PART II.—TUESDAY
CHAPTER VIITHE ROAD TO EZE
MONTE CARLO, like all other pleasure resorts, has its inexorable routine, and the feature of the morning is a walk upon the terrace. This is followed by an apéritif and half an hour of gossip under a sun-shade in front of the Café de Paris, these two items occupying the time pleasantly until lunch, when the day really commences.
The terrace pedestrians begin to gather about eleven o’clock, reach their densest an hour later, and then gradually thin away. To sit during that hour on one of the benches which face the walk is a rare privilege.
For the human stream is of never-ceasing interest. There is the nouveau-riche and his family, not yet accustomed to the wealth the war showered upon them, ill at ease in their new clothes, glancing apprehensively at every one as though expecting an accusation; there is the prognathous Englishman masking his mental vacuity with an air of aloofness, but alert to salute every one he considers his social equal; there are old roués of every nationality, hair plastered down (if there is any left), moustaches waxed to a point, great pouches under the eyes, ogling the women, especially the very young ones, and turning around for another look at theirlegs and the motion of their hips; there is the stream of semi-paralytics, neurasthenics, and debile generally, flowing ceaselessly in and out of the hydropathic establishment at the end of the terrace, seeking relief from the results of unimaginable forms of debauchery; there are fat Turks and lithe Greeks who glare at each other; tall Russians and little Italians who fraternize; as well as a scattering of all the nationalities, scarcely yet knowing their own names, created since the war over the breadth of central Europe.
And then there are the women—the women who are the raison d’être for Monte Carlo and all resorts like it. It is to see the women, to permit them to exhibit themselves, that this morning parade takes place; it is to please the women the chefs in the great hotels labour; it is for them the orchestras play; it is to them the little expensive shops cater; it is for them the casino operates. And they are at their best, these women, on the terrace in the morning. The old ones are still in bed, the ugly ones shun the merciless morning light. Only the young and beautiful venture to sally forth, and some of them are superb.
There are celebrities, too, of a sort, and decorations of every degree, from the grand rosette of the Legion down to the humble “poireau”; there are grey-bearded Academicians, monocled diplomats, pallid artists, heavy-sterned generals, portly financiers. There is the Gargantuan McCormack, his hat pulled down over his eyes, his lithe little wife trotting beside him; there is the sallow Venizelos, not yet recovered from the shock of defeat, in closeconfab with some other exile; there is the talented but enslaved Chalmino with his ridiculous fat mistress; there is Marlborough and his next duchess; there is Suzanne, fresh from her victories at La Festa and twittering like a sparrow to two tall worshippers in flannels; there is Chevrillet, the great journalist, whose passion for play destroys him—these and a hundred others like them pass and repass, watch for a time the stupid slaughter of pigeons going ceaselessly forward on the semi-circle of lawn down near the water, and finally fade away.
Among this throng, Selden presently appeared in obedience to a command of the Countess Rémond, delivered to him that morning with his breakfast:
“I am in the mood for walking,” she had written. “Please wait for me on the terrace.”
So, since he had made up his mind to see the adventure through, here he was, walking up and down, looking at the crowd, and breathing deep draughts of the wonderful air. It was one of those exquisite mornings, bright and yet soft, which make the Riviera the most favoured of winter resorts. The air was full of ozone, there was a tang in it which gave a fillip to the blood; the sea was of a deep and lustrous blue defying description, flecked here and there with whitecaps and dotted with the sails of a flotilla of little sloops engaged in a race. On the landward side, steep slopes, clad with vine and olive and dotted with white villas, rose up and up, until they culminated with a mighty rush in the rocky summit of the Tête de Chien, two thousand feet above.
A fairy-land; a land of wonder and delight.
Selden turned from this loveliness and looked again with a feeling of disgust at the people loitering past. Was it for this crowd of parasites and voluptuaries that this superb corner of the world had been created? He had asked himself the same question once before as he sat in the dining-saloon of a great new ship, homeward bound from Europe—was it merely to minister to the pleasures of that crowd, and other crowds like it, that men had laboured and sweated and died in the fabrication of that marvellous boat? What mockery, what waste! No wonder socialists see red! And then he had remembered the hundreds in the steerage—to them the ship was an ark, a sanctuary. It was bearing them to the land of freedom.
But here there was no such saving purpose; it was all mean, all sordid, compact of vanity and greed and sensuality....
Then, suddenly, his eyes saw the face they had been searching for, almost without his knowledge—the arresting and clever face of Madame Ghita. She, at least, had no reason to fear the light, nor had the glowing young Cicette who chattered beside her. Madame Ghita was listening and smiling as though to a child, oblivious of the glances she attracted, with that air of supreme poise which Selden had noted and admired the night before. Would she see him, he wondered, his heart accelerating its beat....
Yes, she saw him; her eyes rested in his for an instant, and she gave him a gracious little nod of the head as she passed.
He was unreasonably elated—yet why shouldn’tshe nod? Monte Carlo was not a formal place; besides, he had been of some little assistance to her the night before in interpreting her to Davis. It was almost an invitation—should he turn and intercept her? And then he caught himself up grimly; really, he told himself, he was behaving like a boy of twenty, rather than like an experienced and somewhat disillusioned man of thirty-four. What could Madame Ghita ever be to him? Nothing, of course! Just the same, he would like to know her—no harm in that!—she looked stimulating. Perhaps she would pass again.
He turned at the end of the terrace—to find himself face to face with the Countess Rémond.
“How you walk!” she gasped. “Like the wind. And how people have stared to see me pursuing you!”
“They must think me very fortunate!”
“Ah, well—yes!” she smiled. “But had you quite forgotten me?”
“Forgotten you! My dear countess!”
“Then you must have been composing a new article, to stalk along like that with your head down, looking neither to the right nor left.”
“No,” said Selden, as he fell into step beside her, “I was reflecting how ironical it is that the most beautiful spot on earth should be—what you see.”
“But it is always like that,” she pointed out. “Not only the pleasantest places, but the nicest things, belong to the people who least deserve them. You should write an article about it.”
Selden laughed grimly.
“That was a savage thrust!”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you suppose I know how futile it is—writing articles?”
“Is it futile?” she asked innocently.
“The most futile thing on earth! I ought to know; I’ve been doing it all my life, and it makes me sick to think of it. But don’t talk about it—don’t spoil this beautiful morning. How can we enjoy it best?”
“Suppose you suggest something,” she said, looking at him from under lowered lashes.
“You said you were in the mood for walking—did you mean just walking here on the terrace?”
“Not in the least. I meant walking over the eternal hills. See—I am dressed for it,” and she held out for his inspection a slender foot shod sensibly—at least, not too foolishly.
“And I may have—how much time?”
“Until five o’clock,” smiled the countess.
Selden was conscious that Madame Ghita and her companion had turned at the other end of the terrace and were coming back, but he kept his attention riveted on his companion—even, to his own ironic amusement, simulated an ardour he did not feel, and which caused her to rest curious eyes upon him.
“Splendid!” he cried. “Then here is the programme: we will go up to La Turbie, have lunch, walk along the Grande Corniche to Eze—do you know Eze?”
“No; is it a town?”
“Yes—a gem. And we will sit there and look at it and at the world stretched out beneath us, andwhen we are quite ready, a car will bring us back. Will that suit you?”
“It will be lovely!” and she permitted her eyes to caress him the merest bit. “But I would point out that it is I who am taking your time, not you mine. If you have something else to do....”
“Nonsense!” Selden broke in. “I may be an American, but I don’t work all the time! Come along!”
As they turned toward the steps, a bulky male figure suddenly loomed in front of them.
“Oh, how do you do,” said the countess, and then Selden saw that the man with whom she was shaking hands was John Halsey, who had been Paris correspondent of theLondon Journalfrom time immemorial. “Do you know Mr. Selden, Mr. Halsey?”
“Selden?” echoed Halsey, who up to that moment had not looked at him. “Oh, hello, Selden. I thought you were somewhere in the Balkans.”
He did not offer to shake hands and there was something faintly hostile in his air.
“No, I’m here,” said Selden briefly, wondering if it could be possible that Halsey was jealous, or if it was just his British manner.
But Halsey had already turned back to the countess.
“I have been looking for you everywhere,” he said. “I got in just a few minutes ago and they told me at the hotel that you had gone out. I want you to come to lunch with me. We must have a talk.”
There was something in his air at the same timethreatening and cringing—like a tiger conscious of his strength, but chilled to the bone at sight of the trainer’s whip.
“I am sorry,” said the countess, “but I have an engagement.”
“Who with?”
“Mr. Selden and I are going to lunch at La Turbie,” she explained sweetly, but there was a dangerous gleam in her eye.
Halsey started to say something, but saw the gleam and checked himself.
“Dinner, then?” he asked.
“No, I am engaged for dinner also. But I shall be back at five. Call me up,” and she nodded curtly and turned definitely away.
Selden, glancing back as they mounted the steps together, saw that Halsey was still standing there, hat in hand, staring after them with a look anything but pleasant. Yes, the fool must be jealous; but even then he had no right to speak to the countess so rudely. However, he wasn’t going to waste any time over Halsey, and he put him definitely out of his mind.
He stopped a second at the hotel to order a car sent on to Eze, and ten minutes later they were in the funicular, and its little engine was puffing and panting as it pushed them steeply upward toward La Turbie, with Monaco and the serrated coast opening out superbly below.
The carriage was filled with tweed-dad English on their way to the golf course on Mont Agel, and the feminine members of the party regarded Selden and his companion with evident distrust, as of anotherworld, while the men seemed loftily unaware of their existence. It always amused Selden, this barrier with which the average Englishman tries to surround himself in public, and he watched now with a smile as the party, like a herd of deer scenting danger, drew together into a compact mass and hastily got the barrier into place.
As he glanced at his companion, he saw that she was smiling, too, though it might have been with pleasure at the magnificent panorama opening below them, upon which her eyes were fixed.
For the first time that morning he had the chance to take a really good look at her. She had no reason to fear the light, though there was nothing girlish about her; indeed, she looked a little older than she had the night before—thirty, perhaps. Every line of her face bespoke the mature woman of the world, but the flesh was smooth and firm, the eyes unshadowed, the lips fresh and rounding upward a little at the corners. It was not so arresting as when he had first seen it—that quality had perhaps been due to art—but it was still unusual, with a suggestion of the unplumbed and unfamiliar—of age-old jealousies and intrigues and ambitions. It had race, as distinguished from ancestry. In fact, Selden doubted if there was any ancestry—that was one of the things she would tell him. For he was determined now that he would have her story—and not only her own, but Lappo’s and Danilo’s. He knew exactly where he was going to take her to unfold it, and exactly what he was going to say.
She felt his eyes upon her face, and glanced at him, and smiled, and looked away again. Andpresently the engine shrieked and panted to a stop and they clambered out.
Sixteen hundred feet below them Monaco lay glittering in the sun, while to right and left stretched the indented coast, from the chersonese beyond Beaulieu to Bordighera and the Italian hills, with the blue, blue sea mounting to an horizon which seemed grey by contrast—a panorama which, perhaps, is equalled nowhere on earth.
It still lay below them as they sat at lunch on the terrace of the hotel, and talked, by tacit consent, of indifferent things; and presently he had bought her an iron-tipped cane and they were setting forth through the little town.
La Turbie is one of those old, old villages built ages ago along this coast high in the mountain fastnesses for safety from the Barbary corsairs and the miscellaneous pirates who roamed up and down the Mediterranean, raiding and sacking and seeking what they might devour. It was captured by the Romans two thousand years ago, and is overshadowed by the ruins of a great stone tower which Augustus set up to commemorate the victory. Its narrow streets and dingy rubble houses have come unchanged through the ages, and are still inhabited by the descendants of the old tribes the Romans conquered, following the same trades in the same way, and living the same lives.
Except that now they must dodge the motor cars which flash ceaselessly through the town along the Grande Corniche. Strangest contrast of the ages, the silken, jewelled femme du monde who glances out carelessly at the rough-clad, red-faced girl pushinga barrow of manure to the fields. And what thought stirs the girl’s brain as she gazes after the vanishing car?
“Perhaps no thought at all,” said the countess, when Selden put this question to her. “Do not make the mistake of endowing the peasantry with your own mentality, as so many reformers do.”
“I don’t. And I’m not a reformer,” he protested. “Just the same, I suppose they have some feelings.”
“Their feelings are centred in their stomachs. Give them a full stomach and they are happy.”
“You talk like Baron Lappo.”
“Do I? Well, the baron is a very clever man, and he understands the peasantry. Nine-tenths of the people of his country are peasants. Americans cannot understand them because America has no peasants. And so you credit them with noble aspirations—patriotism, liberty!—whereas all they really seek is enough to eat.”
“I suppose,” said Selden, “that you are referring to those articles of mine which annoyed the baron.”
“Yes, I am. I think them altogether mistaken. I admire your optimism, but it carries you too far.”
Selden glanced at her curiously. He was surprised that she should speak so earnestly.
“According to your idea,” he said, “the best government is the one which gives its people the most to eat for the least return in labour.”
“Yes; you put it very well. That is it exactly. How can one believe anything else?”
Selden turned the idea over in his head.
“The best government undoubtedly,” he agreed, “is the one that gives every man a square deal.”
“Yes.”
“And that is where the old despotisms failed. They exploited the people for their own benefit.”
“It is where every government fails. The people are always exploited for somebody’s benefit.”
“At least they have swept away the despotisms—not one is left standing in the length and breadth of Europe. That is why I think Europe—war-torn, bankrupt, disordered as she is—is still better off to-day than she has ever been, because for the first time in history her people are free.”
“But they are not free,” protested the countess impatiently. “They are still slaves to their stomachs—more than ever, indeed, since food is more difficult to get. It is absurd to call them free. What is freedom worth to a starving man? He prefers food. And he must always have a master.”
“At least he can choose his master.”
“But not at all. The peasant can never choose his master. Do you imagine the Russian peasants chose Lenin?”
“No, of course not.”
“Or that the peasants of my own country chose Jeneski?”
There was something in her voice, a strange vibrancy, as she uttered the name, which made him look at her. She was gazing straight ahead, her nostrils distended with passion, her lips quivering—and then suddenly her face changed and she threw up her hand with a little cry.
“Ah, look there!”
They had come to a turn in the road—that marvellous road, so wide, so perfect, hung miraculouslyagainst the mountain-side, one of Napoleon’s masterpieces—and below them lay the village of Eze, unaltered since the Dark Ages.
Its founders, whoever they were, must have had the fear of pirates driven deep into their souls; perhaps they came from a town which had been stormed and looted, and were resolved to run no risk the second time. So they had chosen for their new abode the top of a precipitous pinnacle, unapproachable on any side save one, and almost unapproachable on that. With unimaginable labour they had contrived a village there, half dug from the rock, half built of the rock fragments. At the extreme summit they had reared a great citadel, as a last refuge if the town was stormed, and around the whole they had flung a heavy wall pierced by a single gate, flanked with defending towers.
So well they built, so solidly, that the town still stands as it has stood for twenty centuries, the wonder of the twentieth. Only the citadel, no longer needed with the passing of the sea-robber, has fallen into ruin and been despoiled for the repair of the other houses.
Selden and the countess stood spellbound, gazing down upon it and upon the marvellous background against which it is silhouetted—a background of hill and water and curving coast; then by a common impulse they turned into a by-path, and started to clamber down toward it through the vineyards and olive groves, past little houses, to the highway—the Lower Corniche—which runs at the foot of the summit upon which Eze stands; then up again along a steep and narrow road, through the gateway, pastthe frowning walls, around the little church, and between the dismal houses leaning precariously forward above the steep and narrow passages which serve as streets—passages redolent of the Middle Ages, reeking still with the bloody deeds of Roman and Lombard, Sicilian and Saracen, Guelph and Ghibelline; for each in turn held Eze and made of it the foulest den of thieves in Europe, a haven for the scoundrels of every land....
Up and up they scrambled, Selden and the countess, pausing now for breath, now to look at a traceried window, where once, perhaps, Beatrix of Savoy had leaned to toss a flower to her sweet troubadour, Blacasette—up and up, until they came out upon what had been the floor of the donjon, but was now a wide platform open to the sky.
And as they looked around, it seemed that the whole world lay at their feet.
At one side of the platform, facing the sea, stood a rude bench.
“Let us sit down,” said Selden, then got out his pipe, filled it deliberately, lighted it and took a long puff. “Now,” he added, “I am ready for the story.”