After Henry's death Zola was in hopes of soon returning to France, but his friends urged him to remain where he was, for his name was still like a torch which might rekindle the conflagration. Moreover, as the revision of the Dreyfus case was delayed for some weeks longer, Zola again began to feel anxious. Important incidents were certainly occurring in France. Scarcely had General Zurlinden replaced M. Cavaignac as War Minister when Esterhazy took to flight, anticipating, no doubt, the important communications respecting certain forgeries in the Dreyfus case which Colonel Picquart made to the Minister of Justice a few days later. At last, on Sunday, September 15, some indication of what was about to occur in Paris appeared in a few of the London papers which Vizetelly sent to Zola, who replied:
"Thank you for sending the papers by René.[34] Details are wanting evidently; but, to my mind, the report is decisive, revision is certain. It is now only necessary to have patience,—patience which will perhaps have to be of some duration.... I am rather poorly to-day, it is one of those nervous crises which torture me whenever I work too much or when I have undergone too great a shock."
Two days later General Zurlinden, who had stubbornly opposed revision at the Council of Ministers, resigned the office of War Minister (in which he was succeeded by General Chanoine) and resumed the duties of Military Governor of Paris; in which capacity, to revenge himself for the recent disclosures of Colonel Picquart, he cast the latter into a military prison. Then, on September 23, a process-server appeared at Zola's house to levy execution in virtue of the judgment obtained by the handwriting experts.[35] All those incidents—and also the Fashoda trouble, which if it had ended badly would have compelled Zola to leave England—affected the novelist's health, but he fretted more particularly on account of the ailing state of a pet dog,—a toy Pomeranian named the Chevalier de Perlinpinpin, but familiarly called Pinpin only—which he had been obliged to leave in Paris, foreign dogs not being admitted into England. Madame Zola was then in Paris in charge of the little animal and did everything possible for it, but it pined for its master, whose constant companion it had been, on whose writing-table and in whose wastepaper basket it had been for years accustomed to lie.
Zola was passionately attached to his dogs and other animals, as his writings testify;[36] and when he learnt the truth about Pinpin, which was kept from him for a time, he grieved exceedingly and became quite ill, experiencing an attack of the angina from which he suffered periodically. As he would not see a doctor some medicine he was accustomed to take in such cases was obtained from France. But more than once Vizetelly became alarmed respecting him, for the stifling fits left him quite exhausted. "I shall die like this some day," he said more than once, "but it is useless to get a doctor. There is nothing to be done beyond what I do."
Thus, still and ever, he fretted about his dog, particularly if a day or two passed without the receipt of a letter or a telegram respecting its condition. On or about September 26 Vizetelly went to him with the important news that M. Brisson had at last referred the revision of the Dreyfus case to the Cour de Cassation. Such tidings seemed likely to cheer him; but directly he caught sight of Vizetelly he exclaimed, "A telegram! About Pinpin?" And when Vizetelly answered no, his face fell, and scarcely listening to the good news he sank back on the sofa, muttering, "Ah! if it had only been about my poor dog!" A few days later he learnt that Pinpin was dead. Then for a moment he remained grieving piteously. But all at once, shaking his fist, he shouted, "The scoundrels! it was they who killed him!"—referring of course to the anti-Dreyfusites.
But it was only suspense that unnerved Zola either with regard to the episodes of the Affair or in connection with his dog. Confronted by the inevitable in the case of Pinpin, he braced himself and began to mend. Soon afterwards (October 10), an execution having been duly levied at his house in the Rue de Bruxelles, a sale took place there. In the throng which then assembled were many admirers who hoped to be able to purchase souvenirs. But Zola had previously arranged that whatever might be the article first offered for sale, M. Fasquelle, his publisher, should bid the full amount of the execution. This was done; the auctioneer put up a Louis XIII table and M. Fasquelle bid thirty-two thousand francs[37] for it, at which price it became nominally his property. The sale was then finished, and the would-be buyers of souvenirs retired disappointed.
Zola's Dining-Room
Late in October, when the Cour de Cassation, accepting the question of revision in principle, began its famous inquiry, and when M. Brisson fell from office to be succeeded by M. Dupuy, Zola was removed from Addlestone[38] to the Queen's Hotel, Upper Norwood, where he remained till the end of his stay in England. He was still writing "Fécondité," to which he devoted all his mornings; and occupying a small suite of rooms in one of the pavilions of the hotel, taking his meals in private and holding no intercourse with his neighbours, his loneliness increased, though Norwood around him was teeming with life. At intervals, however, he now received a few visits from friends. The first who came was M. Yves Guyot, who had championed the cause of Dreyfus in "Le Siècle," which he directed, from the outset. With him was an English friend, Mr. J. H. Levy, of the Personal Rights' Association. Later came M. Jaurès, the famous French Socialist leader, another champion of the good cause; later still, Zola's old friend, M. Théodore Duret, the historian of the early years of the Third Republic. M. Fasquelle and M. Octave Mirbeau also saw the novelist at this time; and about Easter, 1899, Maître Labori paid a flying visit to England to consult him. There was one American visitor, Mr. Brett of the New York Macmillan Company, and a few English ones: Mr. George Moore, Mr. Lucien Wolf, Mr. Chatto and his partner, Mr. Percy Spalding. But those visits, besides being brief, were spread over a period of seven or eight months. Madame Zola certainly joined her husband for some part of the time, but the travelling, and more particularly the English climate, tried her health exceedingly, and for some weeks she was laid up. For the rest, the Vizetellys and the Warehams were frequently at Norwood, and there was still no little correspondence between the novelist and his translator. Here are a couple of notes written by Zola early in 1899: