instinct of Protestantism lit up in me.

But when Zola asked me why I preferred Protestantism to Roman
Catholicism I could not answer him.

He had promised to write a preface for the French translation of the
"Mummer's Wife"; the translation had to be revised, months and months
passed away, and forgetting all about the "Mummer's Wife," I expressed
my opinion about Zola, which had been changing, a little too
fearlessly, and in view of my revolt he was obliged to break his promise
to write a Preface, and this must have been a great blow, for he was a
man of method, to whom any change of plan was disagreeable and
unnerving. He sent a letter, asking me to come to Medan, he would talk
to me about the "Confessions." Well do I remember going there with dear
Alexis in the May-time, the young corn six inches high in the fields,
and my delight in the lush luxuriance of the l'Oise. That dear morning
is remembered, and the poor master who reproved me a little
sententiously, is dead. He was sorrowful in that dreadful room of his,
fixed up with stained glass and morbid antiquities. He lay on a sofa
lecturing me till breakfast. Then I thought reproof was over, but after
a walk in the garden we went upstairs and he began again, saying he was
not angry. "It is the law of nature," he said, "for children to devour
their parents. I do not complain." I think he was aware he was playing a
part; his sofa was his stage; and he lay there theatrical as Leo XI. or
Beerbohm Tree, saying that the Roman Church was an artistic church, that
its rich externality and ceremonial were pagan. But I think he knew even
then, at the back of his mind, that I was right; that is why he pressed
me to give reasons for my preference. Zola came to hate Catholicism as
much as I, and his hatred was for the same reason as mine; we both
learnt that any religion which robs a man of the right of free-will and