will persuade Zola to receive a stranger at this
time. He is one of those publicists who hate publicity, and he knows you
already as one of the bitterest critics of his literary methods; it is
quite hopeless to dream of bringing you together now." In my perplexity
I bethought me of Monsieur Bernard Lazare who, as Zola's acknowledged
champion in the Press, was in constant communication with him, and who
had sent to me an enthusiastic appreciation of the effect of my London
lecture. I went to see him and in one minute over the telephone an
interview was arranged for six o'clock that evening. I was there to the
minute, but at the entrance to the Rue de Bruxelles I was stopped by
a posse of _gendarmes_ and subjected to a vigorous examination. Zola's
house was like a castle in a state of siege. It became evident later on
that he was under police protection and that it was felt necessary to
guard him against the violence of the mob, but it appeared at first
sight as if he were a pre-judged criminal whose escape it was necessary
to make impossible. When the gates of the courtyard were at last opened
reluctantly to me, I was ushered into a chamber which might have been
one of the exhibition rooms of a dealer in _bric-a-brac_. There was a
sedan chair in one corner, and it was hardly possible to move without
disturbing some Japanese or Chinese grotesquerie in brass or porcelain.

I waited here alone for half an hour and then in came Zola with both
hands hospitably outstretched. "Vous parlez Francais?" he began, "Bien!"
and with that he thrust me to a sofa and talked as I never heard man
talk before. "We know all," he said, by way of exordium, "all, all, all!
and here is the history of this lamentable case." That half-forgotten
American chronicler of English manners--Mr N. P. Willis--somewhere
described Disraeli as "talking as a racehorse runs." That was Zola's way
that evening; he threw himself headlong into his narrative and he
talked with head and feet and arms and shoulders. His speech was almost
incredibly brilliant and painted, but I have very often thought since
then that in the constant preoccupation of his mind with this one theme
and the constant repetition of the strongest points he had to make,
he had acquired, as it were, the faculty of threading all his
conversational pearls upon a single string, and that he was, in fact,
presenting himself to his latest audience with a discourse which was
already finished and polish