CRIME, SUICIDE ... OR ACCIDENT
CRIME, SUICIDE ... OR ACCIDENT
CRIME, SUICIDE ... OR ACCIDENT
He read the next few paragraphs, which I translate:
Last evening in the railway station at Naples, the company’s servants found a man’s coat in the rack of a first-class carriage of the train from Rome. In the inside pocket of this coat, whichis of a dark brown colour, was an unfastened envelope containing six thousand-franc notes. There were no other papers by which to identify the missing owner. If there has been foul play, it is difficult to account for the fact that such a considerable sum of money should have been left in the victim’s coat; it may, at any rate, be inferred that the motive was not robbery.There were no traces of a struggle to be seen in the compartment; but under one of the seats a man’s shirt-cuff was discovered with the link attached; this article was in the shape of two cats’ heads, linked together by a small silver-gilt chain, and carved out of a semi-transparent quartz, known as opalescent feldspar, and commonly called moonstone by jewellers.A thorough investigation of the railway line is being made.
Last evening in the railway station at Naples, the company’s servants found a man’s coat in the rack of a first-class carriage of the train from Rome. In the inside pocket of this coat, whichis of a dark brown colour, was an unfastened envelope containing six thousand-franc notes. There were no other papers by which to identify the missing owner. If there has been foul play, it is difficult to account for the fact that such a considerable sum of money should have been left in the victim’s coat; it may, at any rate, be inferred that the motive was not robbery.
There were no traces of a struggle to be seen in the compartment; but under one of the seats a man’s shirt-cuff was discovered with the link attached; this article was in the shape of two cats’ heads, linked together by a small silver-gilt chain, and carved out of a semi-transparent quartz, known as opalescent feldspar, and commonly called moonstone by jewellers.
A thorough investigation of the railway line is being made.
Lafcadio crumpled the paper up in his hand.
“What! Carola’s sleeve-links now! The old boy is a regular public meeting-place!”
He turned the page and read in the stop-press news:
RECENTISSIMEDEAD BODY FOUND ON RAILWAY LINE
RECENTISSIMEDEAD BODY FOUND ON RAILWAY LINE
Without waiting to read further, Lafcadio hurried to the Grand Hotel. He slipped his visiting-card into an envelope after adding the following words underneath his name:
Lafcadio Wluikiwould be glad to know whether Count Julius de Baraglioul is not in need of a secretary.
Lafcadio Wluiki
would be glad to know whether Count Julius de Baraglioul is not in need of a secretary.
He sent it up.
A manservant at last came to where he was waiting in the hall, led him along various passages and ushered him in to where Julius was sitting.
His first glance showed Lafcadio a copy of theCorriere della Sera, which had been thrown down in a corner ofthe room. On a table in the middle a large, uncorked bottle of eau-de-Cologne was exhaling its powerful perfume. Julius held out his arms.
“Lafcadio! My dear fellow!... How very glad I am to see you!”
His ruffled hair waved in agitated fashion on his temples; he seemed strangely excited; in one hand he held a black spotted handkerchief, with which he fanned himself.
“You are certainly one of the persons I least expected to see, but the one in the world I was most wanting to talk to this evening.... Was it Madame Carola who told you I was here?”
“What an odd question!”
“Why! as I’ve just met her.... I’m not sure, though, that she saw me.”
“Carola! Is she in Rome?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“I’ve just this minute arrived from Sicily and you are the first person I have seen. I’ve no desire to see her.”
“I thought she was looking extremely pretty——”
“You’re not hard to please.”
“I mean, prettier than she did in Paris.”
“Exoticism, no doubt—but if you’re feeling randy....”
“Lafcadio! Such language from you to me isn’t permissible.”
Julius tried to look severe, but only succeeded in pulling a face. He went on:
“You find me in a great state of agitation. I’m at a turning-point of my career. My head is burning and I feel, as it were, giddy all over, as if I were going to evaporate. I have come to Rome for a sociological congress, and during the three days I’ve spent here I’ve been going from surprise to surprise. Your arrival is the finishing touch.... I don’t recognise myself any longer.”
He was striding about the room; suddenly he stopped beside the table, seized the bottle, poured a stream of scent on to his handkerchief, applied it like a compress to his forehead and left it there.
“My dear young friend—if you’ll allow me to call you so.... My new book! I think I’ve got the hang of it. The way in which you spoke to me ofOn the Heightsin Paris, makes me think that you will not find this one uninteresting.”
His feet sketched a kind of pirouette; the handkerchief fell to the ground. Lafcadio hastened to pick it up and, as he was stooping, he felt Julius’s hand laid gently on his shoulder, just as once before he had felt Juste-Agénor’s. Lafcadio smiled and raised himself.
“I’ve known you such a short time,” said Julius, “and yet this evening I can’t help talking to you like a....”
He stopped.
“I’m listening like a brother, Monsieur de Baraglioul,” Lafcadio was emboldened to take up the words, “—since you allow me to.”
“You see, Lafcadio, in the set which I frequent in Paris—smart people, and literary people, and ecclesiastics and academicians—there is really nobody I can speak to—nobody, I mean, to whom I can confide the new preoccupations which beset me. For I must confess to you that, since our last meeting, my point of view has completely changed.”
“So much the better,” said Lafcadio impertinently.
“You can’t imagine, because you aren’t in the trade, how an erroneous system of ethics can hamper the free development of one’s creative faculties. So nothing is further from my old novels than the one I am planning now. I used to demand logic and consistency from my characters, and in order to make quite sure of getting them, I began by demanding them from myself. It wasn’t natural. We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us.”
Lafcadio continued to smile as he waited for what was to come next, amused to recognise, at this remove, the effect of his first remarks.
“How shall I put it, Lafcadio? For the first time I see before me a free field.... Can you understand what that means? A free field!... I say to myself that it always has been, always will be free, and that up till now the only things to hinder me have been impure considerations—questions of a successful career, of public opinion—the poet’s continual vain hope of reward at the hands of ungrateful judges. Henceforth I hope for nothing—except from myself—henceforth I hope for everything from myself—I hope for everything from the man who is sincere—everything and anything! For now I feel in myself the strangest possibilities. And as it’s only on paper, I shall boldly let myself go. We shall see! We shall see!”
He took a deep breath, flung himself back sideways with one shoulder-blade raised, almost as if a wing were already beginning to sprout, and as if he were stifling withthe weight of fresh perplexities. He went on incoherently in a lower voice:
“And since the gentlemen of the Academy shut the door in my face, I’ll give them good cause for it; for they had none—no cause whatever.”
His voice suddenly turned shrill as he emphasised the last words; then he went on more calmly:
“Well, then, this is what I have imagined.... Are you listening?”
“With my whole soul,” said Lafcadio, still laughing.
“And do you follow me?”
“To the devil himself!”
Julius again soused his handkerchief and sat down in an arm-chair; Lafcadio sat himself astride on a chair opposite him.
“The hero is to be a young man whom I wish to make a criminal.”
“I see no difficulty in that.”
“Hum! hum!” said Julius, who was not to be done out of his difficulty.
“But since you’re a novelist, once you set about imagining, what’s to prevent you imagining things just as you choose?”
“The stranger the things I imagine, the more necessary it is to find motives and explanations for them.”
“It’s easy enough to find motives for crime.”
“No doubt ... but that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. I don’t want a motive for the crime—all I want is an explanation of the criminal. Yes! I mean to lead him into committing a crime gratuitously—into wanting to commit a crime without any motive at all.”
Lafcadio began to prick up his ears.
“We will take him as a mere youth. I mean him to show the elegance of his nature by this—that he acts almost entirely in play, and as a matter of course prefers his pleasure to his interest.”
“Rather unusual, I should say,” ventured Lafcadio.
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Julius, enchanted. “Then, we must add that he takes pleasure in self-control.”
“To the point of dissimulation.”
“We’ll endow him, then, with the love of risk.”
“Bravo!” exclaimed Lafcadio, more and more amused. “If, added to that, he is a fellow who can lend an ear to the demon of curiosity, I think your pupil will be done to a turn.”
Progressing in this way by leaps and bounds, each in turn overtaking and overtaken by the other, one would have likened them to two schoolboys playing leap-frog.
Julius.First of all, I imagine him training himself. He is an adept at committing all sorts of petty thefts.
Lafcadio.I’ve often wondered why more aren’t committed. It’s true that the opportunity of committing them usually occurs only to people who are free from want and without any particular hankerings.
Julius.Free from want! Yes, I told you so. But the only opportunities that tempt him are the ones that demand some skill—some cunning.
Lafcadio.And which run him, no doubt, into some danger.
Julius.I said that he enjoys risk. But swindling is odious to him; he doesn’t want to appropriate things, but finds it amusing to displace them surreptitiously. He’s as clever at it as a conjurer.
Lafcadio.And, besides, he’s encouraged by impunity.
Julius.Yes, but sometimes vexed by it too. If he isn’t caught, it must be because the job he set himself was too easy.
Lafcadio.He eggs himself on to take greater risks.
Julius.I make him reason this way....
Lafcadio.Do you really think he reasons?
Julius(continuing). The author of a crime is always found out by the need he had to commit it.
Lafcadio.We said that he was very clever.
Julius.Yes, and all the cleverer because he acts with perfect coolness. Just think! A crime that has no motive either of passion or need! His very reason for committing the crime is just to commit it without any reason.
Lafcadio.Youreason about his crime—hemerely commits it.
Julius.There is no reason that a man who commits a crime without reason should be considered a criminal.
Lafcadio.You’re too subtle. You have carried him to such a pitch that you have made him what they call “a free man.”
Julius.At the mercy of the first opportunity.
Lafcadio.I’m longing to see him at work. What in the world are you going to offer him?
Julius.Well, I was still hesitating. Yes, up till this very evening I was hesitating, and then, this very evening, the latest edition of the newspaper brought me just exactly the example I was in need of. A providential stroke! Frightful! Only think of it! My brother-in-law has just been murdered!
Lafcadio.What! the old fellow in the railway carriage was....
Julius.He was Amédée Fleurissoire. I had just lent him my ticket and seen him off at the station. An hour before starting he had taken six thousand francs out of the bank, and as he was carrying them on his person, he was a little bit anxious as he left me; he had fancies—more or less gloomy fancies—presentiments. Well, in the train....
But you’ve seen the paper?
Lafcadio.Only the head-lines.
Julius.Listen! I’ll read it to you. (He unfolded theCorriere.) I’ll translate as I go along.
“This afternoon, in the course of a thorough investigation of the line between Rome and Naples, the police discovered the body of a man lying in the dry bed of the Volturno, about five kilometers from Capua—no doubt the unfortunate owner of the coat that was found last night in a railway carriage. The body is that of a man of about fifty years of age. [He looked older than he really was.] No papers were on him which could give any clue to his identity. [Thank goodness! That’ll give me time to breathe, at any rate.] He had apparently been flung out of the railway carriage with sufficient violence to clear the parapet of the bridge, which is being repaired at this point and has been replaced by a wooden railing. [What a style!] The height of the bridge above the river is about fifteen metres. Death must have been caused by the fall, as the body bears no trace of other injuries. The man was in his shirt-sleeves; on his right wrist was a cuff similar to the one picked up in the railway carriage, but in this case the sleeve-link is missing. [What’s the matter?]”
“This afternoon, in the course of a thorough investigation of the line between Rome and Naples, the police discovered the body of a man lying in the dry bed of the Volturno, about five kilometers from Capua—no doubt the unfortunate owner of the coat that was found last night in a railway carriage. The body is that of a man of about fifty years of age. [He looked older than he really was.] No papers were on him which could give any clue to his identity. [Thank goodness! That’ll give me time to breathe, at any rate.] He had apparently been flung out of the railway carriage with sufficient violence to clear the parapet of the bridge, which is being repaired at this point and has been replaced by a wooden railing. [What a style!] The height of the bridge above the river is about fifteen metres. Death must have been caused by the fall, as the body bears no trace of other injuries. The man was in his shirt-sleeves; on his right wrist was a cuff similar to the one picked up in the railway carriage, but in this case the sleeve-link is missing. [What’s the matter?]”
Julius stopped. Lafcadio had not been able to suppress a start, for the idea flashed upon him that the sleeve-link had been removed since the committing of the crime—Julius went on:
“His left hand was found still clutching a soft felt hat....”
“His left hand was found still clutching a soft felt hat....”
“Soft felt indeed! The barbarians!” murmured Lafcadio.
Julius raised his nose from the paper:
“What are you so astonished at?”
“Nothing! Nothing! Go on!”
“...soft felt hat much too large for his head and which presumably belongs to the aggressor; the maker’s name has been carefully removed from the lining, out of which a piece of leather has been cut of the size and shape of a laurel leaf....”
“...soft felt hat much too large for his head and which presumably belongs to the aggressor; the maker’s name has been carefully removed from the lining, out of which a piece of leather has been cut of the size and shape of a laurel leaf....”
Lafcadio got up and went behind Julius’s chair so as to read the paper over his shoulder—and perhaps, too, so as to hide his paleness. There could no longer be any doubt about it; his crime had been tampered with; someone else had touched it up; had cut the piece out of the lining—the unknown person, no doubt, who had carried off his portmanteau.
In the meantime Julius went on reading:
“...which seems to prove the crime was premeditated. [Why this particular crime? My hero had perhaps merely taken general precautions just at random....] As soon as the police had made the necessary notes, the body was removed to Naples for the purposes of identification. [Yes, I know they have the means there—and the habit of preserving dead bodies....]”
“...which seems to prove the crime was premeditated. [Why this particular crime? My hero had perhaps merely taken general precautions just at random....] As soon as the police had made the necessary notes, the body was removed to Naples for the purposes of identification. [Yes, I know they have the means there—and the habit of preserving dead bodies....]”
“Are you quite sure it was he?” Lafcadio’s voice trembled a little.
“Bless my soul! I was expecting him to dinner this evening.”
“Have you informed the police?”
“Not yet. First of all, I must get clear in my own mind a little. I’m in mourning already, so from that point of view (as regards the dress question, I mean)there’s no need to bother; but you see, as soon as the victim’s name is published, I shall have to communicate with the family, send telegrams, write letters, make arrangements for the funeral, go to Naples to fetch the body.... Oh! my dear Lafcadio, there’s this congress I’ve got to attend—would you mind—would you consent to fetching the body in my place?”
“We’ll see about it.”
“That is, of course, if it won’t upset you too much. In the meantime I’m sparing my sister-in-law a period of cruel anxiety. She’ll never suspect from the vague accounts in the newspapers.... But to return to my subject. Well, then, when I read this paragraph in the paper, I said to myself: ‘This crime, which I can imagine to myself so easily, which I can reconstruct, which I can see—I know, I tell you, I know the reason for which it was committed; I know that if it hadn’t been for the inducement of the six thousand francs, it would never have been committed.’”
“But suppose....”
“Yes, yes. Let’s suppose for a moment that there had been no six thousand francs—or, better still, that the criminal didn’t take them—why, he’d have been my hero!”
Lafcadio in the meantime had risen; he picked up the paper which Julius had let fall, and opening it at the second page:
“I see,” he said in as cool a voice as he could muster, “I see that you haven’t read the latest news. That is exactly whathashappened. The criminal didnottake the six thousand francs. Look here! Read this: ‘Themotive of the crime, therefore, does not appear to be robbery.’”
Julius snatched the sheet that Lafcadio held out to him, read it eagerly, then passed his hand over his eyes, then sat down, then got up abruptly, darted towards Lafcadio, and seizing him with both arms, exclaimed:
“The motive of the crime not robbery!” and he shook Lafcadio in a kind of transport. “The motive of the crime not robbery! Why, then”—he pushed Lafcadio from him, rushed to the other end of the room, fanned himself, struck his forehead, blew his nose—“Why, then, I know—good heavens!—I know why the ruffian murdered him.... Oh! my unfortunate friend! Oh, poor Fleurissoire! So it was true what he said! And I who thought he was out of his mind! Why, then, it’s appalling!”
Lafcadio awaited the end of this outburst with astonishment; he was a little irritated; it seemed to him that Julius had no right to evade him in this manner.
“I thought that was the very thing you....”
“Be quiet! You know nothing about it. And here am I wasting my time with you, spinning these ridiculous fancies!.... Quick! my stick! my hat!”
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“To inform the police, of course!”
Lafcadio placed himself in front of the door.
“First of all, explain,” said he imperatively. “Upon my soul, anyone would think you had gone mad.”
“It was just now that I was mad.... Oh, poor Fleurissoire! Oh, unfortunate friend! Luckless, saintly victim! His death just comes in time to cut me shortin a career of irreverence—of blasphemy. His sacrifice has brought me to reason. And to think that I laughed at him!”
He had again begun to pace up and down the room; suddenly he stopped and laying his hat and stick beside the scent bottle on the table, he planted himself in front of Lafcadio:
“Do you want to know why the ruffian murdered him?”
“I thought it was without a motive.”
“To begin with,” exclaimed Julius furiously, “there’s no such thing as a crime without a motive. He was got rid of because he was in possession of a secret ... which he confided to me—an important secret—over-important for him, indeed. They were afraid of him. That’s what it was. There!... Oh! it’s all very well for you to laugh—you understand nothing about matters of faith.” Then, very pale and drawing himself up to his full height: “Iam the inheritor of that secret!”
“Take care! They’ll be afraid of you next.”
“You see how necessary it is to warn the police at once.”
“One more question,” said Lafcadio, stopping him again.
“No! Let me go. I’m in a desperate hurry. You may be certain that the continual surveillance under which they kept my poor brother and which terrified him to such a degree, will now be transferred tome—has now been transferred to me. You have no idea what a crafty set they are. Those people know everything, I tell you. It’s more important than ever that you should go and fetch the body instead of me. Now thatI’m being watched as I am, there’s no knowing what mightn’t happen to me. Lafcadio, my dear fellow”—he clasped his hands imploringly—“I’ve no head at this moment, but I’ll make enquiries at the Questura as to how to get a proper authorisation. Where shall I send it to you?”
“I’ll take a room in this hotel. It’ll be more convenient. Good-bye, till to-morrow. Make haste! Make haste!”
He let Julius go. There was beginning to rise in him a feeling of profound disgust—a kind of hatred almost, of himself, of Julius, of everything. He shrugged his shoulders, and then took out of his pocket the Cook’s ticket, which he had found in Fleurissoire’s coat and which had the name of Baraglioul written on the first page; he put it on the table, well in sight, leaning it up against the scent bottle—then turned out the light and left the room.
Notwithstanding all the precautions he had taken, notwithstanding his recommendations to the Questura, Julius de Baraglioul did not succeed in preventing the newspapers from divulging his relationship to the victim—nor, indeed, from mentioning in so many words the name and address of his hotel.
That evening, of a truth, he had gone through some incredibly sickening moments of apprehension, when, on his return from the Questura at midnight, he had found, placed in a conspicuous position in his room, the Cook’s ticket which had his name written in itand which he had lent to Fleurissoire. He had immediately rung the bell and, going out into the passage, pale and trembling, had begged the waiter to look under his bed—for he did not dare to look himself. A kind of inquiry, which he had held on the spot, led to no results; but what confidence can be placed in the personnel of big hotels?... However, after a good night’s sleep, behind a solidly bolted door, Julius had woken up more at ease. He was now under police protection. He wrote a number of letters and telegrams, which he took to the post himself.
On his return, he was told that a lady had asked for him; she had not given her name and was waiting for him in the reading-room. Thither Julius went and was not a little surprised to find Carola.
It was not, however, in the first room that he found her, but in another which was more retired, smaller and not so well lighted. She was sitting sideways, at the corner of a distant table, and was absently turning over the leaves of a photograph album, so as to give herself countenance. When she saw Julius come in, she rose, looking more confused than pleased. Beneath the long black cloak she was wearing could be seen a bodice that was dark, plain and almost in good taste; on the other hand, her tumultuous hat, in spite of its being black, gave her away sadly.
“You’ll think me very forward, Monsieur le Comte. I don’t know how I found courage enough to come to your hotel and ask for you. But you bowed to me so kindly yesterday.... And, besides, what I have to say is so important.”
She remained standing on the other side of the table;it was Julius who drew near; he held out his hand to her over the table, without ceremony.
“To what am I indebted for the pleasure of your visit?”
Carola’s head sunk.
“I know you have just lost....”
Julius did not at first understand; but as Carola took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes:
“What! Is it a visit of condolence?”
“I knew Monsieur Fleurissoire,” she went on.
“Really?”
“Oh, I hadn’t known him long, but I was very fond of him. He was such a dear! so kind!... In fact, it was I who gave him his sleeve-links; you know, the ones they described in the papers. That’s how I knew it was he. But I had no idea he was your brother-in-law. It was a great surprise to me, and you may fancy how pleased I was.... Oh! I beg your pardon—that wasn’t what I meant to say.”
“Never mind, dear Miss Carola. You meant, no doubt, that you are pleased to have an opportunity of meeting me again.”
Without answering, Carola buried her face in her handkerchief; her sobs were convulsive and Julius thought it was his duty to take her hand.
“And so am I,” he said feelingly, “so am I, my dear young lady. Pray believe....”
“That very morning, before he went out, I told him to be careful. But it wasn’t his nature.... He was too confiding, you know.”
“A saint, Mademoiselle, a saint!” said Julius fervently, taking out his handkerchief in his turn.
“Yes, yes, that was just how it struck me,” cried Carola. “At night, when he thought I was asleep, he used to get up and kneel at the foot of the bed and....”
This unconscious revelation put the finishing touch to Julius’s discomposure; he returned the handkerchief to his pocket and, drawing still nearer:
“Do take your hat off, my dear young lady.”
“No, thank you; it’s not in my way.”
“But itisin mine. Won’t you let me....”
But as Carola unmistakably drew back, he pulled himself together.
“Let me ask you whether you had any special reason for uneasiness?”
“Who? I?”
“Yes; when you told my brother-in-law to be careful, I want to know whether you had any reason to suppose.... Speak openly; no one comes in here in the mornings and we can’t be overheard. Do you suspect anyone?”
Carola’s head sank.
“It’s of particular interest to me, you see,” went on Julius with volubility. “Put yourself in my place. Last night, when I came back from the Questura, where I had been giving evidence, I found lying on the table in my room—on the very middle of my table—the railway ticket with which poor Fleurissoire had travelled. It had my name on it; I know those circular tickets are not transferable. Quite so; I did wrong to lend it—but that’s not the point. The very fact of bringing the ticket back to my room—seizing the opportunity to flout me cynically when I had gone out for a few minutes—constitutes a challenge—a piece of bravado—an insult almost—which(I need hardly say) would not disturb me in the least if I hadn’t good reason to suppose that I am threatened in my turn. I’ll tell you why. Your poor friend Fleurissoire was in possession of a secret—an abominable secret—a most dangerous secret—I didn’t question him about it—I had no desire to hear what it was, but he had the lamentable imprudence to confide it to me. And now I ask you again—do you know who the person is who actually went so far as to commit a murder for the purpose of stifling that secret? Do you know who he is?”
“Don’t be alarmed, Monsieur le Comte; I gave his name to the police last night.”
“Mademoiselle Carola, I expected no less of you.”
“He had promised me not to hurt him; he had only to keep his promise and I would have kept mine. It’s more than I can stand! He may do what he likes to me—I don’t care!”
Carola was growing more and more excited; Julius passed behind the table and, drawing near her again:
“We should perhaps be able to talk more comfortably in my room.”
“Oh, Monsieur le Comte,” said Carola, “I’ve told you everything I had to say; I mustn’t keep you any longer.”
As she went on retreating, she completed the tour of the table and found herself near the door once more.
“We had better part now, Mademoiselle,” said Julius virtuously and with the firm determination of appropriating the credit of this resistance. “Ah! I just wanted to add that if you mean to come to the funeral the day after to-morrow, it would be better not to recognise me.”
At this they took leave of each other, without having once mentioned the name of the unsuspected Lafcadio.
Lafcadio was bringing Fleurissoire’s mortal remains back from Naples. The funeral van which contained them was coupled to the end of the train, but Lafcadio had not thought it indispensable to travel in it himself. At the same time a sense of propriety had made him take his seat—not actually in the next carriage to it, for this contained only second-class compartments—but at any rate as near the body as was compatible with travelling first. He had left Rome that morning and was due back in the evening of the same day. He was reluctant to admit to himself the new sensation which had taken possession of his soul, for there was nothing he held in greater disdain than ennui—that secret malady from which he had hitherto been preserved by the fine carelessness of his youthful appetites and by the pricks of hard necessity. He left his compartment with a heart empty of hope and joy and prowled up and down the whole length of the corridor, harassed by a kind of ill-defined curiosity and vaguely seeking he knew not what new and absurd enterprise in which to engage. He no longer thought of embarking for the East and acknowledged reluctantly that Borneo did not in the least attract him—nor the rest of Italy either; he could not feel any interest in the consequences of his adventure; it appeared to him, in his present mood, compromising and grotesque. He felt resentment against Fleurissoire for not having defended himself better; his soul protested against the pitiful creature; he would have liked to wipe him from his mind.
On the other hand, he would gladly have met that strapping fellow who had carried off his portmanteau—a fine rascal that! And at Capua he leant out of the window and searched the deserted platform with his eyes, as though he hoped to discover him. But would he have recognised him? He had done no more than catch a distant glimpse of his back as he disappeared into the darkness. In his mind’s eye he followed him through the night, saw him reach the river’s bed, find the hideous corpse, rifle it and, almost as challenge, cut out of the hat—Lafcadio’s own hat—that little bit of leather which, as the newspapers had elegantly phrased it, was “of the size and shape of a laurel leaf.” With his hatter’s address inscribed on it, it was a piece of damning evidence, and after all Lafcadio was extremely grateful to his bag-snatcher for having prevented it from falling into the hands of the police. It was, no doubt, very much to this gentleman’s own interest not to attract attention to himself, and if, notwithstanding, he thought fit to make use of his bit of leather, upon my word! a trial of wits with him might not be unamusing.
The night by this time had fallen. A dining-car waiter made his way through the length of the train to announce to the first and second-class passengers that dinner was ready. With no appetite, but at any rate with the saving prospect of an hour’s occupation before him, Lafcadio followed the procession, keeping some way behind it. The dining-car was at the head of the train. The carriages through which Lafcadio passed were empty; here and there various objects, such as shawls, pillows, books, papers, were disposed on the seats so as to mark and reserve the diners’ places. A lawyer’s brief-case caught his eye. Sure of being last, he stopped in front of the compartment and went in. In reality hewas not attracted by the bag; it was simply as a matter of conscience that he searched it. On the inner side of the flap, in unobtrusive gilt letters, was written the name
DEFOUQUEBLIZEFaculty of Law—Bordeaux
DEFOUQUEBLIZEFaculty of Law—Bordeaux
The bag contained two pamphlets on criminal law and six numbers of theLawyers’ Journal.
“More fry for the congress! Bah!” thought Lafcadio, as he put everything back in its place and then hastily joined the little file of passengers on their way to the restaurant.
A delicate-looking little girl and her mother brought up the rear, both in deep mourning. Immediately in front of them was a gentleman in a frock coat, long straight hair and grey whiskers—Monsieur Defouqueblize apparently, the owner of the brief-bag. Their advance was slow and unsteady because of the jolting of the train. At the last turn of the corridor, just as the professor was going to make a dash into the kind of accordion which connects one carriage with another, an exceptionally violent bump toppled him over. As he was trying to regain his balance, a sudden sprawl sent his eye-glasses flying—all their moorings broken—into the corner of the narrow space left by the corridor in front of the lavatory door. As he bent down to search for his eyesight, the lady and little girl passed in front of him. Lafcadio stayed for a moment or two watching the learned gentleman’s efforts with some amusement; pitiably at a loss, he was groping vaguely andanxiously over the floor with both hands; it was as though he were performing the waddling dance of a plantigrade or, back once more in the days of his infancy, had suddenly started playing “hunt the slipper.” ...Come, come, Lafcadio! Listen to your heart! It is not an evil one. Now for a generous impulse! Go to the poor man’s rescue! Hand him back the indispensable glasses! He will never find them by himself. His back is turned to them; in another minute he will smash them. Just then a violent jerk flung the unhappy man head foremost against the door of the water-closet; the shock was broken by his top-hat, which was caved in by the force of the impact and jammed tightly down over his ears. Monsieur Defouqueblize moaned; rose to his feet; took off his hat. Lafcadio, meanwhile, having come to the conclusion that the joke had lasted long enough, picked up the eye-glasses, dropped them like an alms into the hat, and then fled so as to escape being thanked.
Dinner had begun. Lafcadio seated himself at a table for two, next the glass door on the right-hand side of the aisle; the place opposite him was empty; on the left side of the gangway, in the same row as himself, the widow and her daughter were sitting at a table for four, two seats of which were unoccupied.
“What mortal dullness exudes from such places as this!” said Lafcadio to himself, as his listless glance slipped from one to another of the diners, without finding a face on which to dwell. “Herds of cattle going through life as if it were a monotonous grind, instead of the entertainment which it is—or which it might be.How badly dressed they are! But oh! how much uglier they would be if they were naked! I shall certainly expire before dessert, if I don’t order some champagne.”
Here the professor entered. He had apparently just been washing his hands, which had been dirtied by his hunt, and was examining his nails. A waiter motioned him to sit down beside Lafcadio. The man with the wine-list was passing from table to table. Lafcadio, without saying a word, pointed out a Montebello Grand Crémant at twenty francs, while Monsieur Defouqueblize ordered a bottle of St. Galmier. He was holding his pince-nez between his finger and thumb, breathing gently on the glasses and then wiping them with the corner of his napkin. Lafcadio watched him curiously and wondered at his mole’s eyes blinking under their swollen eyelids.
“Fortunately he doesn’t know it was I who gave him back his eyesight. If he begins to thank me, I shall take myself off on the spot.”
The waiter came back with the St. Galmier and the champagne; he first uncorked the latter and put it down between the two diners. The bottle was no sooner on the table than Defouqueblize seized hold of it without noticing which one it was, poured out a glassful and swallowed it at one gulp. The waiter was going to interfere but Lafcadio stopped him with a laugh.
“Oh! what on earth is this stuff?” cried Defouqueblize with a frightful grimace.
“This gentleman’s Montebello,” replied the waiter with dignity. “Thisis your St. Galmier! Here!”
He put down the second bottle.
“I’m extremely sorry, Sir.... My eyesight is so bad.... Really, I’m overcome with....”
“You would greatly oblige me, Sir,” interrupted Lafcadio, “by not apologising—and even by accepting another glass—if the first was to your taste, that is.”
“Alas! my dear sir, I must confess that I thought it was horrible and I can’t think how I came to be so absentminded as to swallow a whole glassful.... I was so thirsty.... Would you mind telling me whether it’s very strong wine?... because I must confess that ... I never drink anything but water.... The slightest drop invariably goes to my head.... Good heavens! Good heavens! What’ll happen to me? Perhaps it would be more prudent to go back at once to my compartment. I expect I had better lie down.”
He made as though to get up.
“Stop! Stop! my dear sir,” said Lafcadio, who was beginning to be amused. “You’d better eat your dinner, on the contrary, and not trouble about the glass of wine. I will take you back myself later on, if you’re in need of help; but don’t be alarmed; you haven’t taken enough to turn the head of a baby.”
“I’ll take your word for it. But really, I don’t know how to.... May I offer you a little St. Galmier?”
“Thank you very much—will you excuse me if I say I prefer my champagne?”
“Ah! really! So it was champagne, was it? And ... you are going to drink all that?”
“Just to give you confidence.”
“You’re exceedingly kind, but in your place I should....”
“Suppose you were to eat your dinner,” interrupted Lafcadio, who was himself eating and had had enough ofDefouqueblize. His attention was now attracted by the widow.
An Italian certainly. An officer’s widow, no doubt. What modesty in her bearing! What tenderness in her eyes! How pure a brow! What intelligent hands! How elegantly dressed and yet how simply!... Lafcadio, when your heart fails to re-echo to such a blended concord of harmonies, may that heart have ceased to beat! Her daughter is like her, and even at that early age, what nobility—half serious, half sad even—tempers the child’s excessive grace! With what solicitude her mother bends towards her! Ah! the fiend himself would yield to such beings as these; to such beings as these, Lafcadio, who can doubt that you would offer your heart’s devotion?...
At that moment the waiter passed by to change the plates. Lafcadio allowed his to be carried away before it was half empty, for at that moment he was gazing at a sight that filled him with sudden stupor—the widow—the exquisitely refined widow—had bent down towards the side nearest the aisle, and deftly raising her skirt, with the most natural movement in the world, had revealed a scarlet stocking and a neatly turned calf and ankle.
So incongruous was this fiery note that burst into the calm gravity of the symphony ... could he be dreaming? In the meantime the waiter was handing round another dish. Lafcadio was on the point of helping himself; his eyes fell upon his plate, and what he saw there finally did for him.
There, right in front of him, plain to his sight, in the very middle of his plate, fallen from God knows where, frightful and unmistakable among a thousand—don’t doubt it for an instant, Lafcadio—there lies Carola’s sleeve-link! The sleeve-link which had been missing from Fleurissoire’s second cuff! The whole thing was becoming a nightmare.... But the waiter is bending over him with the dish. With a sweep of his hand, Lafcadio wipes his plate and brushes the horrid trinket on to the table-cloth; he puts his plate back on to the top of it, helps himself abundantly, fills his glass with champagne, empties it at a draught and fills it again. For if a man who hasn’t dined is to have drunken visions.... But no! it was not an hallucination; he hears the squeak of the link against his plate; he raises his plate, seizes the link, slips it into his waistcoat pocket beside his watch, feels it again, makes certain—yes! there it is, safe and sound! But who shall say how it came on his plate? Who put it there?... Lafcadio looks at Defouqueblize. The learned gentleman is innocently eating, his nose in his plate. Lafcadio tries to think of something else; he looks once more at the widow; but everything about her demeanour and her attire has become proper again and commonplace; he doesn’t think her as pretty as before; he tries to imagine afresh the provocative gesture—the red stocking—but he fails; he tries to imagine afresh the sleeve-link on his plate and if he did not actually feel it in his pockets, there’s no question but that he would doubt his senses.... But now he comes to reflect, why did he take a sleeve-link which doesn’t belong to him? What an admission is implied by this instinctive and absurd action—what a recognition! How he has given himself away to the people—whoever they may be—who are watching him—the police, perhaps! He has walked straight into their booby trap like a fool. He feels himself grow livid. He turns sharply round; there, behind the glass door leading into the corridor.... No! no one.... But a moment ago there may have been someone who saw him! He forces himself to go on eating, but his teeth clench with vexation. Unhappy young man! it is not his abominable crime that he regrets, but this ill-starred impulse.... What has come over the professor now? Why is he smiling at him?
Defouqueblize had finished eating. He wiped his lips; then with both elbows on the table, fiddling nervously with his napkin, he began to look at Lafcadio; his lips worked in an odd sort of grin; at last, as though unable to contain himself any longer:
“Might I venture to ask for just a little more?”
He pushed his glass timidly towards the almost empty bottle.
Lafcadio, surprised out of his uneasiness and delighted at the diversion, poured him out the last drops.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible to give you much.... But shall I order some more?”
“Oh, well, not more than half a bottle then.”
Defouqueblize was obviously elevated and had lost all sense of the proprieties. Lafcadio, for whom dry champagne had no terrors and who was amused at the other’s ingenuousness, ordered the waiter to uncork another bottle of Montebello.
“No, no, not too much,” said Defouqueblize, as with a quavering hand he raised the glass which Lafcadio succeeded in filling to the brim. “It’s curious—I thought it so nasty at first. That’s the way with a great many things which one makes mountains of till one knows more about them. The fact is, I thought I was drinkingSt. Galmier, and you see I thought that for St. Galmier it had a very queer taste. If you were given St. Galmier now, when you thought you were drinking champagne, wouldn’t you say: ‘For champagne, it has a very queer taste’?...”
He laughed at his own words, then bending across the table to Lafcadio, who was laughing too, he went on in a low voice:
“I can’t think why I’m laughing so; it must be the fault of your wine. I suspect, all the same, it’s rather more heady than you make out. Eh! Eh! Eh! But you’ll take me back to my carriage? That’s agreed, isn’t it? If I behave indecently, you’ll know why.”
“When one’s travelling,” hazarded Lafcadio, “there’s no fear of consequences.”
“Oh!” replied the other at once, “all the things one would do in this life if there were no fear of consequences, as you justly remark! If one could only be sure that it wouldn’t lead to anything!... Why, merely what I’m saying to you just now—which, after all, is nothing but a very natural reflection—do you think I should venture to utter it without more disguise, if we were in Bordeaux, now? I say Bordeaux, because Bordeaux is where I live. I’m known there—respected. Not married, but well-to-do in a quiet little way; I’m in an honourable walk of life—Professor of Law at the Faculty of Bordeaux—yes, comparative criminology, a new chair.... You can see for yourself that when I’m there, I’m not allowed, actually notallowed, to get tipsy—not even once in a while, by accident. My life must be respectable. Just fancy! Supposing one of my pupils were to meet me in the street drunk!... Respectable! yes—and it mustn’t look as if it were forced; there’s the rub; one mustn’t make people think: ‘Monsieur Defouqueblize’ (my name, sir) ‘keeps a tight hand on himself—and a jolly good thing too.’ ... One must not only neverdoanything out of the way, one must persuade other people that onecouldn’tdo anything out of the way, even with all the licence in the world—that there’s nothing whatever out of the way in one, wanting to come out. Is there just a little more wine left? Only a drop or two, my dear accomplice, only a drop or two.... Such an opportunity doesn’t come twice in a lifetime. To-morrow, at the congress in Rome, I shall meet a number of my colleagues—grave, sober fellows, as tame, as disciplined, as stiffly self-restrained as I shall become myself, once I get back into harness again. People who are in society, like you and me, owe it to ourselves to go masked.”
In the meantime the meal was drawing to a close; a waiter went round collecting the scores and pocketing the tips.
As the car emptied, Defouqueblize’s voice became deeper and louder; at moments its bursts of sonority made Lafcadio feel almost uncomfortable. He went on:
“And even if there were no society to restrain us, that little group of relations and friends whom we can’t bear to displease, would suffice. They confront our uncivil sincerity with an image of ourselves for which we are only half responsible—an image which has very little resemblance to us, but out of whose borders, I tell you, it is indecent to emerge. At this moment—it’s a fact—I have escaped from my shape—taken flight out of myself.... Oh! dizzy adventure! Dangerous rapture!... But I’m boring you to death!”
“You interest me singularly.”
“I keep on talking ... talking! It can’t be helped! Once a professor, always a professor—even when one’s drunk; and it’s a subject I have at heart.... But if you’ve finished dinner, perhaps you’ll be so kind as to give me your arm back to my carriage, while I can still stand on my legs. I’m afraid if I wait any longer, I mayn’t be able to get up.”
At these words Defouqueblize made a kind of bound as though in an effort to get out of his chair, but subsided again immediately in a half sprawl over the table, where, with his head and shoulders flung forward in Lafcadio’s direction, he went on in a lower, semi-confidential voice:
“This is my thesis: Do you know what is needful to turn an honest man into a rogue? A change of scene—a moment’s forgetfulness suffice. Yes, sir, a gap in the memory and sincerity comes out into the open!... a cessation of continuity—a simple interruption of the current. Naturally, I don’t say this in my lectures ... but, between ourselves, what an advantage for the bastard! Just think! a being whose very existence is owing to an erratic impulse—to a crook in the straight line!...”
The professor’s voice had again grown loud; the eyes he now fixed on Lafcadio were peculiar; their glance, which was at times vague and at times piercing, began to alarm him. Lafcadio wondered now whether the man’s short sight were not feigned, and that peculiar glance seemed to him almost familiar. At last, more embarrassed than he cared to own, he got up and said abruptly:
“Come, Monsieur Defouqueblize, take my arm. Get up. Enough talk!”
Defouqueblize quitted his chair with a lumbering effort. Together they tottered down the corridor towards the compartment where the professor had left his brief-bag. Defouqueblize went in first. Lafcadio settled him in his corner and took his leave. He had already turned his back to go out, when a great hand fell heavily on his shoulder. He turned swiftly round. Defouqueblize had sprung to his feet—but was it really Defouqueblize?—this individual who, in a voice that was at once mocking, commanding and jubilant, exclaimed:
“You mustn’t desert an old friend like this, Mr. Lafcadio. What-the-deuceki. No? Really? Trying to make off?”
There remained not a trace of the tipsy, uncanny old professor of a moment ago in this great strapping stalwart fellow in whom Lafcadio no longer hesitated to recognise—Protos—a bigger, taller, stouter Protos who gave an impression of formidable power.
“Ah! it’s you, Protos?” said he, simply. “That’s better. I didn’t recognise you till this minute.”
For however terrible the reality might be, Lafcadio preferred it to the grotesque nightmare in which he had been struggling for the last hour.
“Not badly got up, was I? I’d taken special pains for your sake. But all the same, my dear fellow, it’s you who ought to take to spectacles. You’ll get into trouble if you’re not cleverer than that at recognising ‘the slim.’”
What half-forgotten memories this catchwordthe slimaroused in Cadio’s mind! Theslim, in their slang, at the time Protos and he were schoolboys together, were a genus who, for one reason or another, did not present to all persons and in all places the same appearance. According to the boys’ classification, there were many categories of the “slim,” more or less elegant and praiseworthy; and answering to them and opposed to them, was the single great family of “the crusted,” whose members strutted and swaggered through every walk of life, high or low.
Our schoolfellows accepted the following axioms:
1. The slim recognise each other.
2. The crusted do not recognise the slim.
All this came back to Lafcadio; as his nature was to throw himself into the spirit of the game, whatever it might be, he smiled. Protos went on:
“All the same, it was lucky I happened to turn up the other day, eh?... Not altogether by accident, maybe. I like keeping an eye on young novices: they’ve got ideas; they’re enterprising; they’re smart. But they’re too much inclined to think they can do without advice. Your handiwork the other night, my dear fellow, was sadly in need of touching up.... To wear a tile of that kind on one’s head when one’s out on the job! Was there ever such a notion? With the hatter’s address in the lining too! Why! you’d have been collared before the week was out. But when it’s a case of old friends I’ve a feeling heart—and, what’s more, I’ll prove it. Do you know, I used to be very fond of you, Cadio. I always thought something might be made of you. With a handsome face like yours, we could have got round all the women, and, for the matter of that, God forgive me! bled one or two of the men into the bargain. You can’t think how glad I was to have news of you at last and to hear you were coming to Italy. Upon my soul, I was longing to know what had become of you since the days we used to go andsee that little wench of ours together. You’re not bad-looking even now. Oh! she knew a thing or two, did Carola!”
Lafcadio’s irritation was becoming more and more manifest—and likewise his endeavours to hide it; all this amused Protos prodigiously, though he pretended to notice nothing. He had taken a little round of leather out of his waistcoat pocket and was now examining it.
“Neatly cut out, eh?”
Lafcadio could have strangled him; he clenched his fists till his nails dug into his flesh. The other went on with his gibing:
“Damned good of me! Well worth the six thousand francs which—by the way, will you tell me why you didn’t pocket?”
Lafcadio made a movement of disgust:
“Do you take me for a thief?”
“Look here, my dear boy,” went on Protos quietly, “I’m not very fond of amateurs and I’d better tell you so at once quite frankly. And you know, it’s not a bit of use taking up the high and mighty line with me or playing the simpleton. You show promise—granted!—remarkable promise, but....”
“Stop your witticisms,” interrupted Lafcadio, whose anger was now uncontrollable. “What are you driving at? I committed an act of folly the other day—do you think I need to be told so? Yes! you have a weapon against me. I won’t ask whether it would be prudent of you, for your own sake, to use it. You want me to buy back that piece of leather? Very well, then, say so! Stop laughing and looking at me like that. You want money? How much?”
His tone was so determined that Protos fell back for a second, but recovered himself immediately.
“Gently! Gently!” he said. “Have I said anything ill-mannered? We are talking between friends—coolly. There’s no need to get excited. My word! Cadio, you’re younger than ever!”
But as he began to stroke his arm gently, Lafcadio jerked himself away.
“Let’s sit down,” went on Protos; “we shall talk more comfortably.”
He settled himself in a corner beside the door into the corridor and put his feet up on the opposite seat. Lafcadio thought he meant to bar the exit. Without a doubt Protos was carrying a revolver. He himself was unarmed. He reflected that if it came to a hand-to-hand struggle, he would certainly get the worst of it. But if for a moment he had contemplated flight, curiosity was already getting the upper hand—that passionate curiosity of his against which nothing—not even his personal safety—had ever been able to prevail. He sat down.
“Money? Oh, fie!” said Protos. He took a cigar out of his cigar-case and offered one to Lafcadio, who refused. “Perhaps you mind smoke?... Well, then, listen to me.” He took two or three puffs at his cigar and then said very calmly:
“No, no, Lafcadio, my friend, no, it isn’t money I want—it’s obedience. You don’t seem, my dear boy (excuse my frankness), you don’t seem to realise quite exactly what your situation is. You must force yourself to face it boldly. Let me help you a little.
“A youth, then, wished to escape from the social framework that hems us in; a sympathetic youth—a youth, indeed, entirely after my own heart—ingenuous and charmingly impulsive—for I don’t suppose there was much calculation in what he did.... I remember, Cadio, in the old days, though you were a great dab at figures, you would never consent to keep an account of your own expenses.... In short, the crusted scheme of things disgusts you.... I leave it to others to be astonished at that.... But what astonishesmeis that a person as intelligent as you, Cadio, should have thought it possible to quit a society as simply as all that, without stepping at the same moment into another; or that you should have thought it possible for any society to exist without laws.
“‘Lawless’—do you remember reading that somewhere? ‘Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea, not more lawless than we....’[I]A fine thing literature! Lafcadio, my friend, learn the law of the slim!”
“You might get on a little.”
“Why hurry? We’ve plenty of time before us. I’m not getting out till Rome. Lafcadio, my friend, it happens that a crime occasionally escapes the detectives. I’ll explain you why it is that we are more clever than they—it’s because our lives are at stake. Where the police fail, we succeed. Damn it, Lafcadio, you’ve made your choice; the thing’s done and it’s impossible now for you to escape. I should much prefer you to be obedient, because I should really be extremely grieved to hand an old friend like you over to the police. But what’s to be done? For the future you are in their power—or ours.”
“If you hand me over, you hand yourself over at the same time.”
“I hoped we were speaking seriously. Try and take this in, Lafcadio. The police collar people who kick up a row; but in Italy they’re glad to come to terms with ‘the slim.’ ‘Come to terms’—yes, I think that’s the right expression. I work a bit for the police myself. I’ve a way with me. I help to keep order. I don’t act on my own—I cause others to act.
“Come, come, Cadio, stop champing at the bit. There’s nothing very dreadful about my law. You exaggerate these things; so ingenuous—so impulsive! Do you think it wasn’t out of obedience and just because I willed it, that you picked up Mademoiselle Venitequa’s sleeve-link off your plate at dinner? Ah! how thoughtless—how idyllic an action! My poor Lafcadio, how you cursed yourself for that little action, eh? The bloody nuisance is that I wasn’t the only one to see it. Pooh! Don’t take on so; the waiter and the widow and the little girl are all in it too. Charming people! It lies entirely with you to have them for your friends. Lafcadio, my friend, be sensible. Do you give in?”
Out of excessive embarrassment perhaps, Lafcadio had taken up the line of not speaking. He sat stiff—his lips set, his eyes staring straight in front of him.
Protos went on, with a shrug of his shoulders:
“Rum chap!... and in reality so easy-going!... But perhaps you would have consented already if I had told you what I expect of you. Lafcadio, my friend, enlighten my perplexity. How is it that you, whom I left in such poverty, refrained from picking up a windfall of six thousand francs dropped at your feet? Does that seem to you natural? Old Monsieurde Baraglioul, Mademoiselle Venitequa told me, happened to die the day after Count Julius, his worthy son, came to pay you a visit; and the evening of the same day you chucked Mademoiselle Venitequa. Since then your connexion with Count Julius has become ... well! well! let’s say exceedingly intimate; would you mind explaining why? Lafcadio, my friend, in old days you were possessed to my knowledge of numerous uncles; since then your pedigree seems to me to have become slightly embaragliouled!... No, no, don’t say anything. I’m only joking. But what is one to suppose?... unless, indeed, you owe your present fortune to Mr. Julius himself?... in which case, allow me to say, that attractive as you are, Lafcadio, the affair seems to me considerably more scandalous still. Whichever way it may be, though, and whatever you let us conjecture, the thing is clear enough, Lafcadio, my friend, and your duty is as plain as a pike-staff—you must blackmail Julius. Come, come, don’t make a fuss! Blackmail is a wholesome institution, necessary for the maintenance of morale. What! what! are you going to leave me?”
Lafcadio had risen.
“Let me pass!” he cried, striding over Protos’s body. Stretched across the compartment from one seat to the other, the latter made no movement to stop him. Lafcadio, astonished at not finding himself detained, opened the corridor door and, as he went off:
“I’m not running away,” he said. “Don’t be alarmed. You can keep your eye on me. But anything is better than listening to you any longer. Excuse me if I prefer the police. Go and inform them. I am ready.”
On that same day the Anthimes arrived from Milan by the evening train. As they travelled third it was not till they reached Rome that they saw the Comtesse de Baraglioul and her daughter, who had come from Paris in a sleeping-car of the same train.
A few hours before the arrival of the telegram announcing Fleurissoire’s death, the Countess had received a letter from her husband; the Count had written eloquently of the immense pleasure his unexpected meeting with Lafcadio had caused him. Doubtless he had not breathed the faintest word of allusion to that semi-fraternity which, in Julius’s eyes, invested the young man with a perfidious charm (Julius, faithful to his father’s commands, had never had any open explanation with his wife, any more than with Lafcadio himself), but certain hints, certain reticences had been sufficient to enlighten the Countess; I am not quite sure even that Julius, who had very little to amuse him in the daily round of his bourgeois existence, did not find some pleasure in fluttering about the scandal and singeing the tips of his wings. I am not sure either that Lafcadio’s presence at Rome, the hope of meeting him again, had not something—had not a great deal—to do with Genevieve’s decision to accompany her mother.
Julius was there to meet them at the station. He hurried them back to the Grand Hotel, without speaking more than a word or two to the Anthimes, whom he was to meet next day at the funeral. The latter went to the hotel in the Via Bocca di Leone, where they had stayed for a day or two during their first visit to Rome.
Marguerite brought the author good news. Not a single hitch remained in the way of the Academy election; Cardinal André had semi-officially informed her the day before that there was no need even for the candidate to pay any further visits; the Academy was advancing to welcome him with open doors.
“You see!” said Marguerite. “What did I tell you in Paris?Tout vient à point.... One has nothing to do in this world but to wait.”
“And not to change,” added Julius, with an air of compunction, raising his wife’s hand to his lips, and not noticing his daughter’s eyes grow big with contempt as they dwelt on him. “Faithful to you, to my opinions, to my principles! Perseverance is the most indispensable of virtues.”
The recollection of his recent wild-goose chase had already faded from his mind, as well as every opinion that was other than orthodox, and every intention that was other than proper. Now that he knew the facts, he recovered his balance without an effort. He was filled with admiration for the subtle consistency which his mind had shown in its temporary deviation. It was nothewho had changed—it was the Pope!
“On the contrary, my opinions have been extraordinarily consistent,” he said to himself, “extraordinarily logical. The difficulty is to know where to draw the line. Poor Fleurissoire perished from having gone behind the scenes. The simplest course for the simple-minded is to draw the line at the things they know. It was this hideous secret that killed him. Knowledge never strengthens any but the strong.... No matter! I am glad thatCarola was able to warn the police. It allows me to meditate with greater freedom.... All the same, if Armand-Dubois knew that it was not the real Holy Father who was responsible for his losses and his exile, what a consolation it would be for him—what an encouragement in his faith—what a solace and relief! To-morrow, after the funeral, I must really speak to him.”
The funeral did not attract much of a concourse. Three carriages followed the hearse. It was raining. In the first carriage came Arnica, supported by the friendly presence of Blafaphas (as soon as she was out of mourning, he no doubt married her); they had left Pau together two days earlier (the thought of abandoning the widow in her grief, of allowing her to take the long journey all by herself, was intolerable to Blafaphas; and for what? Had he not gone into mourning like one of the family? Was any relation in the world equal to a friend like him?), but on account of their unfortunately missing one of their trains, they arrived in Rome only a few hours before the ceremony.
In the last carriage were Madame Armand-Dubois with the Countess and her daughter; in the second, the Count and Anthime Armand-Dubois.
No allusion was made over Fleurissoire’s grave to his unlucky adventure. But on the way back from the cemetery, as soon as Julius de Baraglioul was alone with Anthime, he began:
“I promised you I would intercede on your behalf with his Holiness.”
“God is my witness that I never asked you to.”
“True! But I was so outraged by the state of destitution in which the Church had abandoned you, that I listened only to my own heart.”
“God is my witness that I never complained.”
“I know ... I know ... I was irritated to death by your resignation! And even—since you insist—I must admit, my dear Anthime, that it seemed to me a proof of pride rather than sanctity, and the last time I saw you at Milan that exaggerated resignation of yours struck me really as savouring more of rebellion than of true piety, and was extremely distasteful to me as a Christian. God didn’t demand as much of you as all that! To speak frankly, I was shocked by your attitude.”
“And I, my dear brother—perhaps I too may be allowed to say so now—was grieved by yours. Wasn’t it you yourself who urged me to rebel and....”
Julius, who was getting heated, interrupted him:
“My own experience has sufficiently proved to myself—and to others—during the whole course of my career, that it is perfectly possible to be an excellent Christian, without disdaining the legitimate advantages of the state of life to which it pleases God to call us. The fault that I found with your attitude was precisely that its affectation seemed to give it an appearance of superiority over mine.”
“God is my witness that....”
“Oh, don’t go on calling God to witness!” interrupted Julius again. “God has nothing to do with it. I am merely explaining that when I say that your attitude was almost one of rebellion ... I mean what would be rebellion for me; and what I find fault with is precisely that while you get credit for submitting to injustice, you leaveother people to rebel for you. As for me, I wouldn’t accept the Church’s being in the wrong; while you with your air of not letting butter melt in your mouth, reallyputher in the wrong. So I made up my mind to complain in your stead. You’ll see in a moment how right I was to be indignant.”