IV

A CHANGE OF QUARTERS

It should be mentioned that the departure of Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin from the Grosvenor Hotel took place almost immediately after Wareham had returned to his office.  We were not to meet our friend the solicitor again until the evening at Wimbledon, but the hotel being apparently a dangerous spot, it was thought best to quit it forthwith.

When we reached Waterloo the dressing-case and the newspaper parcel were deposited at one of the cloak-rooms; and after making the round of the station, we descended into the Waterloo Road.  At first we sauntered towards the New Cut, and of course M. Zola could not help noticing the contrast between the dingy surroundings amidst which he now found himself and the stylish shops and roads he had seen in the Buckingham Palace Road.  The vista was not cheering, so I proposed that we should retrace our steps and go as far as Waterloo Bridge.

There seemed to be little risk in doing so, for, as usual hereabouts in the middle of the afternoon, there were few people to be seen.  The great successive rush of homeward-bound employers, clerks, and workpeople had not yet set in.  And, moreover, there was plenty of time; for Wareham, having important business in town that day, could not possibly be at Wimbledon till half-past six at the earliest.

We reached the bridge—­’that monument,’ as a famous Frenchman once put in, ’worthy of Sesostris and the Caesars’—­and went about half-way across.  It was splendid weather, and the Thames was aglow with the countless reflections of the sunbeams that fell from the hot, whitening sky.  London was before us, ‘with her palaces down to the water’; and M. Zola stopped short, gazing intently at the scene.

‘Up-stream the view was spoilt,’ said he, ’by the hideous Hungerford Bridge, unworthy alike of the city and the river’—­an erection such as no Paris municipality would have tolerated for four and twenty hours.  It was the more obtrusive and aggravating, since beyond it one discerned but little of the towers of Westminster.  ‘Admitting,’ added the novelist, ’that a bridge is needed at that point for railway traffic, surely there is no reason why it should be so surprisingly ugly.  However, from all I see, it seems more and more evident that you English people are very much in the habit of sacrificing beauty to utility, forgetting that with a little artistic sense it is easy to combine the two.’

Then, however, he turned slightly, and looked down-stream where the Victoria Embankment spreads past the Temple to Blackfriars.  The colonnades of Somerset House showed boldly and with a certain majesty in the foreground, whilst in the distance, high over every roof, arose the leaden dome of St. Paul’s.  This vista was rather to M. Zola’s liking.  Close beside us, on the bridge, was one of the semi-circular embrasures garnished with stone seats.  A pitiful-looking vagrant was lolling there; but this made no difference to M. Zola.  He installed himself on the seat with Desmoulin on one hand and myself on the other, and there we remained for some little time looking about us and chatting.