"How is Adele?" asked Flecker.
The poet put a suspicious question with a glance of his dark eyes. He
shrugged and after a pause, in which they were separated and thought
their own secret thoughts, he went on with the discussion. "Take love,
for instance. When you are in your sweetheart's arms--in the sweet
moment, aren't we happy then?"
"I wouldn't call it sweet," Spike put in at right angles to the
discussion. "You know what it is like? It is like hunting around
eagerly, yet apprehensively, for contact with the--um--life current
itself. And when you get down to it--smash! a million volts run through
you, a white light flares behind your eyes; your body is burnt and
thrown and you sink down dying, as if you had taken hold of a live wire
or been struck by lightning.... Then you feel better, as if all your
veins were placid brooks, as the fellow says."
The poet smiled as if with an effort. Before he could say what he
thought, Flecker hurried on: "That's not so good, I know. Now let me
try saying it. An arched way under the darkness. Me, I always start
up a long hill slowly. There's a silken wind; a vast dark loneliness;
and a thought, like a flickering light, apart, untouched. Who am I
towering above the sea of dark? One expects so much and experiences so
little.... But the pounding is my heart! There is an upward rush, as of
wind and sea. The little flickering thought swoons, unformed lightning
fills the void....
"As I was saying, I climb a hill slowly, and now I pause. From another
world I hear a murmuring, a Klaxon in a deserted street, far away....
In space a clock strikes two!... And when I pause again"--Spike rubbed
his red hair and looked into his wine,--"I feel like a continent! Can
you imagine that? My arm is a peninsula. I think a little thought and
it flows out into a white road, miles long. I sway above an abyss, and
I look backward through a tunnel of time...."
"To two o'clock, I suppose," quietly remarked the poet.
"And ahead to--something, to Fate. As I said at first I climb a hill
slowly. I pause to look about, to listen to the thunder of my heart.
Higher, higher.... Far off a clock strikes three. The little flickering
thought clinches tight its conscious eyes and dives. A gale on the top
of the long hill; a moment of suspended death, and _down_ into the
abyss, down and down, into a sea of light, turning over and over--the
flickering thought now balanced on my head, now whirling after me....
"I hear my own voice. I am tired in every part of me, and I want to be
alone; but being an understanding man, I know this is an impulse of
a moment only. I hear someone weeping softly; a cart rattles in the
street. A rooster crows. Sometimes I smoke a cigarette, and sometimes
I start very brilliant conversation--witty, you know--ironical. I feel
that every time I open my mouth a shining word will fall out. I feel
comfort singing in all my joints. In the darkness I smile slowly, pull
down the corners of my mouth--proud!"
"First you heard two o'clock, then three," murmured Marius, the Poet,
"Hm-m-m!"
"Nowadays," added Spike, "there's a lot of novelists who take you along
to show you how they yawn! They say: 'O woe! O disillusion' and think
they're describing something. But it's only themselves they describe.
When they call on Venus they see boredom in her eyes and rush away to
tell the world. If the world were as clever as I myself, it would blush
with shame for their unconscious, un-invited confessions."
Marius, himself, yawned. "_C'est Ca!..._ But I must get back to the
shop. Good-by!"
"Good-by! Pay you tomorrow!"
It was nearing dinner time. A bearded guard in a blue jacket clanged
the tall gates of the Gardens. Crowds flowed homeward in the pearl gray
dusk. The great motor buses were jammed. Clerks and stenographers,
fathers in tail coats and _pince nez_, slim, homely little girls
painted like toys, quick as birds and as attractive; workmen collapsed
in on themselves, weary, eyes down, as if there had never been a
barricade. Tired, intent women in black. A round-shouldered lad darted
from the shadow of a doorway to grasp the hands of a girl in a blue
serge, knee-length skirt and white stockings. Her face was as pinched
as his. They went off, arm in arm, without smiling. The unhappiness
of the homeward crowd immersed Flecker as he stood at the entrance
of the wine shop, his cheeks and his spirit warm with the wine he had
drunk. He saw a man of his own age moving painfully on a peg leg too
short for him. Prodded by the thought of a life imprisoned in lonely
suffering, Flecker moved impatiently away from the shop door, mixing
up his thoughts. Perhaps one got "used to it." For him it was still
intolerable to believe that there are men who hopefully live unhappy,
painful lives and are rewarded by a final suffering as meaningless to
them as the first. And so he didn't believe it!
He stood a moment on the curb. Down that way was his _pension_ and if
he went there he would eat his dinner sensibly, and keep control of the
day. Down this other way was the _Café du Dome_, and if he went there,
anything might happen. He decided to go to the _pension_....
Well, thinking back across the talk and the thoughts of the day--was
he any nearer decision? If happiness were joy, or contentment, or
anything he could name with a name, he did not want it. He did not want
to imprison himself for life in an unchanging condition. Still, he did
want to be happy. Should he hurry to his room now and make the wish,
and then go out on a tear?
Next him a woman hesitated to ford the traffic stream. Her gray skirt
and cloak hung loosely about a slight figure. One arm was doubled back,
the scrawny hand picked nervously at her shoulder, an unlovely gesture.
Her soft shoes were heelless, and as she stepped, hesitating, off the
curb and back on, her feet seemed limber as hands. Flecker moved a step
away. Her bent arm, her feet, her slight body under the voluminous
gray, were too scrawny and too limber.
Growing curiosity made him examine her from head to foot. Her hat
startled him for it was like a turban of black feathers, identical with
that of the witch in the café. Watching her nervous hand he realized
suddenly that one eye, like a round, black spot in an oyster, stared at
him from her profile. She smiled, showing long, gray teeth.
"Yes!" she said, nodding.
He walked quickly toward his _pension_. From the door he looked back
and saw her coming on her limber feet, her head up as if she thought
herself divinely beautiful, her face gashed with that arch smile.
Spike slammed the entrance door and stood leaning against it. He heard
soft footsteps outside drawing nearer quickly. Would the doorknob move?
Her footsteps did not pause but went on. On the stair Flecker felt the
strength had drained from his knees. Why had she so frightened him?
She was a monster. Her smile had touched him, made him share in her
monstrousness. But the horror was that she had said "Yes," as if she
had heard his thought.
Spike sat on the edge of his green, iron bed, his head in his hands.
He must decide. He must decide. He had omnipotence, and yet he had
been wasting his days facetiously. The encounter with the old woman,
the disappearance of the witch, and the four black hairs, confirmed
his faith in the magic ring. His world had changed. The supernatural
moved in it now. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then he would be Spike
Flecker again. He could endure it. What had the hideous old woman to do
with the witch? Spike got up and stood a long time at the one window
that gave on the street.... His fear had been ridiculous, he told
himself.
The priest was also late for dinner and they had the dining room to
themselves for the last course. Spike wanted to tell him everything.
The priest was wise. He read _Le Temps_ and the _Manchester Guardian_
and sometimes even the _Berliner Tageblatt_. He had a deep appreciation
of sound cooking, and talked of how the southern provinces would vote
in the spring elections. He was experienced enough, doubtless, to
believe anything, Flecker thought--but, alas, he was a priest. He might
report to the Pope Flecker's traffic with a witch, and the Pope, as any
one knows, has Pull.
Spike suspected that there was no such thing as a Christian witch; and
while the government was not a churchly one, still you couldn't tell
what might happen. He saw himself in _Le Matin_:
AMERICAN ART STUDENT MAKES COMPACT
WITH WITCH; OFFICIALS MOVE
TO DEPORT
Looking at the comedy five-reeler that night in the _rue de la Gaitie_
theater, he held his right hand down near the floor lest the usher see
the light of the magic ring and investigate.
The picture was not interesting. He sat in the warm, rhythmical dark,
pressed between a bearded _bourgeois_ and a pale, homely girl, and
dreamed....
He and the witch walked on a smooth hill under a tremendous summer sky.
He put his hand in her jacket pocket and found her hand there. She
looked into his face and smiled....