"Do you like that tall boy with the wild red hair?"
"Yes, I like him," and this time, m'sieu, I told her the truth.
"He has imagination," the witch whispered. "Many big words are intimate
realities to him. He has capacity for a greater hunger than you and me.
In him live powerful resentments. He does not like his own Government;
he does not like this one. I have heard him talk so passionately of the
world's injustice, as if he had just discovered it--and I believe he
has!
"He met a girl who was hungry--a little whore of the streets,
merely--and he was pitying, and then angry, as if she were the first
ever known.... Oh, Marie, one thinks of the girls who have suffered
hunger and grief in the streets of the cities of the world, not only
this week, but the past year and the years before--I see the vast army
of them, wide as the very heavens, spirits made wholly of memories
of grief and hunger, and shame ... and thinking of them one goes on,
m'amselle, one drinks one's coffee. But he finds one, and cannot
himself eat or sleep.
"I heard him say to that horse-faced Hungarian--'But I say she alone
is enough to damn us all.... I say we deserve fire and pestilence for
letting her go alone in the streets, hungry and sad....
"'Damn you,' he said to the Hungarian, who looked away and sort of
yawned, 'you have never been hungry, or ashamed. Even at the front an
orderly made your bed for you and you knew you were better than he!'"
The witch went on: "He has imagination--he has passion and faith....
And, Marie"--the witch brought her gray, wrinkled face near
mine--"Marie, he has nothing else. Even the few dollars due from his
uncle"--she closed her eyes and smiled, "are slightly delayed!
"He has much of what I have little, but materially, he has nothing. He
is a walking aspiration, a dynamo running on hope alone.... I think I
shall give the Magic Ring to him," the witch looked at me as if she
expected me to exclaim my admiration of her wisdom.
"He could make himself the richest, the most powerful man in the
world," she added.
"And how can I help you in this plan?" I asked.
"You can give him the ring!"
I was excited, thinking of being the one to bring you great riches, and
power!
"But, Madame! why do you yourself not give him the ring?"
"You know why! You are young and pretty. If I offered him the ring he
would be afraid of it. When he came to turn the ring in the ritual of
the wish, he might remember me, and fear my magic.
"Here in the White Hen he tries not to look at me, though he looks
at everyone else. He sees in me the reflection of the chaos he would
eliminate! He has made a pattern that he calls truth and he will not
let me into it. It is with me as with the little hungry whore of the
streets. We do not belong. If we are true his plan of perfection, his
brave Faith, are maladjusted, and too simply stated. He can see me, my
dear, but he tries not to see me.... I could not myself give him the
ring. Will you?"
"Yes," I said.
"When?"
"Tomorrow." I wondered what would come of my rashness. "Tomorrow is
Monday. He will be here, doubtless."
The witch smiled knowingly. "Tomorrow he has an engagement at the _Café
de Lilas_ at about noon with another painter, who will not be there.
You go to the _Lilas_ a few minutes after noon.... Tell him that you
are the witch! I will be in the shadow in the entrance of the _Bal
Bullier_ across the boulevard!"