He heaved a sigh and glanced in the direction of his empty glass. Then, seeing that the novelist and Desmoulin were rising to join me, he whispered hurriedly,'I say, guv'nor, you haven't got a tanner you could spare, have you?'
I had foreseen the request; nevertheless I pressed a few coppers into his hand and then hurried out after my wards.
Though it was still early we decided to start at once for Wimbledon. The master, I thought, might like to see a little of the place pending Wareham's arrival.
The journey through Lambeth, Vauxhall, and Queen's Road is not calculated to give the intelligent foreigner a particularly favourable impression of London. Still M. Zola did not at first find the surroundings very much worse than those one observes on leaving Paris by the Northern or Eastern lines. But as the train went on and on and much the same scene appeared on either hand he began to wonder when it would all end.
On approaching Clapham Junction a sea of roofs is to be seen on the right stretching away through Battersea to the Thames; while on the left a huge wave of houses ascends the acclivity known, I believe, as Lavender Hill. And at the sight of all the mean, dusty streets, lined with little houses of uniform pattern, each close pressed to the other—at the frequently recurring glimpses of squalor and shabby gentility—M. Zola exploded.
'It is awful!' he said.
We were alone in our compartment, and he looked first from one window and then from the other. Next came a torrent of questions: Why were the houses so small? Why were they all so ugly and so much alike? What classes of people lived in them? Why were the roads so dusty? Why was there such a litter of fragments of paper lying about everywhere? Where those streets never watered? Was there no scavengers' service? And then a remark: 'You see that house, it looks fairly clean and neat in front. But there! Look at the back-yard—all rubbish and poverty! One notices that again and again!'
We passed Clapham Junction, pursuing our journey through the cutting which intersects Wandsworth Common. 'Well,' I said, 'you may take it that, except as regards the postal and police services, you are now out of London proper.'
Presently, indeed, we emerged from the cutting, and fields were seen on either hand. One could breathe at last. But as we approached Earlsfield Station all M. Zola's attention was given to a long row of low-lying houses whose yards and gardens extend to the railway line. Now and again a trim patch of ground was seen; here, too, there was a little glass-house, there an attempt at an arbour. But litter and rubbish were only too often apparent.
'This, I suppose,' said the novelist, 'is what you call a London slum invading the country? You tell me that only a part of the bourgeoisie cares for flats, and that among the lower middle class and the working class each family prefers to rent its own little house. Is this for the sake of privacy? If so, I see no privacy here. Leaving out the question of being overlooked from passing trains, observe the open four-foot fences which separate one garden or yard from the other. There is no privacy at all! To me the manner in which your poorer classes are housed in the suburbs, packed closely together in flimsy buildings, where every sound can be heard, suggests a form of socialism—communism, or perhaps rather the phalansterian system.'
But Earlsfield was already passed, and we were reaching Wimbledon. Here M. Zola's impressions changed. True, he did not have occasion to perambulate what he would doubtless have called the 'phalansterian' streets of new South Wimbledon. I spared him the sight of the chess-board of bricks and mortar into which the speculative builder has turned acre after acre north of Merton High Street. But the Hill Road, the Broadway, the Worple Road, and the various turnings that climb towards the Ridgeway pleased him. And he commented very favourably on the shops in the Broadway and the Hill Road, which in the waning sunshine still looked gay and bright. At every moment he stopped to examine something. Such displays of fruit, and fish, poultry, meat, and provisions of all kinds; the drapers' windows all aglow with summer fabrics, and those of the jewellers coruscating with gold and gems. Then the public-houses —dignified by the name of hotels, though I explained that they had no hotel accommodation—bespoke all the wealth of a powerful trade.
There was an imposing bank, too, and a stylish carriage builder's, with furniture shops, stationers, pastrycooks, hairdressers, ironmongers, and so forth, whose displays testified to the prosperity of the town. Again and again did M. Zola express the opinion that these Wimbledon shops were by far superior to such as one would find in a French town of corresponding size and at a similar distance from the capital.
We sauntered up and down the Hill Road, looking in at the Free Library on our way. Then, on passing the Alexandra Road, I explained to Desmoulin that he would sleep there, at No. 20, where Wareham has a local office and where his managing clerk, Everson by name, resides.
The arrangement with Wareham had been concluded so precipitately that, to spare him unnecessary trouble at home, we had arranged to dine that evening at a local restaurant—in fact, the only restaurant possessed by Wimbledon. Wareham was to join us there. The proprietor, Mr. Genoni, is of foreign origin, but Wareham knowing him personally had assured me that even should he suspect our friend's identity his discretion might readily be relied upon. And so the sequel proved. During our repast, however, I felt a little doubtful about one of the waiters who know French, and I therefore cautioned M. Zola and M. Desmoulin to be as reticent as possible.
After dinner we adjourned to Wareham's house in Prince's Road, where Mrs. Wareham gave the travellers the most cordial of welcomes. The conversation was chiefly confined to the question of finding some suitable place where M. Zola might settle down for his term of exile. He, himself, was so taken with what he had seen of Wimbledon that he suggested renting a furnished house there. This seemed a trifle dangerous, both to Wareham and myself; but the novelist was not to be gainsaid; and as Wareham, in anticipation of his services being required, had made special arrangements to give M. Zola most of his time on the morrow, we arranged to see some house agents, engage a landau, and drive round to visit such places as might seem suitable.
It was nearly half-past eleven when I left Wareham's to escort Desmoulin to the Alexandra Road. I there left him in charge of his host, Mr. Everson, and then turning (by way of a short cut) into the Lover's Walk, which the South Western Railway Company so considerately provides for amorous Wimbledonians, I hurried homeward, wondering what the morrow would bring forth.
It will be obvious to all readers of this narrative that from the moment M. Zola left Paris, and throughout his sojourn in London and its immediate neighbourhood, there was little if any skill shown in the matter of keeping his movements secret. In point of fact, blunder upon blunder was committed. A first mistake was made in going to an hotel like the Grosvenor; a second in openly promenading some of the most frequented of the London streets; and a third in declining to make the slightest alteration with regard to personal appearance. Again, although press of circumstances rendered departure for Wimbledon a necessity, as it was imperative to get M. Zola out of London at once, this change of quarters was in the end scarcely conducive to secrecy. A good many Wimbledonians were aware of my connection with M. Zola, and even if he were not personally recognised by them, the circumstance of a French gentleman of striking appearance being seen in my company was fated to arouse suspicion. My home is but a mile or so from the centre of Wimbledon, and M. Zola's proposal to make that locality his place of sojourn seemed to me such a dangerous course that when I returned to Wareham's house on the morning of Friday, July 22, I was determined to oppose it, in the master's own interests, as vigorously as might be possible.
However, I found Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin ready to start for an inspection of such furnished houses as might seem suitable for their accommodation; and nothing urged either by Wareham or by myself could turn them from their purpose. So the four of us took our seats in the landau which had been ordered, and were soon driving in the direction of Wimbledon Park, where stood the first of the eligible residences entered in the books of a local house agent. The terms for these houses varied, if I recollect rightly, from four to seven guineas a week. Some we did not trouble to enter; others, however, were carefully inspected.
Nothing in the way of a terrace house would suit; for M. Zola was not yet a phalansterian. And in like way he objected to the semi-detached villas. He wished to secure a somewhat retired place, girt with foliage and thus screened from the observation of neighbours and passers-by. The low garden railings and fences usually met with were by no means to his taste. The flimsy party walls of the semi-detached villas, through which every sound so swiftly passes, were equally objectionable to him. And I must say that I viewed with some little satisfaction his dislike for several of the houses which we visited; for this made it easier to dissuade him from his plan of fixing his abode in Wimbledon, where, unless he should rigidly confine himself within doors, it was certain that his presence would be known before a week was over.
There were, however, some houses which the master found to his liking; and here he lingered awhile, inspecting the rooms, taking stock of the furniture, examining the engravings and water-colours on the walls, and viewing the trim gardens with visible satisfaction. One place, a large house in one of the precipitous roads leading from the Ridgeway to the Worple Road, was, perhaps, rather too open for his requirements, but its appointments were perfect, and at his bidding I plied the lady of the house with innumerable questions about plate, linen, and garden produce, the servants she offered to leave behind her, and so forth. She was a tall and stately dame, with silver hair and a soft musical voice—a perfect type of the old marquise, such as one sees portrayed at times on the boards of the Comedie Francaise, and after I had acted as interpreter for a quarter of an hour or so, she suddenly turned upon the master and, to the surprise of all of us, addressed him in perfect French. It was this which broke the spell. Though M. Zola was taken aback, he responded politely enough, and the conversation went on in French for some minutes, but I could already tell that he had renounced his intention of renting the house. When we drove away, after promising the lady a decisive answer within a day or two, he said to me:
'That would never do. The lady's French was too good. She looked at me rather suspiciously too. She would soon discover my identity. She has probably heard of me already.'
'Who hasn't?' I responded with a laugh. And once again I brought forward the objections that occurred to me with respect to the plan of remaining at Wimbledon. It was a centre of Roman Catholic activity. There was a Jesuit college there, numbering both French professors and French pupils. Moreover, several French families resided in Wimbledon, and with some of them I was myself acquainted. Then also the population included a good many literary men, journalists, and others who took an interest in the Dreyfus case. And, finally, the town was far too near to London to be in anywise a safe hiding-place.
Nevertheless, M. Zola only abandoned his intentions with regret. In that bright sunshiny weather there was an attractiveje ne sais quoiabout Wimbledon which charmed him. Not that it was in his estimation an ideal place. The descents from the hill and the Ridgeway (though he admired the beautiful views they afforded, stretching as far as Norwood) appalled him from certain practical standpoints, and he was never weary of expatiating on the pluck of the girls who cycled so boldly and gracefully from the hill crest to the lower parts of the town. Here it may be mentioned that M. Zola has become reconciled to the skirt as a cycling garment. Once upon a time he was an uncompromising partisan of 'rationals' and 'bloomers,' a warm adherent of the views which Lady Harberton and her friends uphold. But sojourn in England has changed all that—at least so far as the English type of girl is concerned. Those who have read his novel, 'Paris,' may remember that he therein ascribed the following remarks to his heroine—Marie: 'Ah! there is nothing like rationals! To think that some women are so foolish and obstinate as to wear skirts when they cycle! . . . To think that women have a unique opportunity of putting themselves at their ease and releasing their limbs from prison, and yet won't do so! If they fancy they look the prettier in short skirts, like schoolgirls, they are vastly mistaken. . . . Skirts are rank heresy.'
Well, so far as Englishwomen are concerned, M. Zola himself has become a heretic. 'Rationals,' he has more than once said to me of recent times, 'are not suited to the lithe and somewhat spare figure of the average English girl. Moreover, I doubt if there is a costumier in England who knows how to cut "rationals" properly. Such women as I have seen in rationals in England looked to me horrible. They had not the proper figure for the garment, and the garment itself was badly made. For rationals to suit a woman, her figure should be of the happy medium, neither too slim nor over-developed. Now the great bulk of your girls are extremely slim, and appear in skirts to advantage. In cycling, moreover, they carry themselves much better than the majority of Frenchwomen do. They sit their machines gracefully, and the skirt, instead of being a mere bundle of stuff, falls evenly and fittingly like a necessary adjunct—the drapery which is needed to complete and set off the ensemble.'
At the same time, the master does not cry 'haro' on the 'bloomer.' It is admirably suited, he maintains, to the average Frenchwoman, who is more inclined to a reasonable plumpness than her English sister. 'The skirt to England,' says he, 'the bloomer to France.' The whole question is one of physique and latitude. The Esquimaux lady would look ungainly and feel uncomfortable if she exchanged her moose furs for the wisp of calico which is patronised by the lady of Senegal; and in the like way the Englishwoman is manifestly ungainly and uncomfortable when she borrows the breeches of the Parisienne.
This digression may seem to carry one away from Wimbledon, but I should mention that many of the points enunciated were touched upon by M. Zola for the first time, while we postponed further house-hunting to drive over Wimbledon Common. The historic mill and Caesar's Camp, and the picturesque meres were all viewed before the horses' heads were turned to the town once more.
By this time the master had come to the conclusion that however pleasant Wimbledon might be, it was no fit place for him, and that his best course would be to pitch his tent 'far from gay cities and the ways of men.' Within a few hours I had some proof of the wisdom of his decision, and a week had not elapsed before I found that M. Zola's sojourn at Wimbledon had become known to a variety of people. Mr. Genoni, the restaurateur, had been one of the first to identify him; but, as he explained to me, he was no spy or betrayer, and whatever he might think of the Dreyfus business—he was a reader of that anti-Revisionist print the 'Petit Journal'—M. Zola's secret was, he assured me, quite safe in his hands. But, independently of Mr. Genoni, the secret soon becamele secret de Polichinelle. A French resident in Wimbledon recognised M. Zola as he stood one day by the railway bridge admiring some fair cyclists. Then a gentleman connected with the local Petty Sessions court espied him in my company, and shrewdly guessed his identity. Subsequently a local hairdresser, an Englishman, but one well acquainted with Paris and Parisian matters, 'spotted' him in the Hill Road. Others followed suit, and at last one afternoon a member of the 'Globe' staff called upon me and supplied me with such circumstantial particulars that I could not possibly deny the accuracy of his information. But M. Zola had then left Wimbledon, and thus I was able to fence with my visitor and inform him that, even if the novelist had ever been in the town, he was not there at that time.
It had been arranged that some of the leading London house agents should be written to, with the view of securing some secluded country house, preferably in Surrey, and on the South Western line; but the question was, where, in the meantime, could M. Zola be conveniently installed? Having left England in the year 1865, and apart from a few brief sojourns in London, having remained abroad till 1886, my knowledge of my native land is very slight indeed. Years spent in foreign countries have made me a stay-at-home—one who nowadays buries himself in his little London suburb, going to town as seldom as possible, and without need of country or seaside trip, since at Merton, where I live, there are green fields all around one and every vivifying breeze that can be wished for. Thus I was the worst person in the world to take charge of M. Zola and pilot him safely to a haven of refuge.
Fortunately, Mr. Wareham knows his way about, as the saying goes, and his cycling experience proved very useful. He suggested that until a house could be secured, M. Zola should be installed at a country hotel; and he mentioned two or three places which seemed to him of the right character. One of these was Oatlands Park; and Wareham, who, although a solicitor, claims to have some little poetry in his nature, waxed so enthusiastic over the charms of Oatlands and neighbouring localities, that both M. Zola and M. Desmoulin, fervent admirers of scenery as they are, became curious to visit this leafy district of Surrey, where, as will be remembered, King Louis Philippe spent his last years of life and exile.
One afternoon, then, I started with Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin for Walton, from which station the Oatlands Park Hotel is most conveniently reached. A Gladstone bag had now replaced the master's newspaper parcel, and as M. Desmoulin's dressing-case was as large as a valise, there was at least some semblance of luggage. I fully realised that it was hardly the correct thing to present oneself at Oatlands Park and ask for rooms thereex abrupto; as with hostelries of that class it is usual for one to write and secure accommodation beforehand. However, there was no time for this; and we decided to run the risk of finding the hotel 'full up,' particularly as Wareham had informed us that in such a case we might secure a temporary billet at one or another of the smaller hotels of Walton or Weybridge. Thus we went our way at all hazards, and during the journey I devised a little story for the benefit of the manager at Oatlands Park.
That gentleman, as I had surmised, was a trifle astonished at our appearance. But I told him that my friends were a couple of French artists, who had been spending a few weeks in London 'doing the lions' there, and who had heard of the charming scenery around Oatlands, and wished to view it, and possibly make a few sketches. And, at the same time, a solicitor's recommendation being of some value, since it might mean a good many future customers, I handed the manager one of Wareham's cards. There was, I remember, some little difficulty at first in obtaining rooms, for the hotel was nearly full; but everything ended satisfactorily.
I may mention, perhaps, that in describing Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin as French artists, I had at least told half the truth. M. Fernand Desmoulin is, of course, well known in the French art world; and, moreover, he had already spoken to me of purchasing a water-colour outfit for the very purpose of sketching, as I had stated. Then, too, M. Zola first distinguished himself in literature as an art critic, the defender of Manet, the champion of the school of the 'open air.' And if he made no sketches whilst he remained at Oatlands he at least took several photographs. Sapient critics will stop me here with the oft-repeated dictum that photography is not art. But however that may be, so many painters nowadays have recourse to the assistance of photography that M. Zola's 'snap-shotting' largely helped to bear out the account which I had given of him at the hotel.
Oatlands Park is a large pile standing on the site of a magnificent palace built by Henry VIII. Anne of Denmark, wife of James I., resided there, and Henrietta Maria there gave birth to the Duke of Gloucester, the brother of our second Charles and second James. The palace was almost entirely destroyed during the Civil Wars, and subsequently the property passed in turn to Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans; Herbert, the admiral, first Earl of Torrington; and Henry, seventh Earl of Lincoln. A descendant of the last-named sold the estate to Frederick, Duke of York, the son of George III. and Commander-in-Chief of the British army. Soon afterwards the house at Oatlands was destroyed by fire, and the prince erected a new building, some portions of which are incorporated in the present hostelry. A pathetic interest attaches to those remains of York House. Within those walls were spent many of the honeymoon hours of a fair and virtuous princess, one whose early death plunged England into the deepest grief it had known for centuries; there she conceived the child who in the ordinary course of nature might have become King of Great Britain. But the babe, so anxiously awaited by the whole nation (there was no Princess Victoria at that time) proved stillborn; and of the unhappy 'mother of the moment,' Byron wrote in immortal lines:
Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;Thy bridal's fruit is ashes; in the dustThe fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,The love of millions!
I am bound to add that the tragic story of the Princess Charlotte was not that which most appealed to M. Zola's feelings at Oatlands Park. Nor was he particularly impressed by the far-famed grotto which the hotel handbook states 'has no parallel in the world.' The grotto, an artificial affair, the creation of which is due to a Duke of Newcastle, whom it cost 40,000 pounds, besides giving employment to three men for twenty years, consists of numerous chambers and passages, whose walls are inlaid with coloured spars, shells, coral, ammonites, and crystals. This work is ingenious enough, but when one enters a bath-room and finds a stuffed alligator there, keeping company with a statue of Venus and a terra-cotta of the infant Hercules, one is apt to remember how perilously near the ridiculous is to the sublime.
Ridiculous also to some minds may seem the Duchess of York's dog and monkey cemetery, in which half a hundred of that lady's canine and simian pets lie buried with headstones to their tombs commemorating their virtues. This cemetery, however, greatly commended itself to M. Zola, who, as some may know, is a rare lover of animals. Among the various distinctions accorded to him in happier times by his compatriots there is none that he has ever prized more highly than the diploma of honour he received from the French 'Society for the Protection of Animals,' and I believe that one of the happiest moments he ever knew was when, as Government delegate at a meeting of that society, he fastened a gold medal on the bosom of a blushing little shepherdess, a certain Mlle. Camelin, of Trionne, in Upper Burgundy, a girl of sixteen, who, at the peril of her life, had engaged a ravenous wolf in single combat, killed him, and thereby saved her flock.
And M. Zola's books teem with his love of animals. During his long exile one of the few requests addressed to him from France, to which he inclined a favourable ear, was an appeal on behalf of a new journal devoted to the interests of the animal world. To this he could not refuse his patronage, and he gave it enthusiastically, well knowing how much remains to be accomplished in inculcating among the masses such affection and patience as are rightful with regard to those dumb creatures who serve man so well.
The Duchess of York's cemetery reminded him of his own. Below his house at Medan a green islet rises from the Seine. This he purchased some years ago, and there all his favourites have since been buried: an old horse, a goat, and several dogs. During his exile a fresh interment took place in this island cemetery, that of his last canine favourite, the poor 'Chevalier de Perlinpinpin,' who, after vainly fretting for his absent master, died at last of sheer grief and loneliness. Those only can understand Emile Zola who have seen him as I saw him then, bowed down with sorrow, distraught, indifferent to all else, both the weightiest personal interests and the very triumph of the cause he had championed; and this because his pet dog had pined away for him, and was beyond all possibility of succour. It was of course a passing weakness with him; such weakness as may fall upon a man of kindly heart. In Zola's case it came, however, almost like a last blow amidst the sorrow and loneliness of the exile which he was enduring in silence for the sake of his much-loved country.
For a time, at all events, Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin found themselves in fairly pleasant quarters; they could stroll about the gardens at Oatlands or along the umbrageous roads of Walton, or beside the pretty reaches of the Thames, amidst all desirable quietude. After all his worries the master needed complete mental rest, and he laughed at his friend's repeated appeals for newspapers.
At that period I procured a few French journals every time I went to town and posted them to Oatlands, where they were eagerly conned by M. Desmoulin, on whom the Dreyfus fever was as strong as ever. But M. Zola during the first fortnight of his exile did not once cast eyes upon a newspaper, and the only information he obtained respecting passing events was such as Desmoulin or myself imparted to him. And in this he evinced little interest. Half of it, he said, was absolutely untrue, and the other half was of no importance. There is certainly much force and truth in this curtly-worded opinion as applied to the contents of certain Paris journals.
However, communications were now being opened up between the master and his Paris friends, and every few days Wareham or myself had occasion to go to Oatlands. There were sundry false alarms, too, through strangers calling at Wareham's office, and now and again my sudden appearance at the hotel threw Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin into anxiety. In other respects their life was quiet enough. The people staying at Oatlands were, on the whole, a much less inquisitive class than those whom one had found at the Grosvenor. There were various honeymoon-making couples, who were far too busy feasting their eyes on one another to pay much attention to two French artists. Then, also, the family people gave time to the superintendence of their sons and daughters; whilst the old folks only seemed to care for a leisurely stroll about the grounds, followed by long spells of book or newspaper reading, under the shelter of tree or sunshade.
Moreover the exiles saw little of the other inmates of the hotel, excepting at the table d'hote dinner. M. Zola then brought his faculties of observation into play, and after a lapse of a few days he informed me that he was astonished at the ease and frequency with which some English girls raised their wine-glasses to their lips. It upset all his idea of propriety to see young ladies of eighteen tossing off their Moselle and their champagne as to the manner born. In France the daughter who is properly trained contents herself with water just coloured by the addition of a little Bordeaux or Burgundy. And the contrast between this custom and incidents which M. Zola noticed at Oatlands—and to which he once or twice called my attention—made a deep impression on him.
The people staying at the hotel were certainly all of a good class. There were several well-known names in the register; and knowing how much has been written on the happy decrease of drinking habits 'in the upper middle-class of England,' I was myself slightly surprised at what was pointed out to me. When M. Zola discovered, too, that sundry gentlemen—leaving wine to their wives and daughters—were addicted to drinking whisky with their meals, he was yet more astonished, for he claims that in France nowadays, greatly as the consumption of alcohol has increased among the masses, it has declined almost to vanishing point among people with any claim to culture. On this matter, however, I reminded him that wine was often expensive in England, that beer disagreed with many people, and that some who felt the need of a stimulant were thus driven to whisky and water.
When the master and Desmoulin wandered down to the Thames towing-path, they found fresh food for observation and comment among the boating fraternity. With some gay parties were damsels whose disregard for decorum was strongly reminiscent of Asnieres and Joinville-le-Pont; and it was slightly embarrassing to stroll near the river in the evening, when at every few yards one found young couples exchanging kisses in the shadows of the trees. After all it was surprise rather than embarrassment which the exiles experienced, for they had scarcely imagined that English training was conducive to such public endearments.
At a later stage a bicycle was procured for the master, and he was then able to extend his sphere of observation; but in the earlier days at Oatlands his rambles were confined to the vicinity of Walton and Weybridge. At the latter village he laid in a fresh stock of linen, and was soon complaining of the exiguous proportions of English shirts. The Frenchman, it should be remembered, is a man of many gestures, and desires all possible freedom of action for his arms. His shirt is cut accordingly, and a superabundance rather than a deficiency of material in length as well as breadth is the result. But the English shirt-maker proceeds upon different lines; he always seems afraid of wasting a few inches of longcloth, and thus if the ordinary ready-made shirt on sale at shops of the average class is dressy-looking enough, it is also often supremely uncomfortable to those who like their ease. Such, at least, was the master's experience; and in certain respects, said he, the English shirt was not only uncomfortable, but indecorous as well. This astonished him with a nation which claimed to show so much regard for the proprieties.
The desire to clothe himself according to his wont became so keen that M. Desmoulin decided to make an expedition to Paris. All this time Mme. Zola had remained alone at the house in the Rue de Bruxelles, outside which, as at Medan (where the Zolas have their country residence), detectives were permanently stationed. Mme. Zola was shadowed wherever she went, the idea, of course, being that she would promptly follow her husband abroad. She had, however, ample duties to discharge in Paris. At the same time she much wished to send her husband a trunkful of clothes as well as the materials for a new book he had planned, in order that he might have some occupation in his sorrow and loneliness.
Most people are by this time aware that M. Zola's gospel is work. In diligent study and composition he finds some measure of solace for every trouble. At times it is hard for him to take up the pen, but he forces himself to do so, and an hour later he has largely banished sorrow and anxiety, and at times has even dulled physical pain. He himself, heavy hearted as he was when the first novelty of his strolls around Oatlands had worn off, felt that he must have something to do, and was therefore well pleased at the prospect of receiving the materials for his new book, 'Fecondite.'
At that date he certainly did not imagine that the whole of this work would be written in England, that his exile would drag on month after month till winter would come and spring return, followed once more by summer. In those days we used to say: 'It will all be over in a fortnight, or three weeks, or a month at the latest;' and again and again did our hopes alternately collapse and revive. Thus the few chapters of 'Fecondite,' which he thought he might be able to pen in England, multiplied and multiplied till they at last became thirty—the entire work.
It was M. Desmoulin who brought the necessary materials—memoranda, cuttings, and a score of scientific works—from Paris. And at the same time he had a trunk with him full of clothes which had been smuggled in small parcels out of M. Zola's house, carried to the residence of a friend, and there properly packed. Desmoulin also brought a hand camera, which likewise proved very acceptable to the master, and enabled him to take many little photographs—almost a complete pictorial record of his English experiences.
During Desmoulin's absence the master remained virtually alone at Oatlands, and as he still cared nothing for newspapers I sent him a few books from my shelves, and, among others, Stendhal's 'La Chartreuse de Parme.' He wrote me afterwards; 'I am very grateful to you for the books you sent. Now that I am utterly alone they enabled me to spend a pleasant day yesterday. I am reading "La Chartreuse." I am without news from France. If you hear of anything really serious pray let me know about it.'
By this time proper arrangements had been made with regard to M. Zola's correspondence. His exact whereabouts were kept absolutely secret even from his most intimate friends. Everybody, his wife and Maitre Labori also, addressed their letters to Wareham's office in Bishopsgate Street. Here the correspondence was enclosed in a large envelope and redirected to Oatlands. With regard to visitors Wareham and I had decided to give the master's address to none. Wareham intended to take their cards, ascertain their London address, and then refer the matter through me to M. Zola. Later on, a regular supply of French newspapers was arranged, and those journals were re-transmitted to the master by Wareham or myself.
On the other hand, I usually addressed M. Zola's letters for him to the house of a trusty friend in Paris. This precaution was a necessary one, as M. Zola's handwriting is so extremely characteristic and so well known in France. And thus we were convinced that any letter arriving in Paris addressed by him would immediately be sent to the 'Cabinet Noir,' where all suspicious correspondence is opened by certain officials, who immediately report the contents to the Government.
It has been pretended that of recent years this secret service has been abolished; but such is by no means the case. It flourishes to-day in the same way as it flourished under the Second Empire, when Napoleon III. made a point of acquainting himself with the private correspondence of his own relatives, his ministers, and his generals. After the revolution of September 1870, hundreds of copies of more or less compromising letters, covert attacks on or criticisms of the Imperial Government,billets-douxalso between Imperial princes and their mistresses, and so forth, were found at the Palace of the Tuilleries; and some of them were even published by a commission nominated by the Republican Government.
Much of the same kind of thing goes on to-day, and M. Zola, when in Paris during the earlier stages of the Dreyfus case, had made it a point to trust no letter of the slightest importance to the Postal Service. On one occasion, a short time after his arrival in England, we had reason to fear that a letter addressed by me to Paris had gone astray, and all correspondence on M. Zola's side was thereupon suspended for several days. However, the missing letter turned up at last, and from that time till the conclusion of the master's exile the arrangements devised between him, Wareham, and myself worked without a hitch.
Already at the time of M. Zola's arrival in London I had received a summons to serve upon the jury at the July Sessions of the Central Criminal court. I had been excused from service on a previous occasion, but this time I had no valid excuse to offer, and it followed that I must either serve or else pay such a fine as the Common Serjeant might direct. There is always a certain element of doubt in these matters; and while I might perhaps luckily escape service after a day or two, on the other hand, I might be kept at the Old Bailey for more than a week. At any other time I should have accepted my fate without a murmur; but I was greatly worried as to what might befall M. Zola during my absence in London, and I more than once thought of defaulting and 'paying up.' But the master would not hear of it. He was now located at Oatlands, and felt sure that he would have no trouble there. Moreover, said he, it would always be possible for me to run down now and again of an evening, dine with him, and attend to such little matters as might require my help.
So, on the Monday morning when the sessions opened, I duly repaired to town; and on the journey up, I saw in the 'Daily Chronicle' the announcement of M. Zola's recent presence at the Grosvenor Hotel. This gave me quite a shock. So the Press was on the right track at last! Starting from the Grosvenor Hotel, might not the reporters trace the master to Wimbledon, and thence to his present retreat? I had no time for hesitation. My instructions, moreover, were imperative. For the benefit of M. Zola personally, and for the benefit of the whole Dreyfus cause, I had orders to deny everything. So I drove to the Press Association offices, sent up a contradiction of the 'Daily Chronicle's' statement, and then hurried up Ludgate Hill to the Court, where my name was soon afterwards called.
I found myself on the second or third jury got together, and that day I was not empanelled. But on the morrow I was required to do duty; and between then and the latter part of the week I sat upon four or five cases—all crimes of violence, and one described in the indictment as murder. This position was the more unpleasant for me, as I am, by strong conviction, an adversary of capital punishment. I absolutely deny the right of society to put any man or any woman to death, whatever be his or her crime. My proper course then seemed to lie in the direction of a public statement, which would have created, I suppose, some little sensation or scandal; but happily the prosecuting counsel in his very first words abandoned the count of murder for that of manslaughter, and I was thereby relieved from my predicament.
The cases on which I sat, and those to which I listened while I remained in attendance, need not be particularised. I will merely mention that they were nearly all due to drink. Mr. Justice Lawrance, who sat upon the bench, was visibly impressed by the circumstance, to which he more than once alluded in his summings up. In one case he was so good as to refer to a question, put by me from the jury box, as a proper and pertinent one, at which I naturally felt vastly complimented. On the second or third day, either before the proceedings began or when the Court rose for luncheon—I do not exactly remember which—a gentleman approached me, and introduced himself as a member of the Press. Said he, 'I have been asking Mr. Avory for you. You are Mr. Vizetelly, I believe?'
'That is my name,' I answered.
'Well, I have come to speak to you about M. Zola's presence in England.'
I should here mention that, in spite of my contradiction of the 'Chronicle' story, there remained some people who had reason to believe it. Moreover, it had been more or less confirmed by the 'Morning Leader,' and some editors, rightly surmising that if M. Zola were in London he would very likely be in communication with his usual translator, had despatched reporters to my house, where my wife had seen them. On learning that I was quietly during jury service at the Old Bailey, some had apparently concluded that I was not concerned in M. Zola's movements, which, so it happened, was the very conclusion I had desired them to arrive at. One gentleman, however, not content with his repulse at my house, had followed me to the Court.
I answered his inquiries with a variety of suggestions. Zola in England, and in London too! Well, we had heard that before, said I. But was it a probable course for the novelist to take? He knew no English, and had but few personal friends in England. His portraits, however, were in several shops and in many newspapers. And only a few years previously he had been seen by a thousand English pressmen and others. So would he not be liable to recognition almost immediately? Now, the only modern language besides French of which M. Zola had any knowledge was Italian. And if I were in his place, I said, I should go to Italy—for instance, to one of the little towns in the North, whence, if needful, one could cross over into Switzerland; though, of course, there was little likelihood that the Italian Government would ever surrender the distinguished writer to his persecutors.
Continuing in this strain I gave my interviewer material for a very plausible article, which I remember was duly published, and which thus helped to divert attention from the right scent.
At the week-end, having given considerable time to jury duties, I was compelled to spend Saturday morning in London on business, and in the afternoon I allowed myself a few hours' relaxation. Reaching Wimbledon about eight in the evening I called on Wareham, who received me with a great show of satisfaction; for, said he, my services had been required for some hours past and nobody had known where I might be. That day, it seemed, just before Wareham had left his Bishopsgate Street office, he had received a visit from a most singular-looking little Frenchman, who had presented one of Maitre Labori's visiting cards and requested an interview with M. Zola. Questioned as to his business, the only explanation he would give was that he had with him a document in a sealed envelope which he must place in M. Zola's own hands. Wareham had wired to me on the matter, but owing to my absence from home had of course received no reply. Then, on reaching Wimbledon, he had called on me and found me out. And, finally, he had gone down to Oatlands and had there seen M. Zola, who had handed him a note authorising Maitre Labori's messenger to call at the hotel on the morrow. However, the messenger and his manners had seemed very suspicious to Wareham—as, indeed, they afterwards seemed to me—and the question arose, was he a genuine envoy, was the writing on Maitre Labori's card perchance a forgery, and what was the document in a sealed envelope which was to be handed to nobody but M. Zola himself? Well, said I at a guess, perhaps it is a copy of the Versailles judgment, and this is simply an impudent attempt to serve it.
Wareham still had Zola's note in his possession, and we resolved to go to town that evening to interview the messenger and extract from him some decisive proof of his bona fides before allowing matters to go any further.
The envoy's address was the Salisbury Hotel, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, which I thought a curious one, being in the very centre of the London newspaper district; and all the way up to town my suspicions of having to do with a 'plant' steadily increased. It was quite ten o'clock when we reached the hotel, and on inquiring for our party found that he had gone to bed.
'Well,' said Wareham, sharply, 'he must be roused. We must see him at once.'
I spoke to the same effect, and the hotel servants looked rather surprised. I have an idea that they fancied we had come to arrest the man.
In about ten minutes he was brought downstairs. His appearance was most unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric silk hat of the true chimney-pot type. These were details, and one might have passed them over. But the man's face was sadly against him. He had the slyest eyes I have ever seen; that peculiar shifty glance which invariably sets one against an individual. And thus I became more and more convinced that we had to deal with some piece of trickery.
We entered the smoking-room where the gas was burning low. A gentleman stopping at the hotel was snoring in solitary state in one of the arm chairs. Reaching a table near a window we sat down and at once engaged in battle.
'I have not brought you a definite answer,' said Wareham to the envoy, 'but this gentleman is in M. Zola's confidence, and wishes further proof of your bona fides before allowing you to see M. Zola.'
Then I took up the tale, now in French, now in English, for the envoy spoke both languages. Who was he? I asked. Did he claim to have received Labori's card from Labori himself? What was the document in the envelope which he would only deliver to M. Zola in person? And he replied that he was a diamond-broker. Did I know So-and-So and So-and-So of Hatton Garden? They knew him well, they did business with him; they could vouch for his honorability. But no, I was not acquainted with So-and-So and So-and-So. I never bought diamonds. Besides, it was ten o'clock on Saturday night, and the parties mentioned were certainly not at their offices for me to refer to them.
Afterwards the little envoy began to speak of his family connections and his Paris friends, mentioning various well-known names. But the proofs I desired were not forth-coming; and when he finally admitted that he had not received Maitre Labori's card from that gentleman himself, all my suspicions revived. True he added that it had been given him by a well-known Revisionist leader to whom Maitre Labori, in a moment of emergency, having nobody of his own whom he could send abroad, had handed it.
But what was in the envelope? That was the great question. The envoy could or would not answer it. He knew nothing certain on that point. Then we—Wareham and I—brought forward our heavy artillery. We could not allow a document to be handed to M. Zola under such mysterious conditions. We must see it. But no, the envoy had strict instructions to the contrary; he could not show it to us. In that case, we rejoined, he might take it back to Paris. He had produced no proof of any of his assertions; for all we knew he might have told us a fairy tale, and the mysterious document might simply be a copy of the much dreaded judgment of Versailles. This suggestion produced a visible impression on the little man, and for half an hour we sat arguing the point. Finally he began to compliment us: 'Oh! you guard him well!' he said. 'I shall tell them all about it when I get back to Paris. But you do wrong to distrust me; I am honourable. I am well known in Hatton Gardens. I have done business there, ten, twelve years with So-and-So and So-and-So. I speak the truth: you may believe me.'
We shrugged our shoulders. For my part, I could not shake off the bad impression which the envoy had made on me. The gleams of craft and triumph which now and again I had detected in his eyes were not to my liking. Assuredly few men are responsible for any physical repulsiveness; we cannot all be 'Belvedere' Apollos; but then the envoy was not only of the ugly, but also the cunning-looking class. Yet a more honourable man never breathed. He at once thrust one hand into the depths of a capacious inner pocket, produced the mysterious envelope, and opened it in our presence. It contained simply a long letter from Maitre Labori, accompanied by a document concerning the prosecution which had been instituted with reference to the infamous articles that Ernest Judet, of the 'Petit Journal,' had recently written, accusing Zola's father of theft and embezzlement whilst he was a wardrobe officer in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. It was needful that Zola should see this document, and return it by messenger to Paris immediately.
The affair in question is stillsub judice, and I must therefore speak of it with some reticence. But all who are interested in M. Zola's origin and career will do well to read the admirable volume written by M. Jacques Dhur, and entitled 'Le Pere d'Emile Zola,' which the Societe Libre d'Edition des Gens de Lettres (30, Rue Laffitte, Paris) published a short time ago. This will show them how strong are the presumptions that the documents cited by Judet in proof of his abominable charges are rank forgeries—similar to those of Henry and Lemercier-Picard! In this connection it afforded me much pleasure to be able to supply certain extracts from Francesco Zola's works at the British Museum, showing how subsequent to the date at which the novelist's father is alleged to have purloined State money he was received with honour by King Louis-Philippe, the Prince de Joinville, the Minister of War, and other high personages of the time—incidents which all tend to establish the falsity of the accusations by which Judet, in his venomous spite and malignity, hoped to cast opprobrium on the parentage of my dear master and friend.
But I must return to Maitre Labori's envoy. When I had seen the contents of his envelope I heartily apologised to him for the suspicions which I had cast upon his good faith. At this he smiled more maliciously and triumphantly than ever, and then candidly remarked: 'Well, if you have tested me, I have tested you, and I shall be able to tell all our friends in Paris that M. Zola is in safe hands.'
According to our previous agreement we re-sealed the envelope, writing across it that it had been opened in the presence of Wareham and myself. And afterwards our reconciliation also was 'sealed' over a friendly glass. Nevertheless the envoy never saw M. Zola. M. Desmoulin luckily turned up on the morrow, and, armed with a fresh note from the master, persuaded our little French friend to hand him the documents.
We left the Salisbury Hotel, Wareham and I, well pleased to find that our suspicions had been unfounded. Nevertheless the whole conversation of the last hour had left its mark on us; and, for my part, I was in much the same state of mind as in the old days of the siege of Paris, when the spy mania led to so many amusing incidents. Thus, the circumstance of finding two persons at the corner of Salisbury Square as we left it—two persons who were speaking in French and who eyed us very suspiciously—revived my alarm. They even followed us along Fleet Street towards the Ludgate Circus, and though we dodged them through the cavernous Ludgate Hill Railway Station, across sundry courts and past the stores of Messrs. Spiers and Pond, we again found them waiting for us on our return towards the embankment, determined, so it seemed, to convoy us home. We hastened our steps and they hastened theirs. We loitered, they loitered also. At last Wareham made me dive into a side street and thence into a maze of courts, and though the others seemed bent on following us, we at last managed to give them the slip.
I never saw these men again, but I have retained a strong suspicion that no mere question of coincidence could explain that seeming pursuit. I take it that the individuals had come over to England on the track of the little French envoy; for it was after he had bidden us good-night outside the Salisbury Hotel that they had turned to follow us. He had told us, too, that earlier in the evening he had spent a hour smoking and strolling about Salisbury Court whilst anxiously awaiting Wareham's arrival with his promised answer. Whether these men were French police spies, whether they were simply members of some swell mob who know that the little gentleman with the huge head and the coal-black hair sometimes journeyed to London with a fortune in diamonds in his possession, must remain a mystery. As for Wareham and myself, when we had again reached Fleet Street we hailed a passing hansom and drove away to Waterloo.
I had another alarm a few days later. Returning one evening by train from Waterloo, I was followed into the compartment I selected by a party of five men, two of whom I recognised. One was the landlord of the Raynes Park Hotel, now deceased, and the other his son. Their companions proved to be Frenchmen, which somehow struck me as a curious circumstance. This was the time when a letter addressed by me to Paris for M. Zola appeared to have gone astray, and when we were therefore rather apprehensive of some action on the part of the French authorities. Could it be that the two Frenchmen who had followed me into the railway carriage in the company of a local licensed victualler were actually staying at Raynes Park, within half a mile of my home? And, if so, what could be their purpose?
I remained silent in my corner of the carriage, pretending to read a newspaper; but on glancing up every now and then I fancied that I detected one or another of the Frenchmen eyeing me suspiciously. They conversed in French, either together or with the landlord's son—who spoke their language, I found—on a variety of commonplace topics until we had passed Earlsfield and were fast approaching Wimbledon. Then, all at once, one of them inquired of the other: 'Shall we get out at Wimbledon or Raynes Park?'
'We'll see,' replied the other; and at the same time it seemed to me that he darted a very expressive glance in my direction.
I now began to feel rather nervous. It was my own intention to alight at Wimbledon, as I had an important message from M. Zola to communicate to Wareham that evening. But it now occurred to me that the best policy might be to go straight home. If these men were French detectives, or French newspaper men of the anti-Dreyfusite party, who by shadowing me hoped to discover M. Zola's retreat, it would be most unwise for me to go to Wareham's. If once the latter's name and address should be ascertained by detectives, communications between M. Zola and his friends would be jeopardised. On the other hand, of course, I might be mistaken with regard to the men; and before all else I ought to make sure whether they really had any hostile intentions. So I resolved to leave the train at Wimbledon, as I had originally proposed doing, and then shape my course by theirs.
As soon as the train pulled up I rose to alight, and at that same moment the Frenchman who had said 'We'll see,' exclaimed to his companion: 'Well, I think we will got out here.'
I waited to hear no more. I rushed off, threw my ticket to an inspector, climbed the steps from the platform, descended another flight into the station-yard, hurried into the Hill Road, and did not pause until I reached the first turning on the right. This happened to be the Alexandra Road, in which Wareham's local office is situated.
Then I turned round and, sure enough, I saw the two Frenchmen, the licensed victualler and his son, deliberately coming towards me. Forthwith, under cover of a passing vehicle, I crossed the street to the corner of St. George's Road, which offered a convenient, shady retreat. Then I awaited developments. To my great relief the party of four went straight on up the Hill Road.
Nevertheless, this might only be a feint, and I hesitated about going to Wareham's immediately. Before anything, I had better let those suspicious Frenchmen get right away. So I retraced my steps towards the station, and entered the saloon bar of the South-Western Hotel. There I found a foreign gentleman, whether French or Italian I do not know, whom I had previously met about Wimbledon on various occasions. A short, rather stout, and elderly man, formerly, I believe, in business in London, and now living on his income, he had more than once spoken to me of the Dreyfus case, Zola, Esterhazy, and all the others. And on this particular evening he approached me with a smile, and inquired if there were any truth in the reports he had heard to the effect that M. Zola had lately been seen in Wimbledon.
Nervous as I was at that moment, I was about to give him a sharp reply, when the door of the saloon bar opened, and to my intense alarm in marched the two Frenchmen who had already inspired me with so much distrust. Their friends were behind them; and I could only conclude that my movements had somehow been observed by them, and that now I was virtually caught, like a rat in a trap.
I was the more startled, too, when my foreign acquaintance (about whom I really knew very little) abruptly quitted me to accost the new comers. But this gave me breathing time. The door was free, and so, leaving the refreshment I had ordered untouched, I bolted out of the house in much the same way as a thief might have done, and ran, as if for my life, right down the Alexandra Road until I reached Wareham's office. And there I seized the knocker in a frenzy, and made such a racket as might have awakened the dead. The door suddenly opened, and I fell into the arms of Everson, Wareham's managing clerk.
'Great Scott!' said he. 'What is the matter? You've nearly brought the house down!'
'Shut the door!' I replied. 'Shut the door!'
'But what has happened to you?'
I had seated myself on the stairs, and a full minute went by before I could begin my story. Then I told Everson all that had befallen me. Some Frenchmen were on Zola's track; they must be the very same men who had shadowed Wareham and myself from the Salisbury Hotel some nights previously; and now they were in Wimbledon, having heard, no doubt, that M. Zola had been seen there. Wareham must be warned of it. Every precaution must be taken; we must remove our charge from Oatlands, and so forth.
Everson puffed away at his pipe and listened meditatively. At last he remarked, 'Well, it is a curious business if what you say is true. What were these Frenchmen like?'
Forthwith I began to describe them as accurately as I could. The first likeness I sketched must have been a faithful one, for Everson started, and exclaimed, 'And the other. Was he not so-and-so and so-and-so?'
'Yes, he was. But how do you know that?' I rejoined, with considerable surprise.
'Why, because I know who the men are! Although you saw them with Mr. Savage of the Raynes Park Hotel, it doesn't follow that they are staying at Raynes Park. As a matter of fact they live here in this very road. They have been here I daresay, eight or nine months now. And as for being detectives, my dear sir, they are musicians!'
'You don't mean it!'
I collapsed again. To think that out of a mere chain of chance coincidences I should have forged a perfect melodramatic intrigue! To think that I should have let my fancy run away with me in such a fashion, and have worked myself into such a state of nervousness and alarm! I could not help feeling a trifle ashamed. 'Well,' I pleaded, 'for my part, I had never seen the men before, either in Wimbledon or elsewhere. Of course, I am short-sighted, and my eyes sometimes play me tricks; however, as you are sure—'
'Sure!' repeated Everson; and again he described the men in such a way as to convince me that there was no mistake in the matter. 'Moreover,' he added, 'I saw them go past the house this very morning when they went up to town.'
'Well,' I rejoined, 'I suppose I am losing my head. Ten minutes ago I could have sworn that those men were after me.'
'Your statement that you never saw them before,' said Everson, 'does not surprise me. As a rule they go to town every morning, and as you are seldom in Wimbledon in the evening you can't very well meet one another.'
'I suppose you regard me as a bit of a fool?' I inquired.
'Oh, no. The circumstances were curious enough, and in your place I might have drawn the same conclusions. Only I don't think I should have hurried off to a friend's house and have nearly "knocked" it down.'
We both laughed, and then I apologised.
'As a matter of fact,' said I, 'all this is the natural outcome of events. The beginning was long ago. I have a secret which I find haunting me when I get up in the morning; all day long it occupies my mind; at night it clings to me and follows me through my sleep. And I grow more and more suspicious; it seems as if everybody I meet has designs upon my secret. Every Frenchman I don't know is a detective or a process server with a copy of the Versailles judgment in his pockets. And thus I shall soon become a monomaniac if I do not discover some remedy. I think I shall try the shower-bath system.'
Then I recalled experiences dating from long prior to M. Zola's arrival in England. First mysterious offers of important documents bearing on the Dreyfus case—documents forged a la Lemercier-Picard, hawked about by adventurers who tried to dispose of them, now in Paris, now in Brussels, and now in London. Needless to say that I, like others, had rejected them with contempt. Then had come an incident that Everson already know of: a stranger with divers aliases beseeching me for private interviews in M. Zola's interest, a request which I ultimately granted, and which led to a rather curious experience. I had declined to see my correspondent alone, and had given him the address of Wareham, who had been present at the interview. And at first the stranger, a tall and energetic looking man, with sunburnt face and heavy moustaches, had refused to disclose his business in Wareham's presence. If at last he did so, it was solely because I told him that before coming to any decision in the matters which he might have to submit to me I should certainly lay them before my solicitor. So the result would be the same, whether he spoke out before Wareham or not. And Wareham very properly added that a solicitor was, in a measure, a confessor bound to observe professional secrecy.
At last the man told us his business, and it proved to be a scheme for rescuing Dreyfus from Devil's Island and carrying him to an American port. Neither Wareham nor myself was able to take the matter seriously, but our visitor spoke with great earnestness, as though he already saw the suggested feat accomplished. He had a ship at his disposal, and a crew also. He gave particulars about both. If I remember rightly, the ship lay at Bristol. He knew Cayenne and Devil's Island, and Royal Island, and so forth. He was convinced of the practicability of the venture, he had weighed all theprosandcons, and it rested with Dreyfus's friends and relatives to decide whether or no he (the prisoner) should be a free man within another six weeks.
Wareham laughed. He was thinking of 'Captain Kettle,' and said so. But the would-be rescuer protested that all this was no romancing. Oh! he was not a philanthropist, he should expect to be well paid for his services; but the Dreyfus family was rich, and M. Zola, too, was a man of means. So surely they would not begrudge the necessary funds to release the unhappy prisoner from bondage.
But I replied that though the Dreyfus family and M. Zola also were anxious to see Dreyfus free, they were yet more anxious to prove his innocence. Personally I knew nothing of the Dreyfus family, and could give no letter of introduction to any member of it, such as I was asked for. And, as regards M. Zola, I was sufficiently acquainted with his character to say that he would never join in any such enterprise. He intended to pursue his campaign by legal means alone, and it was useless to refer the matter to him.
Then the interview ended rather abruptly. A French client of Wareham's happened to call at that very moment, and was heard speaking in French in the hall. This seemed to alarm the stranger, who ceased pressing his request that I should give him letters of introduction to prominent Dreyfusites. He rose abruptly, saying that the time would come when we should probably regret having refused to entertain his proposals, and hurrying past the waiting French client he ran off down the Alexandra Road in much the same way as I myself subsequently ran off from the French 'detectives' who were simply harmless disciples of St. Cecilia.
To this day I do not know whether the man was a lunatic, an imposter seeking money, or anagent provocateur, that is, one who imagined that he might through me inveigle M. Zola into an illegal act which would lead to prosecution and imprisonment. The last-mentioned status that I have ascribed to my interviewer is by no means an impossible one, considering the many dastardly attempts made to discredit and ruin M. Zola. And yet, suspicious and abrupt as was the man's leave-taking when he heard French being spoken outside Wareham's private room (where the interview took place), I nowadays think it more charitable to assume that he was a trifle crazy. One thing is certain, he had come to the wrong person in applying to me to aid and abet him in the foolhardy enterprise he spoke of.
This is the first time I have told this anecdote in any detail; but at the period when the incident occurred I spoke of it casually to a few friends, to which circumstance I am inclined to attribute the earlier paragraphs which appeared in the newspapers about American schemes for delivering Dreyfus. The person whom I saw was, I believe, a German-American.
Well, this incident, preposterous as it may appear (but truth, remember, is quite as fantastic as fiction), had proved another link in the chain of suspicious occurrences in which I had been mixed up prior to M. Zola's exile. Other curious little incidents had followed, and thus for many months I had been living—even as we lived long ago in besieged Paris—in distrust of all strangers, and the climax had come with my foolish fears respecting a couple of French musicians. The story I have told goes against me, but the man who cannot tell a story against himself when he thinks it a good one can have, I think, little grit in his composition.
From the time of my adventure with the French musicians I steeled myself against excessive fears whilst remaining duly vigilant. On one point I was still anxious, which was that M. Zola should be able to settle down in a convenient retreat where him himself would enjoy all necessary quietude; whilst we, Wareham and I, knowing him to be well screened from his enemies, would be less liable to those 'excursions and alarums' which had hitherto troubled us. As the next chapter will show, this consummation was near at hand.
It was M. Zola himself who, after some stay at Oatlands, discovered, in the course of his excursions with M. Desmoulin, a retreat to his liking. It was a house in that part of Surrey belonging to a city merchant, who was willing to let it furnished for a limited period. The owner met M. Zola on various occasions and showed himself both courteous and discreet.
The details of the 'letting' were arranged between him and Mr. Wareham; and my wife hastily procured servants for the new establishment. These servants, however, did not speak French, and I settled with M. Zola that my eldest daughter, Violette, should stay with him to act in some measure as his housekeeper and interpreter. This was thrusting a young girl, not quite sixteen, into a position of considerable responsibility, but I thought that Violette would be equal to the task, provided she followed the instructions and advice of her mother; and as she was then at home for the summer holidays she was sent down to M. Zola's without more ado.
I shall have occasion to speak of her hereafter in some detail, in connection with a very curious incident which marked M. Zola's exile. Here I will merely mention that a Parisienne by birth and speaking French from her infancy, it was easy for her to understand and explain the master's requirements.
Like M. Zola, she was provided with a bicycle, and the pair of them occasionally spent an afternoon speeding along leafy Surrey lanes and visiting quaint old villages. The mornings, however, were devoted to work, for it was now that M. Zola started on his novel, 'Fecondite,' the first of a series of four volumes, which will be, he considers, his literary testament.
These books, indeed, are to embody what he regards as the four cardinal principles of human life. First Fruitfulness, as opposed to neo-Malthusianism, which he holds to be the most pernicious of all doctrines; next Work, as opposed to the idleness of the drones, whom he would sweep away from the human community; then Truth, as opposed to falsehood, hypocrisy, and convention; and, finally, Justice to one and all, in lieu of charity to some, oppression to others, and favours for the privileged few.
All four books—'Fruitfulness,' 'Work,' 'Truth,' and 'Justice'—are to be stories; for years ago M. Zola arrived at the conclusion that mere essays on sociology, though they may work good in time among people of culture, fail to reach and impress the masses in the same way as a story may do. It is, I take it, largely on this account that Emile Zola has become a novelist. He has certainly written essays, but he knows how inconsiderable have been their sales in comparison with those of his works embodying precisely the same principles, but placed before the world in the form of novels. To criticise him as a mere story-teller is arrant absurdity.
He himself put the whole case in a nutshell when he remarked, 'My novels have always been written with a higher aim than merely to amuse. I have so high an opinion of the novel as a means of expression that I have chosen it as the form in which to present to the world what I wish to say on the social, scientific, and psychological problems that occupy the minds of thinking men. I might have said what I wanted to say to the world in another form. But the novel has to-day risen from the place which it held in the last century at the banquet of letters. It was then the idle pastime of the hour, and sat low down between the fable and the idyll. To-day it contains, or may be made to contain, everything; and it is because that is my creed that I am a novelist. I have, to my thinking, certain contributions to make to the thought of the world on certain subjects, and I have chosen the novel as the best means of communicating these contributions to the world.'
If critics in reviewing one or another of M. Zola's books would only bear these declarations of the author in mind, the reading public would often be spared many irrelevant and foolish remarks.
M. Zola's device isNulla dies sine linea, and even before the materials for 'Fecondite' were brought to him from France he had given an hour or two each day to the penning of notes and impressions for subsequent use. With the arrival of his books and memoranda, work began in a more systematic way. At half-past eight every morning he partook of a cup of coffee and a roll and butter, no more, and shortly after nine he was at his table in a small room overlooking the garden of the house he had rented. And there he remained regularly, hard at work, until the luncheon hour, covering sheet after sheet of quarto paper with serried lines of his firm, characteristic handwriting.
M. Zola has retained possession of the MSS. of almost every work written by him, and I know that these MSS. often differ largely from the books actually given to the world. The 'copy' is not only extremely clear, but remarkably free from erasures and interpolations. But when his first proofs reach him M. Zola revises them with the greatest care. He will strike out whole passages in the most drastic manner, and alter others until they are almost unrecognisable.
He will even at the last moment change some character's name, and I know all the inconvenience that arises on certain occasions from having had to prepare portions of my translations from first proofs, through lack of time to wait for the corrected matter.
This was notably the case with my version of 'Paris.' While that work was passing through the Press M. Zola was already in all the throes of the Dreyfus affair, and somehow, as he has acknowledged to me with regret, he forgot to tell me that at the last moment he had changed the names of several personages in the story. Thus Duthil (as originally written and given in my translation) became Dutheil in the French book; Sagnier was changed to Sanier; the Princess de Horn was renamed Harn and finally Harth, and young Lord George Eliott became Elson.
Of course some of the reviewers of my translations attacked me virulently for my unwarrantable presumption in changing the very names of M. Zola's characters; they were unaware that the names given by me were those first selected by the author, who had afterwards altered them and forgotten to tell me of it.