Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

“ I do not say he will be able to prove each and every item of his great indictment, but when you wish to bring everything to light it is often necessary to cast your net so wide that none shall escape it, none linger in concealment with their actions unexplained. And I take it that whatever be the verdict of Zola's countrymen, whether or not Alfred Dreyfus be again and this time absolutely proved guilty . . . Zola himself will have done good work in striving to bring the whole truth to light so that it shall be as evident to one and all as the very sun itself. ”

“ But for my own part I would rather that the world should possess those books than that Zola when tempted, as he was, should have cast literature aside to plunge into the abominable and degrading vortex of politics.
Like all men of intellect he certainly has his views on important political questions, and again and again he has enunciated them in the face of fierce opposition. In the Dreyfus case, however, he has been no politician, but simply the indignant champion of an innocent man. ”

“ Against him are marshalled all the Powers of Darkness, all the energy of those who prefer concealment to light, all the enmity of the military hierarchy which has never forgotten "La Debacle," all the hatred of the Roman hierarchy which will never forgive "Lourdes" and "Rome." And the fetish of Patriotism is brandished hither and thither, rallying even free-thinkers to the cause of concealment, while each and every appeal for light and truth is met by the clamorous cry: "Down with the dirty Jews!" ”

“ Ah! the waiter entered, and there on his salver lay a buff envelope, within which must surely be the ardently awaited message that would tell us of victory or defeat. M. Zola could scarcely tear that envelope open; his hands trembled violently. And then came an anti-climax. The wire was from M. Fasquelle, who announced that he and his wife were inviting themselves to dinner at Norwood that evening.
It was welcome news, but not the news so impatiently expected. And, at last, suspense become intolerable, I resolved to go out and try to purchase some afternoon newspapers. ”

“ Conspuez!' whenever he left his house. Here there is no hostility. Here quietude prevails, save for the shrill whistles of arriving or departing trains. Yet he is also far from the great majority of his affections and friendships. But at this remembrance a fresh thought comes to him; he takes one of his visiting cards from his pocket-book, pencils a few lines on it, and encloses it in an envelope ready to be posted. Then he again lies down; tired as he is, after his exciting day at Versailles and his wearisome night journey, he soon falls soundly asleep. ”

“ At times when we chatted together, M. Zola and myself, and mention was made of his friends—of persons occasionally whom we both knew—he referred to the many estrangements caused by the divergence of views on the Dreyfus affair. Friends of twenty and thirty years' standing, men who had laboured sided by side often in pursuit of the same ideal, had not only quarrelled and parted but had assailed each other with the greatest virulence in the Press and at public meetings. ”

“ I already had ideas for two essays—one on the capital "I" in its relation to the English character, and another on the physiology of the English "guillotine" window and the forms it affects, not forgetting the circumstance that whenever an architect introduces a French window into an English house, it invariably opens outwardly so as to be well buffeted by the wind, instead of into the room as it should do. Well, now I am beginning to think that I might write something on the carelessness of Englishwomen in fastening up their hair, and the phenomenal consumption of hairpins in England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I surmised, however, that the capital I, as a personal pronoun, was a survival of the time when English, whether written or printed, was studded with capitals, even as German is to-day. If I am wrong, perhaps some one who knows better will correct me. One thing I have often noticed is that a child's first impulse is to write 'i,' and that it is only after admonition that the aggressive and egotistical 'I' supplants the humbler form of the letter. This did not surprise M. Zola, since vanity, like most other vices, is acquired, not inherent in our natures. ”

“ A glance at the Queen's Hotel shows one that it is composed of what were once separate houses, now connected together by buildings of one storey only. Each of these houses, or, as one may perhaps call them, pavilions, has a separate entrance and staircase; and the advantage of this, to one circumstanced as M. Zola was, must be obvious. A person lodging in one of the pavilions can come and go freely. There is no vast hall to cross, with a dozen servants standing around, ready to scrutinise you as you pass in and out. ”

“ 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 were men of high intellect and courage who had not hesitated to state their views and plead for truth and justice, men who, when in office, had been arbitrarily suspended and removed. There were many who had risked their futures, many too who, after years of labour, were well entitled to rest and retirement, yet had come forward with all the ardour of youth to do battle for great principles and save their country from the shame of a cruel crime. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have said that M. Zola is opposed to warfare on principle. His views in this respect have long been shared by me. Life's keenest impressions are those acquired in childhood and youth. And in my youth—I was but seventeen, though already acting as a war correspondent, the youngest, I suppose, on record—I witnessed war attended by every horror:—A city, Paris, starved by the foreigner and subsequently in part fired by some of its own children. ”

“ With waiters moving to and fro, nearly always within hearing, there was little conversation at table, but we afterwards chatted in all freedom in M. Zola's room just under the roof. Ah! that room. I have already referred to the dingy aspect which it presented. Around Grosvenor Hotel, encompassing its roof, runs a huge ornamental cornice, behind which are the windows of rooms assigned, I suppose, to luggageless visitors. From the rooms themselves there is nothing to be seen unless you throw back your head, when a tiny patch of sky above the top line of the cornice becomes visible. ”

“ It is because, I believe, I know and understand Emile Zola so well, that I never once lost confidence in him throughout the events which led to his exile in England. That exile, curiously enough, I foreshadowed in a letter addressed to the 'Star' some months before it actually began. When, however, one has been intimate with the French for thirty years or so it is not, to my thinking, so very difficult to tell what is likely to happen in a given French crisis. The unexpected has to be reckoned with, of course; and much depends on ability to estimate the form which the unexpected may take. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As for military insubordination, plotting, or anything of that kind, M. Zola often pointed out to me that no general could effect a revolution, for the simple reason that he could not rely on his men to follow him in an illegal attempt. It was quite possible that now and again other generals besides Boulanger had dreamt of overturning the Republic, but they had not the means to do so. It was as likely as not that the officer foolhardy enough to make the attempt would be shot in the back by some of the Socialists among the rank and file. ”

“ And in that 'Retraite Infernale,' as one of its historians has called it, I saw want, hunger, cupidity, cruelty, disease, stalking beside the war fiend; so no wonder that, like Zola, I regard warfare as the greatest of abominations that fall upon the world. ”

“ In a book dealing with the great novelist these passages may not be out of place, as they serve to illustrate his general attitude towards the Dreyfus case.
'Truth,' I wrote, 'has been the one passion of Emile Zola's life.* "May all be revealed so that all may be cured" has been his sole motto in dealing with social problems. "Light, more light!"—the last words gasped by Goethe on his death-bed—has ever been his cry. Holding the views he holds, he could not do otherwise than come forward at this crisis in French history as the champion of truth and justice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In M. Zola's estimation, the Colonel's arrest had been merely a question of time ever since the day when one had learnt that he had disguised himself with a false beard and blue glasses when he went to meet the notorious Esterhazy.
'A man may be guilty of any misdeed and may yet find forgiveness and even favour,' M. Zola had then said to me, 'but he must not make himself, his profession, and his cause ridiculous. In France, as you know, "ridicule kills." The false beard and the blue spectacles, following the veiled lady, are decisive. ”

“ Clemenceau and Vaughan, Yves Guyot and Reinach, Jaures and Gerault-Richard, Pressense, Cornely, and scores of others were fighting admirably in the Press, and his intervention was not required. Many a man circumstanced as M. Zola was would have rushed into print for the mere sake of notoriety, but he condemned himself to silence, stifling the words which rose from his throbbing heart. ”

“ For instance, he said to me one day: 'I never cared much for the French Protestants; I regarded them as people of narrow minds, fanatics of a kind, far less tolerant and human than the great mass of the Catholics. But they have behaved splendidly in this battle of ours, and shown themselves to be real men.'
All through the spring M. Zola eagerly followed the inquiry which the Cour de Cassation was conducting, and when M. Ballot-Beaupre was appointed reporter to the Court, there came a fresh spell of anxiety. ”