With Zola in England | Page 8

gate, but the place had such a gaunt, clumsy, and mournful
aspect, that M. Zola could not possibly picture it as the London palace
of her most Gracious Majesty the Queen.
However, evening found him once more in his room at the Grosvenor;
and feeling tired and feverish he lay down and dozed. When he awoke
between nine and ten o'clock he perceived a buff envelope on the carpet
near by him. It had been thrust under the door during his sleep, and its
presence greatly astonished him, for he expected neither letter nor
telegram. For a moment, as he has told me, he imagined this to be some
trap; wondered if he had been watched and followed to London, and
almost made up his mind to leave the hotel that night. But when, after a
little hesitation, he had opened the envelope and read my telegram, he
realised how groundless had been his alarm.
On the morrow, when I reached the Grosvenor and inquired at the
office there for M. Pascal, I was asked my name, on giving which I
received a note from M. Zola saying that he unexpectedly found
himself obliged to go out, but would return at 2.30 P.M. As I stood
reading this note, I espied a couple of individuals scrutinising me in
what I deemed a most suspicious manner. Both were Frenchmen
evidently; they wore billycock hats and carried stout sticks; and one of
them, swarthy and almost brigandish of aspect, had the ribbon of the
Legion of Honour in his buttonhole. It was easy to take these
individuals for French detectives, and I hastily jumped to the
conclusion that they were on 'M. Pascal's' track.
To make matters even more suspicious, when, after placing Zola's note
in my pocket, I began to cross the vestibule, the others deliberately
followed me, and in all likelihood I should have fled never to return if a
well-known figure in a white billycock and grey suit had not suddenly
advanced towards us from the direction of the staircase. In another
moment I had exchanged greetings with M. Zola, and my suspicious
scrutinisers had been introduced to me as friends. One of them was
none other than M. Fernand Desmoulin. They had arrived from Paris
that morning, and were about to sally forth with M. Zola in search of
Mr. Fletcher Moulton, Q.C., to whom they had brought a letter of
introduction from Maitre Labori.
Hence the note which M. Zola had already deposited for me at the hotel

office. Had I been a moment later I should have found them gone.
My arrival led to a change in the programme. It was resolved to begin
matters with lunch at the hotel itself, to postpone the quest for Mr.
Fletcher Moulton until the afternoon. I made, at the time, a note of our
menu. The 'bitter bread of exile' consisted on this occasion of an omelet,
fried soles, fillet of beef, and potatoes. To wash down this anchoretic
fare M. Desmoulin and myself ordered Sauterne and Apollinaris; but
the contents of the water bottle sufficed for M. Zola and the other
gentleman.
With waiters moving to and fro, nearly always within hearing, there
was little conversation at table, but we afterwards chatted in all
freedom in M. Zola's room just under the roof. Ah! that room. I have
already referred to the dingy aspect which it presented. Around
Grosvenor Hotel, encompassing its roof, runs a huge ornamental
cornice, behind which are the windows of rooms assigned, I suppose, to
luggageless visitors. From the rooms themselves there is nothing to be
seen unless you throw back your head, when a tiny patch of sky above
the top line of the cornice becomes visible. You are, as it were, in a
gloomy well. The back of the cornice, with its plaster stained and
cracked, confronts your eyes; and with a little imagination you can
easily fancy yourself in a dungeon looking into some castle moat.
'_Le fosse de Vincennes_,' so M. Zola suggested, and that summed up
everything. Yet it seemed to him very appropriate to his circumstances,
and he absolutely refused to exchange rooms with M. Desmoulin, who
was somewhat more comfortably lodged.
The appointments of M. Zola's chamber were, I remember, of a
summary description. There were few chairs, and so one of us sat on
the bed. We succeeded in procuring some black coffee, though the
chambermaid regarded this as a most unusual 'bedroom order' at that
hour of the day; and when M. Desmoulin had lighted a cigar, his friend
a pipe, and myself a cigarette, a regular Council of War was held.
[N.B.--M. Zola gave up tobacco in his young days, when it was a
question of his spending twopence per diem on himself, or of