradition at that time. In this tale with a contradictory title, the committed writer denounces social distress as he will do throughout his life.
"The Beggar's New Year's Eve. On January 1, there is a great toilet in the slums of Paris. The beggars put on their finest rags, adorn themselves with rags to go and present the wishes of the bet to passers-by and ask for their New Year's gifts, hands outstretched, faces worried and caressing. On that day, begging is tolerated; he is allowed to practice in broad daylight, without disguising himself under the thousand guises of street industries. The organ player can leave there the heavy box he has carried for twelve long months; the merchants of songs, shoelaces, matches can keep their wares at home. The public road is free; the sergeants de ville turn their heads; the hands openly stretch out, those who give and those who receive. In a tall, dark house on the sixth floor, at the bottom of a sort of attic, lives a whole destitute family, the father, the mother, and a little girl of eight. The father is a tall old man, lean and angular, with long, disheveled beard and hair, dirty white. He thinks with a sigh of the good old days when the streets belonged to the poor, and they alone took all the sunshine from God and all the pity of men. The mother no longer thinks. She seems to live by habit and seems insensitive to the joy given by the heat. Cold and hunger killed his reason. The little girl is the ray of the dark attic. In this damp darkness when her head speaks pale and blond stands out against the blackened wall, her smile has gleams of sunshine, her blue eyes in which carelessness gives sudden gaiety. She still cries only because she sees crying. On January 1, the parents and the child got up at five o'clock. The toilet was long and laborious. Then the father and mother sat down, motionless waiting for daylight, while the little girl, more flirtatious, tried in vain for a long hour to hide a big hole that occupies the entire front of her skirt. The child is happy. She will receive her gifts. The day before, his father said to him: “Tomorrow you will make yourself beautiful, and we will go to the streets to wish health and wealth to the happy people of this world. Happy people are good, and they wanted us to be able to solicit the charity of tender souls in peace once a year. Tomorrow, beautiful little ladies, who have many friends, will receive as gifts large dolls, baskets of sweets; we wanted the poor children like you, who have no one's friendship, not to remain empty-handed and have given them as friends all those who pass by, allowing them to reach out a hand to everyone. The big pennies from alms will be your sweets and your toys. The little girl is in the street; she walks briskly, stopping at crossroads, under the porches of churches, on bridges (…). Her father and her mother follow her, grave, not themselves soliciting public pity, seeming to visit the crowd and present their daughter to them. The child arrests the young and the old; she is preferably addressed to those who carry parcels and her blue eyes seem to say "you who have just spent a louis to make one of my sisters happy, won't you give me a poor little penny for my Christmas gifts" . How not to listen to the mute prayer of his smile. The copper coins fall thickly into his hand. She picks up her New Year's gifts bit by bit, here and there, and thus she experiences until evening the naive pleasures of this day which seemed never to have dawned for her. In the evening, the poor people have fire and bread. The child, counted his many New Year's gifts, and could for a moment believe himself advised of a whole city. Yes, it is we, the happy ones, who are the godfathers, the friends of the little beggars. We have the task of making them forget their misery for one day, of giving them our pity and our consolations. Believe me, next year fill your pocket with big bucks. Go through the city, and distribute your gifts to the unfortunate. Only one day is given to you to taste this bliss of almsgiving. You will come back full of good looks and good words. You will feel within you all the joy of these pale children whom you will have made smile, and, on your return, you will embrace more closely the happy children who hold out their hands, too, but without shame and for toys costing twenty-five francs. . Life is made up of joys and pains, sunny days and rainy days? The centenarian was a sage, and his last thought was a thought of hope. He will not come again; in the dark weather of March, in the bright sunshine of May, to sit down on the bench of the Luxembourg and give me the fruits of his old experience. Yesterday, and that's why I'm telling you this story today, I read these obligatory lines in the newspapers: “We are told that a centenarian has just died in Paris. Mr. Bxxx died in his hundred and first year, in full possession of his faculties”

Manuscript appearing in the Pléiade, 1976, Tales and News