NOTE.—­While this work was appearing serially in the ’Evening News’ I received numerous letters from readers interested in various matters mentioned by me.  With respect to the foregoing chapter, a lady living at Staines wrote saying that she was looking out for ‘a cheap haunted house,’ and asking for the address of the one I had mentioned.  I was unable to comply with her request, as personally I do not believe the house was haunted at all.  Moreover, to prevent the sale or letting of any particular house by asserting it to be haunted would be an offence under the libel laws.  As I could not tell what course my lady-correspondent might take in the matter, I preferred not to answer her.  May she forgive me my impoliteness!

X

‘LE REVE’:  THE DREAM

When the owner of the house which M. Zola had rented desired to resume possession, it became necessary to find new quarters of a similar character for the master.  And so he was transferred to another Surrey country house where the arrangements remained much the same as previously:  work every morning, resting or bicycling in the afternoon, followed by newspaper reading and letter-writing in the evening.

The grounds of M. Zola’s new retreat were very extensive, and in part very shady, which last circumstance proved extremely welcome to the novelist, who on coming to ‘cold, damp, foggy England,’ as the French put it, had never imagined that he would have to endure a temperature approaching that of the tropics.

The heat deprived him of appetite, and, moreover, he did not particularly relish some of the dishes provided for him by a new cook who had lately been engaged.  We all know how great is the servant difficulty even under the best of circumstances; and when cooks and maids have to be secured in hot haste an entirely satisfactory result is hardly to be expected.  Moreover, many servants refuse to live in country retirement, far away from their ‘followers,’ and thus one has at times to take such as one can find.

As for the cookery to which M. Zola was at certain periods treated, he beheld it with wonder and repulsion.  His tastes are simple, but to him the plain, boiled, watery potato and the equally watery greens were abominations.  Plum tart, though served hot (why not cold, like the French tarte?) might be more or less eatable; but, surely, apple pudding—­the inveterate breeder of indigestion—­was the invention of a savage race.  And why, when a prime steak was grilled, should the cook water it in order to produce ‘gravy,’ instead of applying to it a little butter and chopped parsley?  This, Dundreary-wise, was one of those things which nobody, not even M. Zola, could understand.

However, a visit to a fishmonger’s shop had made him acquainted with the haddock, the kipper, and likewise the humble bloater; and occasionally, I believe, when his appetite needed a stimulant he turned to the smoked fish, which seemed so novel to his palate.  The cook, of course, was mightily incensed thereat.  For her part, she most certainly would not eat haddock or kippers for dinner; she had too much self-respect to do such a thing, so she boiled or roasted a leg of mutton for her own repast and the maids’.  I do not say that she was wrong; and, indeed, M. Zola never forced people to eat what they did not care for.