An Officer and a Spy

In consequence of your refusal to fight, dictated solely by your fear of a serious meeting, I vainly looked for you for several days as you know, and you fled like the coward that you are. Tell me what day and where you will finally dare to find yourself face to face with me in order to receive the castigation which I have promised you. As for me I shall, for three days in succession, from tomorrow evening at 7 p.m., walk in the rues de Lisbonne and Naples.

I do not reply to him personally, as I have no desire to enter into direct correspondence with such a creature; instead I issue a statement of my own to the press:

I am surprised that M. Esterhazy has not met me if he is looking for me, as I go about quite openly. As for the threats contained in his letter, I am resolved if I fall into an ambush fully to use the right possessed by every citizen for his legitimate defence. But I shall not forget that it is my duty to respect Esterhazy’s life. The man belongs to the justice of the country, and I should be to blame if I took it upon myself to punish him.

Several weeks pass and I cease to keep my eyes open for him. But then one Sunday afternoon at the beginning of July, on the day before I am due to hand Christian’s evidence to Bertulus, I am walking along the avenue Bugeaud after lunch when I hear footsteps running up behind me. I turn to see Esterhazy’s red cane descending on my head. I duck away and put up an arm to shield my face so that the blow falls only on my shoulder. Esterhazy’s face is livid and contorted, his eyes bulging like organ stops. He is shouting insults — ‘Villain! Coward! Traitor!’ — so close that I can smell the absinthe on his breath. Fortunately I have a cane of my own. My first strike at his head knocks his bowler hat into the gutter. My second is a jab to his stomach that sends him sprawling after it. He rolls on his side, then drags himself up on to his hands and knees and crouches, winded, on the cobbles. Then, supporting himself with his ridiculous cherry-red cane, he starts to struggle to his feet. Several passers-by have stopped to watch what is going on. I grab him in a headlock and shout for someone to fetch the police. But the promeneurs, not surprisingly, have better things to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and at once everyone moves on, leaving me holding the traitor. He is strong and wiry, twisting back and forth, and I realise that either I will have to do him serious damage to quieten him down or else let him go. I release him, and step back warily.

‘Villain!’ he repeats. ‘Coward! Traitor!’ He staggers about trying to pick up his hat. He is very drunk.

‘You are going to prison,’ I tell him, ‘if not for treason, then for forgery and embezzlement. Now don’t come near me again, or next time I’ll deal with you more severely.’

My shoulder is stinging badly. I am relieved to walk away. He doesn’t try to follow, but I can hear him shouting after me — ‘Villain! Coward! Traitor! Jew!’ — until I am out of sight.

The second event that summer is much more significant and takes place four days later.

It is early in the evening, Thursday, 7 July, and as usual at that time of the week I am at Aline Ménard-Dorian’s neo-Gothic mansion: to be exact, I am standing in the garden prior to going into the concert, sipping champagne, talking to Zola, whose appeal against his conviction is being heard in a courtroom in Versailles. A new government has just been formed and we are discussing what effect this is likely to have on his case when Clemenceau, with Labori at his heels, suddenly erupts on to the patio carrying an evening newspaper.

‘Have you heard what’s just happened?’

‘No.’

‘My friends, it is a sensation! That little prig Cavaignac¹ has just made his first speech in the chamber as Minister of War, and claims to have proved once and for all that Dreyfus is a traitor!’

‘How has he done that?’

Clemenceau thrusts the paper into my hands. ‘By reading out verbatim three intercepted messages from the secret intelligence files.’

‘It cannot be possible. .!’