by Robb, Graham
‘Devote yourself to the ones who are near you,’ she told him. ‘Show them a smiling face as much as you can.’ (Some things were more easily explained in a letter.)
You say that you would like to see me happy. You know me better than anyone else, but you still don’t know me very well if you hope to see me happy. I know that the happiness I had dreamt of for our old age has gone for good. My only pleasure now is to be useful to you and to help the ones I love. That is the task I have set myself, and I shall persevere for as long as I can.
7
SHE RETURNED TO Italy the following year, and again in 1897. But that year, the holiday was cut short. He needed her at his side in Paris, because how could he face the storm alone? Kitchen slops and excrement were tipped over the garden wall; some soldiers had thrown stones at the house; a bucket of dirty water was poured over the children when they were riding their bicycles. Six months after his open letter to the President of the French Republic on the Dreyfus Affair, when every wall in Paris was covered with the words, ‘J’Accuse!’, he was sentenced to jail for criminal libel and forced to flee to England.
She went with him to the Gare du Nord, with his nightshirt wrapped in a newspaper. He was in a terrible state of agitation, but she insisted on staying behind. Someone had to talk to the journalists, the lawyers and the politicians. At least there would always be something interesting to report. When he had gone, she wrote to her friend, Mme Bruneau, whose husband had accompanied É mile to the court house every day:
There are secret police agents at our door, and some more in the hotel across the road, and also some at Médan, with reporters from the gutter press to help them with their spying. If I blow my nose or cough, it’s reported next day in the newspapers.
They know when the servants go to bed, and when I go to bed. People write shameful things on the walls, and they send threatening letters to me and the servants. But I’m as hard as iron, and no one who sees me would guess that I’m under attack.
She read all his letters and sorted them into separate piles–the messages of support and the death threats, which he did not need to see. Exile was arduous enough as it was, and so she spared him unnecessary details.
Some of the anonymous letters were addressed to her:
Madame,
If you haven’t buggered off a week from now we’ll find a way past your servants and fuck you in your fat belly until you die. Since your filthy husband has gone into hiding, we’ll attack his family instead and show no mercy.
Death to the Jews and all them that support them.
After reading each letter, she made a note of the date of reception, and filed it away for posterity.
She worried about him, sitting there without a word of English at the Queen’s Hotel in Upper Norwood. She told him to be brave, and that he would have to finish what he had started. ‘His latest letters saddened me,’ she told Mme Bruneau, ‘not because of his health, but because he seems disheartened. So I got on my big warhorse and terrorized my hero, which did him a lot of good, because today I can tell that his mental barometer is getting back to normal.’
She finally joined him in England in the autumn of 1898, but she stayed for only five weeks. There was little she could do for him while she was away from Paris. Captain Dreyfus was still on Devil’s Island, and É mile was still a fugitive from what the government called ‘justice’.
Upper Norwood was no substitute for Rome. Everything was served with potatoes. The fish, which was cooked without butter or salt, tasted waterlogged, and the pastries in the bakers’ windows were so stodgy that it made one ill just to look at them. She returned to Paris in time to buy Christmas presents for the children, to see the doctor about her emphysema and to catch up with his work. There were so many letters to write and so many people to visit. ‘I have to be you and myself at the same time’, she told him.
WHEN AT LAST the tide was turning and the hero was able to return, their half-marriage resumed. She settled in to her sadness as though arranging their possessions in a house that was too small or too dark. The days of literary battles and endless research were over, but he seemed happier now that he could indulge his hobby. He liked to say that only when one had taken a photograph of something could one claim to have truly seen it, because a photograph showed details that would otherwise have escaped attention. He invented a release mechanism that allowed him to take photographs of himself, and she saw them all sitting together, taking tea in the garden of the rented house near Médan–É mile pouring the tea–and the mother of his children, who had once been so pretty and who now looked so glum, as though she were contemplating the life that could never be hers.
Since he owned at least eight cameras and various pieces of equipment in heavy boxes, he needed Alexandrine to help carry them about the Champ de Mars. Day after day, they went to the Exhibition. He wanted to record everything. For the first time since 1889, they climbed to the second platform of the Eiffel Tower and looked down over the city. The sun was shining. A new century had begun, and Paris was dressed for a new beginning.
He photographed the roofscape, moving around the platform, until he had a complete panorama of the city, from the industrial quartiers in the east to the avenues and gardens in the west. When they viewed the assembled panorama, they saw a world as grandiose and coherent as his great sequence of novels. This was not the shrouded mass of roofs she had seen the first time; it was the vast, collective work of the nineteenth century, the man-made ocean in which her husband had been one of the brightest beacons.
8
THEY WOKE IN the night with headaches and stomach pains, and thought it must have been something they had eaten. He said to her, ‘We’ll be better in the morning.’ Then they had fallen asleep again, and it seemed to her that she could see him lying there and could do nothing to help him.
She woke in the clinic at Neuilly. It was three days before she was strong enough to be taken to the house. She went straight to the room on the first floor and fell on her knees, sobbing, and embracing the body, and stayed with him for an hour. Even in her weakness, when she was still at the clinic, she had thought of Jeanne and asked the publisher to go to Mlle Rozerot and tell her the terrible news, so that she and the children could bid him their last farewell.
No culprit was ever found. The death was described as a dreadful accident and a national calamity, but both women knew that someone must have crept across the rooftops, while the unseeing searchlights swept over the city, and blocked up the chimney, then cleared it again in the early morning.
His enemies had not prevailed. A huge, silent crowd followed the hearse from the Rue de Bruxelles to the Montmartre cemetery. Soldiers presented arms as the procession passed. She had planned every detail of the ceremony herself. It was the greatest public event in Paris since the funeral of Victor Hugo. She was too frail to attend the burial, but she knew that somewhere in the crowd that stood at the graveside were two children and a young woman who might be mistaken for a widow, and that their photographs would join hers in the coffin.
SHE SOLD some of the paintings and antiques, and the land at Médan between the railway and the Seine. She made certain that Jeanne had everything she needed–because he had not made all the necessary financial arrangements–that Denise and Jacques worked hard and did not try to take advantage of their mother’s kindness. They discussed clothes and furniture and the flowers that were placed on the tomb where the children’s father had been laid to rest.
She still went to Italy every year, but her true place was in Paris, and at the house in Médan, which became a site of pilgrimage. Every year, on the first Sunday in October, the leading lights of the literary world arrived at the station and walked up to the house to pay homage to the Master. Two years after his death, in 1904, hundreds of people attended the commemoration. It was a shame that the children had been unable to witness their father’s glory. Little Jacques was suffering from tuberculosis and was being treated at the clinic in Normandy that A
lexandrine had investigated herself. She reminded Jacques’s mother that he was to eat as much as he could and that he should be given plenty of milk and eggs between meals. A few days later, when all the disciples had gone home, she wrote to her again:
The demonstrations of homage to our dear great hero were truly magnificent. The future bodes well for the father of our dear children. One day, they will want to find out all they can about the labours to which he devoted his life before it was cut short. I hope that they will understand that by the manner in which they comport themselves they will help to preserve the glory of the name Zola. You will be there to direct them and to teach them many things–unfortunately far fewer than I might have taught them, for you did not know him as well as I, who lived at his side for thirty-eight years.
His violent death has struck us both a cruel blow, and in our suffering, the affection of his children has been a great happiness to me. I feel as though their affection comes from him, and this makes me cherish them even more than I would have thought possible.
MARCEL IN THE MÉTRO
* THE MAGNIFICENT MÉTROPOLITAIN *
IN THE STIFLING HEAT of the early afternoon of Thursday, 19 July 1900, a hundred people of all ages, shapes and sizes were standing in front of the little kiosk that had recently appeared on the pavement of the Avenue de la Grande Armée. Some, acutely aware of their place in history, were looking at their watches. Others were there simply because they happened to be passing and had joined the crowd on principle or because they wanted to find out why so many people were all waiting to use the same toilet.
At exactly one o’clock, the glazed doors swung open and a heady smell of pine forest escaped into the Paris air. The crowd passed under the glass umbrella and clattered down the wooden steps to an illuminated newsstand where banknotes could be changed, and a counter where a pretty face was waiting with a ticket and a smile. They were delighted to find the underworld pleasantly cool. Someone exclaimed, ‘I could spend my holidays down here!’, and everyone agreed.
They bought their tickets–rectangles of pink or cream card, with a background design that might have been a cathedral or a power station–then they hurried down another flight of steps, and a blast of Arctic air had them clutching at their throats. Despite the cold, the stench of creosote was overpowering. As their pupils dilated, they were able to distinguish, by the aquarium light of the electric lamps, an asphalt pavement stretching away into the darkness. On either side of the pavement were two cement-lined trenches and, at the bottom of each trench, an elevated bar of shiny metal. Men in black sweaters with red piping and the letter ‘M’ embroidered on the collar emerged from the gloom, announcing that anyone who touched the shiny rail would die in an instant. Impressed, the crowd drew back, and three wooden crates the colour of ceramic bricks, scintillant in the electric light, positioned themselves in front of the passengers.
Second-class passengers shared the front carriage with the Westinghouse motors; then came first class with red leather seats; then first and second class together. Everything looked neat and clean. On the outside, the varnished coat-of-arms of Paris in blue and red adorned the painted panels. At the front of the train, two men standing behind glass windows looked like animated statues in a museum: one had his hand on the regulator, the other held the brake. Another train would come along in five minutes, but the crowd was in no mood to wait and surged into the carriages. The women admired the fluted wood furniture and the polished wooden decking. The men quickly occupied the seats in order to have the pleasure of giving them up to ladies.
In the front carriage, one of the employees tried to make himself heard above the hubbub. ‘One hundred and twenty-five horsepower–times two, equals two hundred and fifty horsepower! Direct current of six hundred volts! Three-phase current of five thousand volts! Supplied by the factory on the Quai de la Rapée!’ The train began to move, and, as it entered the tunnel, the passengers saw huge blue sparks leaping through the darkness like ghostly dolphins escorting a ship.
‘The cold is relative to the heat above ground,’ said the employee. ‘Mademoiselle has nothing to fear for her chest!’ A dozen pairs of eyes fastened themselves on the object of concern. ‘We shall shortly be pursuing the audacious curve that will place us on the line of the Champs-É lysées!’ With that, the employee opened a door and vanished into the next carriage.
It was hard to tell how fast the train was moving until a dimly lit cavern appeared and disappeared in a flash. One of the passengers began to read from a folded piece of paper as though he were reciting a prayer: ‘PORTE MAILLOT–OBLIGADO–É TOILE–ALMA–MARBEUF. The first station should be Obligado…’ Two minutes later, another illuminated cavern passed the windows, and the train seemed to be gathering speed. A young man claimed to have caught sight of a word on a tiny plaque, too short to be ‘Obligado’, but possibly ‘Alma’ or ‘É toile’. ‘It’s too soon for Obligado,’ someone said, ‘we won’t be there for a while.’
A multi-coloured blur clattered past in the opposite direction. The train slowed down and stopped in a glittering nave full of people rushing about. A voice outside shouted the name of the station and the girl in the low-cut dress screamed, ‘Champs-É lysées!’ ‘Eight minutes from Porte Maillot,’ said her neighbour. ‘That’s no time at all!’ said the young woman. ‘It’s so fast!’ The man on the other side of her leaned over and said, mysteriously, ‘Nothing in life is ever fast enough, Mademoiselle.’
Twenty people boarded the carriage, which was already full, but no one alighted, and the temperature rose to a comfortable level. The employee reappeared. ‘We’re missing out all the stations!’ said the man with the paper. ‘Eighteen stations,’ said the employee. ‘Eight already open. Ten to open before the first of September. Next stop: PALAIS-ROYAL!’
Now that they could visualize the route–down the Champs-
É lysées, across the Place de la Concorde and along the Tuileries Gardens–it seemed all the more miraculous. At Palais-Royal, the passengers on the platform had to wait for the next train. Then came Louvre–which was hard to imagine–Châtelet and Hôtel-de-Ville, where they stopped for half a minute. A darkened station that must have been Saint-Paul flicked past, then the wheels gave a horrible screech, daylight flooded the carriage and, blinking as though at some amazing novelty, they saw the snail-like traffic on the Place de la Bastille.
A respectable-looking woman began to shake with helpless laughter as the train gave a jolt and plunged back into the tunnel. GARE DE LYON–REUILLY–NATION–PORTE DE VINCENNES. ‘Tout le monde descend!’
The crowd spilled out, their faces radiant with satisfaction. They placed their tickets, marked ‘Àla sortie jeter dans la Boîte’, in a wooden collection box, while the empty train slid away behind a large rotunda. They climbed the steps, passed under the glass umbrella, and found themselves in a suburban landscape of dirty little houses and dusty grey trees blasted by a scorching wind. They stopped on the edge of the street, looked at one another, and said, in a single voice, ‘Let’s go back to the Métropolitain!’
By the time they had bought their tickets from the smiling face behind the counter, the train had completed the return loop and was standing at the other platform, waiting to take them back to the other side of Paris in twenty-seven minutes. Everyone agreed that, from now on, they would take the Métropolitain whenever they could.
* THE ADMIRABLE CONVENIENCE *
MARCEL PROUST, former man-about-town, writer of occasional elegant articles in the newspapers and collector of rare aesthetic sensations, often sat for a long time in the iris-scented room like a sphinx, with the door (in case someone rang) and the window left open, despite the smell of laundry and the pollen of the chestnut trees on the boulevard, remembering the views from other cabinets–the ruined tower of Roussainville-le-Pin, the glistening white walls of the trellised pavilion on the Champs-É lysées, the skylight in his mother’s toilet, which, seen in the mirror, might have been a cloud-reflecting pool. The days
of perilous journeys from kitchen to cabinet, with all the risks of tripping up and spilling, were long past. In well-appointed apartments, the water was already waiting in the bowl: a smart tug on a nickel-plated bronze and ivory handle emptied it in a flash and filled it with two fresh litres of water from a reservoir mounted on the wall.
It was the only room in the apartment in which the outside world was audible. Anywhere else, the noise would have been a distraction, but here, it plunged him into a pleasant state of half-conscious meditation. The parping of automobiles was a simple melody for which his mind automatically supplied the words: ‘Get up! Go to the country! Take a picnic!’ Petrol fumes gusting up from the street suggested the shade of willows and a brook singing duets with the softly puttering Panhard-Levassor.
The room was arranged, like his table at the Ritz, for special, daily occasions. He ate once every twenty-four hours, the same meal whenever possible: one roast chicken wing, two œufs á la crème, three croissants (always from the same boulangerie), a plate of fried potatoes, some grapes, a cup of coffee and a bottle of beer, followed, nine or ten hours later, by an almost empty glass of Vichy water. He rarely visited the cabinet for anything else. When the convoluted journey was over, the rest was taken care of by English engineering. (These days, nearly all the household gods spoke English: Maple & Co. on the Place de l’Opéra and Liberty on the Boulevard des Capucines for modern-style furniture, the Société Française du Vacuum Cleaner–‘nettoyage par le vide’–for the fitted carpets, Remington for the typewriter, the Aeolian Company for the pianola.)