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If we could bring an inhabitant of Venus or Mars to the earth and ask him to judge of life on the earth from Zola's novels, he would say most assuredly: "This life is sometimes quite pure, like 'Le Rève, but in general it is a thing which smells bad, is slippery, moist, dreadful."
On the incidents which immediately preceded M. Zola's departure from France I shall here be brief; these incidents are only known to me by statements I have had from M. and Mme. Zola themselves. But the rest is well within my personal knowledge, as one of the first things which M. Zola did on arriving in England was to communicate with me and in certain respects place himself in my hands.
WITH the present work M. Zola completes the "Trilogy of the Three Cities," which he began with "Lourdes" and continued with "Rome"; and thus the adventures and experiences of Abbe Pierre Froment, the doubting Catholic priest who failed to find faith at the miraculous grotto by the Cave, and hope amidst the crumbling theocracy of the Vatican, are here brought to what, from M. Zola's point of view, is their logical conclusion.
But in Zola even the ideals are undesirable; Zola's mercy is colder than justice nay, Zola's mercy is more bitter in the mouth than injustice. When Zola shows us an ideal training he does not take us, like Rabelais, into the happy fields of humanist learning.
By critics who pretend to advanced views he has been greeted as the rightful successor of Wagner, while the conservative party in music have not hesitated to stigmatise him as a wearisome impostor. 'Kérim' , his first work, passed almost unnoticed. 'Le Rêve, an adaptation of Zola's novel, was produced in 1891 at the Opéra Comique, and in the same year was performed in London.
'Well, I replied, 'he will probably want another safe-conduct before answering that question. 'Do you think that a safe-conduct to take Dreyfus's place would suit him? was M. Zola's retort. But the clock was now on the stroke of the hour, the carriage doors were hastily closed, and the signal for departure was given. 'Au revoir, au revoir! A last handshake, and the train started.
Though the dull apathy of the people she had hitherto met was assuredly not without its advantageous side for her tranquillity of mind, it had touched her vanity, and the gaze of the doctor soothed the smart. He had so obviously divined her interestingness; he so obviously wanted to enjoy it. "I've just been reading Zola's 'Downfall," he said. Her mind searched backwards, and recalled a poster.
A generation which will listen to "Pinafore" for three hundred nights, and will read M. Zola's seventeenth romance, can no more read Homer than it could read a cuneiform inscription. It will read about Homer just as it will read about a cuneiform inscription, and will crowd to see a few pots which probably came from the neighborhood of Troy.
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.
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.
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