With Zola in England: A Story of Exile

by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

And at last others told me quite a different story of the house's abandonment, and this I here venture to give, though I certainly cannot vouch for its accuracy. The place had been built, it seemed, some forty years previously by a retired and wealthy London pawnbroker, a gaunt, shrivelled old man, who, mounted on a white mare, had in his declining years been a familiar figure on the roads of the district.

Extremely eccentric, he had largely furnished and decorated the house with unredeemed articles that had been pledged with him. There was nothing en suite. Old chairs of divers patterns were mingled with odd tables and sideboards and sofas; there were also innumerable daubs 'ascribed' to old masters, and a wonderful display of Wardour-street bric-a-brac. But, indeed, one has only to look at an average pawnbroker's shop to picture what kind of articles the house must have contained.

It seems that the old fellow in question had three daughters, whom he kept more or less imprisoned on his recently-acquired property, though they were charming girls well worthy of being sought in marriage; and the story I heard was that three officers sojourning in the district had one day espied the three forlorn damsels over the garden hedge, and had forthwith begun to court them, much to the ire of the misanthropic, retired pawnbroker. That stern old gentleman ordered his daughters into the house, and then kept them in stricter confinement than ever.

But love laughs at locksmiths, and the amorous officers eventually carried the place by storm, and beat down all parental resistance. Three weddings followed on the same day, and all ended for a time as in a fairy tale. But the old pawnbroker subsequently married again to relieve his solitude, and after his death his will was attacked, and an interminable lawsuit ensued, with the result that the property was left unoccupied. Now, it appeared, it was for sale, and before long would probably be cut up into building plots.

Whatever romantic element there might be in the story of the pawnbroker and his daughters, M. Zola much preferred the popular and gruesome legend of the little girl murdered in the scullery; and, some time later, when he consented to write a short story for 'The Star,' it was this legend which he took as his basis, building thereon the pathetic sketch of 'Angeline,' the scene of which he transferred to France.

He has stated in his article 'Justice,' published in Paris on his return from exile, that during most of the time he spent in England he was virtually in a desert. There were people about him of course; but he retired into himself as it were, communing with his own thoughts, and seeking no intercourse with strangers. This is true of the period to which I am now referring. Still he did not complain of solitude. In fact he knew that quiet was essential for his work. Only once or twice did anything happen of a nature to cause any anxiety. Neither Wareham nor myself was much troubled at this period; there was a lull even in the periodical visits which gentlemen of the Press kindly favoured me.

Still we had taken our precautions by admitting a mutual friend, Mr. A. W. Pamplin, into our confidence. If M. Zola's communications with Paris, through Wareham and myself, should be threatened, Mr. Pamplin was to take upon himself the duty of re-establishing them.

At M. Zola's house there was, so far as I am aware, but one brief alerte. This occurred one afternoon, when a servant came to my daughter with the tidings that there was a French hunchback at the door. Violette impulsively rushed off to tell M. Zola of it; but when in her turn she went to the door to see who the person might be, she found that he was an Englishman, a traveller for some county directory, who had merely performed his legitimate work in requesting to know the name of the occupier of the house. Of course the only name given was that of the owner, then absent at the seaside.

Thus the hot days sped by peacefully enough. M. Zola had at least found occupation and quietude, though it was naturally impossible that he should feel content with his lot. Each day brought more and more home to him the consciousness that he was in exile, and that contumely had been his reward for seeking to save France from the shame of a great crime.

I have previously mentioned that during the first week or so of his sojourn in England he had refused to look at newspapers and—at least so it seemed to me—had sought to banish the Dreyfus affair and his own troubles from his mind, much as one might seek to drive away a hateful nightmare. But before long he again fell under the spell and followed the course of events with the keenest interest. And again and again, reading of the great battle being waged in France, he longed to return home, and grew restless and impatient.