I hope they do not imagine that M. Zola was hungry, and bought those stamps to eat.

XIII

WINTER DAYS

The winter was hardly a cold one, but it proved very tempestuous, and Upper Norwood, standing high as it does, felt the full force of the gales.  Christmas found M. Zola alone; still, this did not particularly affect him, as Christmas, save as a religious observance, is but little kept up in France, where festivity and holiday-making are reserved for the New Year.  In M. Zola’s rooms the only token of the season was a huge branch of mistletoe hanging over the chimney-piece.  This he had bought himself, after I had told him of the privileges attached to mistletoe in England.  There were, however, no young ladies to kiss, and, if I remember rightly, Mme. Zola, who had been absent in Paris, did not return to Norwood until a day or two before the New Year.

While her husband formed a fairly favourable opinion of England, its customs and its climate, Mme. Zola, I fear, was scarcely pleased with this country.  At all events, she finally left it vowing that she would never return.  But then for three or four weeks bronchitis and kindred ailments had kept her absolutely imprisoned in her room—­her illness lasting the longer, perhaps, because she was unwilling to place herself in the hands of any medical man.

The New Year was but a day or two old, when one of the London morning newspapers announced with a great show of authority that an application for the extradition of M. Zola was imminent.  Somebody, moreover, informed the same journal that he had recognised and interviewed M. Zola an evening or two previously, to which statement was appended a brief account of some of M. Zola’s views.  All this amazed me the more as on the very day mentioned in the newspaper I had been with the master till nine P.M. and I could hardly believe than anybody had interviewed him after that hour.  Moreover, my wife had since seen him, and he had said nothing to her of any visit or interview.  Nevertheless, as other papers proceeded to copy the statements to which I have referred, I thought it well to communicate with our exile on the subject.

Through the carelessness of one of M. Zola’s friends, Wareham’s name and address had lately been given to an English journalist usually resident in Paris, and this journalist had then come to London to try to discover the master’s whereabouts.  It was therefore possible that there might be some truth in the story.  But M. Zola promptly wired to me that such was not the case, and followed up his telegram with a note in which he said: 

’My dear confrere and friend,—­I have just telegraphed to you that the whole story of a journalist having interviewed me is purely and simply a falsehood.  I have seen nobody.  Again, there can be no question of extradition in my case; all that could be done would be to serve me with the judgment of the Assize Court.  Those people don’t even know what they write about.