Before the _Boul' Mich'_ entrance of the _Jardins de Luxembourg_, he
stood thinking,--tall and thin in his old corduroys, his orange hair
bare to the breeze. Under the trees it was dark. Looking through the
dark and beyond, small and clear like something seen through a reversed
telescope, he saw children in bright clothing launching sailboats in
the fountain pond.
An old woman cried in a high desperate voice: "_L'Intransigeant.
L'Intransigeant. L'Intrans.... L'Intrans. Paris Midi. L'Information.
Paris Sport. L'Intrans._"
She brushed against him.
Spike looked down into the face of the monstrous woman. His heart
stopped and a shudder ran up his spine into his hair.
"_L'Intrans!_" she shouted, thrusting a paper at him, and added in a
low tone: "Good day, my friend!"
Spike walked quickly into the Gardens. When he branched off the broad
main path she was at his elbow.
"You walk so fast," said the old woman.
He looked straight ahead. He was trembling. There was a vacant,
fainting feeling in his knees. She was unclean. Her wrinkled gray
face, with bluish lips, and slow, dead eyes, was too ugly in the keen
sunlight.
"You walk so fast," she complained softly. "You should be home
thinking!"
"Who are you?"
"Wish for happiness," pleaded the old woman. "Go back to your room and
wish for happiness." She grasped his arm.
He could not draw away, and stood still feeling his hair moving on his
head. The horror of her knowing his thoughts was intolerable.
"What do you want?" he asked, facing her. "Who are you?"
She opened her lips in a cackling laugh. She dropped her bundle of
papers into her hand and flung them with a long sweep of her arm higher
than a tree. They made a fluttering and a crackling; sunlight touched
them brilliantly and they were white doves, wheeling down and away in a
rush of beating wings.
A witch! She watched the birds a moment, then turned her face quickly
toward him, expecting approbation. He could not look at her.
"You have one day left!" She glared. "One day only!" The glare became
an ingratiating smile and this was more terrible.
"Wish for happiness," she repeated. "That's best! Easiest! Biggest!" He
tried to pull his arm away.
"Or a beautiful woman," she added, lewdly tightening her grasp. "Or a
beautiful woman."
He held himself rigid, his face averted. The old woman sighed. She
stroked his arm and let it go.
"Or gold!" she said, resignedly.
She went quickly down the path.
Flecker stood in a daze watching her move swiftly among the trees,
her limber feet grasping, pressing down against the earth, her loose
gray skirt waving behind her. Because she had touched it he hated his
own arm. His horror had changed the Gardens. Trees leaned toward him,
their trunks like bodies straining to escape the imprisonment of earth,
people passing smiled and frowned, moved their arms and legs like
goblins. The white clouds in the blue sky were bright and terrifying.
Flecker's hands shook as he felt for his cigarettes. His hair settled
down slowly.
Back in his room he thought of her bewildering words, but could reach
no decision. She was a witch.... The dark, beautiful girl in the _Café
de Lilas_ was also a witch. Were they perhaps the same witch? The
thought made him sad. His sweetheart was gone. Now he knew his days had
run forward only in hope of seeing her.
Now, indeed, he had need of his wish for happiness! The old woman was
right. But there was not the will in him to make the wish. The beating
glow of the magic ring grew as night came. Spike watched its trembling
reflection for a long, silent time.