A week later I found myself again seated next him at a concert. In the
meantime I had seen him now and then, but only in passing. He seemed
depressed. The corners of his lips were tightened, his tanned cheeks had
a greyish tinge, his eyes were restless; and, between two numbers of
the programme, he murmured, tapping his fingers on his hat, “Do you ever
have bad days? Yes? Not pleasant, are they?”
Then something occurred from which all that I have to tell you followed.
There came into the concert-hall the heroine of one of those romances,
crimes, follies, or irregularities, call it what you will, which had
just attracted the “world's” stare. She passed us with her partner, and
sat down in a chair a few rows to our right. She kept turning her head
round, and at every turn I caught the gleam of her uneasy eyes. Some one
behind us said: “The brazen baggage!”
My companion turned full round, and glared at whoever it was who had
spoken. The change in him was quite remarkable. His lips were drawn back
from his teeth; he frowned; the scar on his temple had reddened.
“Ah!” he said to me. “The hue and cry! Contemptible! How I hate it! But
you wouldn't understand—!” he broke off, and slowly regained his usual
air of self-obliteration; he even seemed ashamed, and began trying to
brush his moustaches higher than ever, as if aware that his heat had
robbed them of neatness.
“I'm not myself, when I speak of such matters,” he said suddenly; and
began reading his programme, holding it upside down. A minute later,
however, he said in a peculiar voice: “There are people to be found who
object to vivisecting animals; but the vivisection of a woman, who minds
that? Will you tell me it's right, that because of some tragedy like
this—believe me, it is always a tragedy—we should hunt down a woman?
That her fellow-women should make an outcast of her? That we, who are
men, should make a prey of her? If I thought that....” Again he broke
off, staring very hard in front of him. “It is we who make them what
they are; and even if that is not so—why! if I thought there was a
woman in the world I could not take my hat off to—I—I—couldn't sleep at
night.” He got up from his seat, put on his old straw hat with trembling
fingers, and, without a glance back, went out, stumbling over the
chair-legs.
I sat there, horribly disturbed; the words, “One must try to be a
gentleman!” haunting me. When I came out, he was standing by the
entrance with one hand on his hip and the other on his dog. In that
attitude of waiting he was such a patient figure; the sun glared down
and showed the threadbare nature of his clothes and the thinness of
his brown hands, with their long fingers and nails yellow from tobacco.
Seeing me he came up the steps again, and raised his hat.
“I am glad to have caught you; please forget all that.” I asked if he
would do me the honour of dining at my hotel.
“Dine?” he repeated with the sort of smile a child gives if you offer
him a box of soldiers; “with the greatest pleasure. I seldom dine out,
but I think I can muster up a coat. Yes—yes—and at what time shall I
come? At half-past seven, and your hotel is—? Good! I shall be there.
Freda, mia cara, you will be alone this evening. You do not smoke
caporal, I fear. I find it fairly good; though it has too much bite.” He
walked off with Freda, puffing at his thin roll of caporal.
Once or twice he stopped, as if bewildered or beset by some sudden
doubt or memory; and every time he stopped, Freda licked his hand. They
disappeared round the corner of the street, and I went to my hotel to
see about dinner. On the way I met Jules le Ferrier, and asked him to
come too.
“My faith, yes!” he said, with the rosy pessimism characteristic of the
French editor. “Man must dine!”
At half-past six we assembled. My “Cosmopolitan” was in an old
frock-coat braided round the edges, buttoned high and tight, defining
more than ever the sharp lines of his shoulders and the slight kink of
his back; he had brought with him, too, a dark-peaked cap of military
shape, which he had evidently selected as more fitting to the coat than
a straw hat. He smelled slightly of some herb.
We sat down to dinner, and did not rise for two hours. He was a charming
guest, praised everything he ate—not with commonplaces, but in words
that made you feel it had given him real pleasure. At first, whenever
Jules made one of his caustic remarks, he looked quite pained, but
suddenly seemed to make up his mind that it was bark, not bite; and then
at each of them he would turn to me and say, “Aha! that's good—isn't
it?” With every glass of wine he became more gentle and more genial,
sitting very upright, and tightly buttoned-in; while the little white
wings of his moustache seemed about to leave him for a better world.
In spite of the most leading questions, however, we could not get him to
talk about himself, for even Jules, most cynical of men, had recognised
that he was a hero of romance. He would answer gently and precisely, and
then sit twisting his moustaches, perfectly unconscious that we wanted
more. Presently, as the wine went a little to his head, his thin, high
voice grew thinner, his cheeks became flushed, his eyes brighter; at the
end of dinner he said: “I hope I have not been noisy.”
We assured him that he had not been noisy enough. “You're laughing at
me,” he answered. “Surely I've been talking all the time!”
“Mon Dieu!” said Jules, “we have been looking for some fables of your
wars; but nothing—nothing, not enough to feed a frog!”
The old fellow looked troubled.
“To be sure!” he mused. “Let me think! there is that about Colhoun
at Gettysburg; and there's the story of Garibaldi and the Miller.” He
plunged into a tale, not at all about himself, which would have been
extremely dull, but for the conviction in his eyes, and the way he
stopped and commented. “So you see,” he ended, “that's the sort of
man Garibaldi was! I could tell you another tale of him.” Catching an
introspective look in Jules's eye, however, I proposed taking our cigars
over to the cafe opposite.
“Delightful!” the old fellow said: “We shall have a band and the fresh
air, and clear consciences for our cigars. I cannot like this smoking in
a room where there are ladies dining.”
He walked out in front of us, smoking with an air of great enjoyment.
Jules, glowing above his candid shirt and waistcoat, whispered to me,
“Mon cher Georges, how he is good!” then sighed, and added darkly: “The
poor man!”
We sat down at a little table. Close by, the branches of a plane-tree
rustled faintly; their leaves hung lifeless, speckled like the breasts
of birds, or black against the sky; then, caught by the breeze,
fluttered suddenly.
The old fellow sat, with head thrown back, a smile on his face, coming
now and then out of his enchanted dreams to drink coffee, answer our
questions, or hum the tune that the band was playing. The ash of his
cigar grew very long. One of those bizarre figures in Oriental garb,
who, night after night, offer their doubtful wares at a great price,
appeared in the white glare of a lamp, looked with a furtive smile at
his face, and glided back, discomfited by its unconsciousness. It was
a night for dreams! A faint, half-eastern scent in the air, of black
tobacco and spice; few people as yet at the little tables, the waiters
leisurely, the band soft! What was he dreaming of, that old fellow,
whose cigar-ash grew so long? Of youth, of his battles, of those things
that must be done by those who try to be gentlemen; perhaps only of his
dinner; anyway of something gilded in vague fashion as the light was
gilding the branches of the plane-tree.
Jules pulled my sleeve: “He sleeps.” He had smilingly dropped off; the
cigar-ash—that feathery tower of his dreams—had broken and fallen on his
sleeve. He awoke, and fell to dusting it.
The little tables round us began to fill. One of the bandsmen played a
czardas on the czymbal. Two young Frenchmen, talking loudly, sat down at
the adjoining table. They were discussing the lady who had been at the
concert that afternoon.
“It's a bet,” said one of them, “but there's the present man. I take
three weeks, that's enough 'elle est declassee; ce n'est que le premier
pas—'”
My old friend's cigar fell on the table. “Monsieur,” he stammered, “you
speak of a lady so, in a public place?”
The young man stared at him. “Who is this person?” he said to his
companion.
My guest took up Jules's glove that lay on the table; before either
of us could raise a finger, he had swung it in the speaker's face.
“Enough!” he said, and, dropping the glove, walked away.
We all jumped to our feet. I left Jules and hurried after him. His face
was grim, his eyes those of a creature who has been struck on a raw
place. He made a movement of his fingers which said plainly. “Leave me,
if you please!”
I went back to the cafe. The two young men had disappeared, so had
Jules, but everything else was going on just as before; the bandsman
still twanging out his czardas; the waiters serving drinks; the
orientals trying to sell their carpets. I paid the bill, sought out the
manager, and apologised. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said:
“An eccentric, your friend, nicht wahr?” Could he tell me where M. Le
Ferrier was? He could not. I left to look for Jules; could not find him,
and returned to my hotel disgusted. I was sorry for my old guest, but
vexed with him too; what business had he to carry his Quixotism to such
an unpleasant length? I tried to read. Eleven o'clock struck; the casino
disgorged a stream of people; the Place seemed fuller of life than ever;
then slowly it grew empty and quite dark. The whim seized me to go out.
It was a still night, very warm, very black. On one of the seats a
man and woman sat embraced, on another a girl was sobbing, on a
third—strange sight—a priest dozed. I became aware of some one at my
side; it was my old guest.
“If you are not too tired,” he said, “can you give me ten minutes?”
“Certainly; will you come in?”
“No, no; let us go down to the Terrace. I shan't keep you long.”
He did not speak again till we reached a seat above the pigeon-shooting
grounds; there, in a darkness denser for the string of lights still
burning in the town, we sat down.
“I owe you an apology,” he said; “first in the afternoon, then again
this evening—your guest—your friend's glove! I have behaved as no
gentleman should.” He was leaning forward with his hands on the handle
of a stick. His voice sounded broken and disturbed.
“Oh!” I muttered. “It's nothing!”'
“You are very good,” he sighed; “but I feel that I must explain. I
consider I owe this to you, but I must tell you I should not have the
courage if it were not for another reason. You see I have no friend.” He
looked at me with an uncertain smile. I bowed, and a minute or two later
he began....