“Headache? And what head would not ache, good little Jambes des Femmes?”
James Femms remembered that it was Sonoff’s quaint pronunciation of his detested name that had first suggested the thought of changing it, in his secret meditations, to the softened grace, the Parisian flavor, of Jambes des Femmes. A rush of gratitude welled in him.
“Sonoff—I have guessed.” He laid his hand horizontally above the pocket where he carried his priceless stylograph, filigreed in the very flower of the Rutherford B. Hayes manner. “It is the heart that aches. And I have found the cure. Come!”
Silently he led the antiquesonneurthrough theentresoland to the porch.
“There!” He flung his hand in a wide, fine gesture.
Sonoff blinked.
“Mon porte-chapeaux.” He spoke with no zest, no vestige of his quondamjoie de vivre. “I tired of it, Jambes.”
“Take it. I give it back to you!” James Femms repeated the wide arc of his flourish.
“But I no longer want it.” Sonoff shook his head and raised a hand to it as if in sudden pain. “I wear no ’at, mon brave Jambes. The pain—ah!”
Again his features were intorted.
“You won’t take it?” James Femms disbelieved. Surging up in his consciousness, innegable, compelling, he felt that conviction of mute, poignant yearning for reunity which had obsessed him from the first.
“I cannot. It saddens me to behold it. It stirs,mon vieux, memories. Ah—the pain—the pain.” He pressed spatulate fingers to his temples and a groan forced passage between his teeth. “It comes back to me at the sight.”
“It makes your head ache—theporte-chapeaux?” James Femms regarded him incredulously.
THE BECKET (ACTUAL SIZE)Note 1. The perfect hand-wrought groining. Note 2. Observe the accurate spleening of the old handicraftsmen.
THE BECKET (ACTUAL SIZE)Note 1. The perfect hand-wrought groining. Note 2. Observe the accurate spleening of the old handicraftsmen.
THE BECKET (ACTUAL SIZE)
Note 1. The perfect hand-wrought groining. Note 2. Observe the accurate spleening of the old handicraftsmen.
“But yes. It was then that they began, the headaches—thenight that the becket lost itself. I woke, that day, happy; they had listened,enfin, those adder-deaf imbeciles of the telephone; the bells were tuned at last to the F sharp; I was free from the ignominy of the E—— I sang, that day, my friend. I wasgaie! I laughed as I snatched up my hat from the becket where, of old habit, I had hung it. Lightly, as a schoolboy is light, I placed it on my head; I tilted it; I was myself, the self that took them by storm that night in Philadelphia when I rang the overture from ‘Wilhelm Tell,’ using my feet for thebasso profundo! All day among my new bells I was that self. And at night, returning with song in my heart and a tin of caviare and acaracheof vodka below my arms, I was that self. But ah, when I would have slept—the pain—the pain, mon Jambes! I shudder at the thought of it! I walked the floor in torment, as how often I have walked it since.”
He pressed his temples again.
“And it was while I walked that I observed the vanishment of the becket. It was gone. I do not know where, nor how—I only know that the sight of theporte-chapeauxwas hateful. I could not endure to behold it. I sold it, and the pain, if no less, was easier to bear.”
James Femms heard him as one who listens to the opaque ventriloquial speech of dreams. Dimly, remotely, but with a dawning fervor of conviction, understanding burst in upon him. He lifted his hands in a swift, furtive movement; his fingers penetrated the plush-like silky depths of Sonoff’s hair. They closed upon a surface that James Femms knew as intimately by touch as if his eyes beheld it through his worm-hole lens. Delicately, with the merciful cruelty of the surgeon, disregarding the anguished shriek of his patient, he drew forth the missing becket. A profound, shuddering sigh came from Sonoff.
With hands that thrilled voluptuously at the delicious caress of that spleened surface, but still were swift and sure to their task, James Femms replaced the becket in its emplacement and stood back, his eyes intoxicated with the charm of the perfect spleen-craft, the cool, proud beauty of the hand-groined base.
The ether, like a restless, moaning sea upon which an instant calm descends, was permeated with a vast, abiding peace.
Sonoff clasped James Femms to him, kissed his cheeks.
PROFILE VIEW OF THE PORTE-CHAPEAUX OF NOISETTE À CHEVAL RECONSTRUCTED AND IN USEI. The lost becket. II. Bassine
PROFILE VIEW OF THE PORTE-CHAPEAUX OF NOISETTE À CHEVAL RECONSTRUCTED AND IN USEI. The lost becket. II. Bassine
PROFILE VIEW OF THE PORTE-CHAPEAUX OF NOISETTE À CHEVAL RECONSTRUCTED AND IN USE
I. The lost becket. II. Bassine
“The pain! It is gone! Ah, mon cher Jambes des Femmes—what can I say to you—how shall I repay you?”
James Femms said nothing. His eyes, held and fascinated, drank in the fragrant loveliness of the ambernoisette à cheval, thrilled under the thin, silvery aroma of its melodious oneness.
He was but distantly aware of a voice, Sonoff’s voice, far-away, elfin-sweet with the echoes of a hundred blending bells.
“Keep it, Jambes des Femmes, keep it always in proof and token of my gratitude! Keep it, des Femmes, in memory of Mikail Sonoff Sonoffovitch!”
James Femms did not know that he had gone.