With Zola in England | Page 3

because he feels that wrong has been done, but because he is
absolutely convinced of it. Doubtless many of the expressions in his
recent letter to President Faure have come from his heart, but they were
in the first place dictated by his reason. It is not for me here and at the
present hour to speak of proofs, however great may be public curiosity;
but most certainly Zola has not taken up this case without what he
considers to be abundant proof. 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. And this, when all is said, is really
Zola's one great object in this terrible business.
'I may add that he is risking far more than his great predecessor risked
in favour of Calas. Voltaire pleaded from his retirement on the Swiss
frontier; Zola pleads the cause he has adopted on the very spot, on the

very scene of all the agitation. Anonymous assassins threaten him with
death in letters and postcards. Fanatical Jew-baiters march through the
streets anxious for an opportunity to wreck his house and murder not
only himself but his wife also in the sacred name of Patriotism.*
Should their menaces be escaped there remains the Assize Court with a
jury that will need to be brave indeed if it is to resist all the pressure of
a deliberately organised "terror." At the end possibly lie imprisonment,
fine, disgrace, ruin. How jubilantly some are already rubbing their
hands in the bishops' palaces, the parsonages, the sacristies of France!
Ah! no stone will be kept unturned to secure a conviction! But Emile
Zola does not waver. It may be the truth, the whole truth will only be
known to the world in some distant century; but he, anxious to hasten
its advent and prevent the irreparable, courageously stakes all that he
has, person, position, fame, affections, and friendships. . . . And this he
does for no personal object whatsoever, but in the sole cause of truth
and justice, ever repeating the cry common to both Goethe and himself:
"Light, more light!"
* There is not the slightest doubt that M. Zola incurred the greatest
personal danger between January and April 1898. M. Ranc, the old and
tried Republican, who knows what danger is, has lately pointed this out
in forcible terms in the Paris journal Le Matin.
'Ah! to all the true hearts that have followed and loved him through
years of mingled blame and praise, hard-earned victory and unmerited
reviling, he is at this hour dearer even than he was before; for he has
now put the seal upon his principles, and to the force of precept has
added that of the most courageous personal example.'
This then is what I wrote immediately after the publication of Zola's
letter 'J'accuse,' basing myself simply on my knowledge of the master's
character, of the passions let loose in France, and of a few matters
connected with the Dreyfus case, then kept secret but now public
property. And had I to write anything of the kind at the present time, I
should, I think, have but few words to alter beyond substituting the past
for the present or future tense. In one respect I was mistaken. I did not
imagine the truth to be quite so near at hand. Since January 1898,
however, nine-tenths of it have been revealed and the rest must now
soon follow. And I hold, as all hold who know the inner workings of
l'Affaire Dreyfus, that M. Zola's exile, like his letter to President Faure

and his repeated trials for libel, has in a large degree contributed to this
victory of truth. For by going into voluntary banishment, he kept not
only his own but also Dreyfus's case 'open,' and thus helped to foil the
last desperate attempts that were being made to prevent the truth from
being discovered.
I should add that in the following pages I deal very slightly with
l'Affaire Dreyfus, on which so many books have already been written.
Indeed, as a rule, I have only touched on those incidents which had any
marked influence on M. Zola during his sojourn in this country.
E. A. V.
MERTON, SURREY.