With Zola in England: A Story of Exile

by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

'The Hotel Cecil,' I replied.

Then again he shook his head in disapproval. From an artistic standpoint he strongly objected to the huge caravansary on which builder Hobbs and pious Jabez Balfour spent so much of other people's money. Soaring massively and pretentiously into the sky it dwarfed everything around; and thus, in his opinion, utterly spoilt that part of the Embankment.

'To think, too,' said he, 'that you had such a site, here, along the river, and allowed it to be used for hotels and clubs, and so forth. There was room for a Louvre here, and you want one badly; for your National Gallery, which I well remember visiting in '93, is a most wretched affair architecturally.'

'But I want to see rather more of the south side of the river,' he added, after a pause. 'I should like to ascertain if my lion is still there. I recollect that there was some fog about on the morning after my arrival at the Savoy in '93; and when I went to the window of my room I noticed the mist parting—one mass of vapour ascending skyward, while the other still hovered over the river. And, in the rent between, I espied a lion, poised in mid air. It amused me vastly; and I called my wife, saying to her, "Come and see. Here's the British lion waiting to bid us good-day."'

We went to the end of the bridge and thence espied the lion which surmounts the brewery of that name. M. Zola recognised it immediately. Desmoulin would then have led us Strandward; but the Strand, said I, was about the most dangerous thoroughfare in all London for those who wished to escape recognition; so we went back over the bridge and again down the Waterloo road.

'I should like very much to send a line to Paris to-day to stop letters from going to the Grosvenor,' said M. Zola. 'Is there any place hereabouts where I could write a note?'

This question perplexed me, for the numerous facilities for letter-writing which are supplied by the cafes of Paris are conspicuously absent in London; and this I explained to M. Zola. A postage stamp may often be procured at a public-house, but only now and again can one there obtain ink and paper. However, I thought we might as well try the saloon bar of the York Hotel, which abuts on the famous 'Poverty Corner,' so much frequented by ladies and gentlemen of the 'halls,' when, sorely against their inclinations, they are 'resting.'

It was Thursday afternoon; still there were several disconsolate-looking individuals lounging about the corner; and in the saloon bar we found some fourteen or fifteen loudly dressed men and women typical of the spot. I forget what I ordered for Desmoulin and myself, but M. Zola, I know imbibed, mainly for the good of the house, 'a small lemon plain.' Then we ascertained that the young lady at the bar had neither stamps, nor paper, nor envelopes, and so we were again in a quandary. Fortunately I recollected a little stationer's shop in the York Road, and leaving the others in the saloon bar, I went in search of the requisite materials.

When I returned I found the master an object of general attention. His extremely prosperous appearance, his white billycock, his jewellery, and so forth, coupled with the circumstance that he conversed in French with Desmoulin, had led some of those present to imagine that he was a Continental music-hall director on the look out for English 'artists.'

Again and again I noticed, as it were, a 'hungry' glance in his direction; and when, after procuring an inkstand from over the bar, I had ensconced him in a corner, where he was able after a fashion to pen his correspondence, a vivacious and, it seemed to me, somewhat bibulous gentleman in a check suit sidled up to where I stood and introduced himself in that easy way which repeated 'drops' of 'Mountain Dew' are apt to engender.