Of what happened immediately afterwards I have but a confused memory. I
remember that Lola and I both fell on our knees beside the stabbed man,
and I remember his horrible staring eyes and open mouth. I remember
that, though she was white and shaky, she neither shrieked, went into
hysterics, nor fainted. I remember rushing down to the manager; I
remember running with him breathlessly through obscure passages of
the hotel in search of a doctor who was attending a sick member of the
staff. I remember the rush back, the doctor bending over the body, which
Lola had partially unclothed, and saying:
“He is dead. The blade has gone straight through his heart.”
And I have in my mind the unforgettable and awful picture of Anastasius
Papadopoulos disregarded in a corner of the room, with his absurd silk
hat on--some reflex impulse had caused him to pick it up and put it on
his head--sitting on the floor amid a welter of documents relating to
the death of the horse Sultan, one of which he was eagerly perusing.
After this my memory is clear. It was only the first awful shock and
horror of the thing that dazed me.
The man was dead, said the doctor. He must lie until the police arrived
and drew up the _proces-verbal_. The manager went to telephone to the
police, and while he was gone I told the doctor what had occurred.
Anastasius took no notice of us. Lola, holding her nerves under iron
control, stood bolt upright looking alternately at the doctor and
myself as we spoke. But she did not utter a word. Presently the manager
returned. The alarm had not been given in the hotel. No one knew
anything about the occurrence. Lola went into her bedroom and came back
with a sheet. The manager took it from her and threw it over the dead
man. The doctor stood by Anastasius. The end of a strip of sunlight by
the window just caught the dwarf in his corner.
“Get up,” said the doctor.
Anastasius, without raising his eyes from his papers, waved him away.
“I am busy. I am engaged on important papers of identification. He had a
white star on his forehead, and his tail was over a metre long.”
Lola approached him.
“Anastasius,” she said gently. He looked up with a radiant smile. “Put
away those papers.” Like a child he obeyed and scrambled to his feet.
Then, seeing the unfamiliar face of the doctor for the first time, he
executed one of his politest and most elaborate bows. The doctor after
looking at him intently for a while, turned to me.
“Mad. Utterly mad. Apparently he has no consciousness of what he has
done.”
He lured him to the sofa and sat beside him and began to talk in a low
tone of the contents of the papers. Anastasius replied cheerfully, proud
at being noticed by the stranger. The papers referred to a precious
secret, a gigantic combination, which he had spent years in maturing. I
shivered at the sound of his voice, and turned to Lola.
“This is no place for you. Go into your bedroom till you are wanted.”
I held the door open for her. She put her hands up to her face and
reeled, and I thought she would have fallen; but she roused herself.
“I don't want to break down--not yet. I shall if I'm left alone--come
and sit with me, for God's sake.”
“Very well,” said I.
She passed me and I followed; but at the door I turned and glanced round
the cheerful, sunny room. There, against the background of blue sky and
tree tops framed by the window, sat Anastasius Papadopoulos, swinging
his little legs and talking bombastically to the tanned and grizzled
doctor, and opposite stood the correctly attired hotel manager in
the attitude in which he habitually surveyed the lay-out of the table
d'hote, keeping watch beside the white-covered shape on the floor. I was
glad to shut the sight from my eyes. We waited silently in the bedroom,
Lola sitting on the bed and hiding her face in the pillows, and I
standing by the window and looking out at the smiling mockery of the
fair earth. An agonising spasm of pain--a _momento mori_--shot through
me and passed away. I thanked God that a few weeks would see the end of
me. I had always enjoyed the comedy of life. It had been to me a thing
of infinite jest. But this stupid, meaningless tragedy was carrying the
joke too far. My fastidiousness revolted at its vulgarity. I no longer
wished to inhabit a world where such jests were possible. . . . I had
never seen a man die before. I was surprised at the swiftness and
the ugliness of it. . . . I suddenly realised that I was smoking a
cigarette, which I was quite unconscious of having lit. I threw it away.
A minute afterwards I felt that if I did not smoke I should go crazy. So
I lit another. . . . The ghastly silliness of the murder! . . . Colonel
Bunnion's loud laugh rose from the terrace below, jarring horribly on
my ears. A long green praying mantis that had apparently mounted on the
bougainvillea against the hotel wall appeared in meditative stateliness
on the window-sill. I picked the insect up absent-mindedly, and began
to play with it. Lola's voice from the bed startled me and caused me to
drop the mantis. She spoke hoarsely.
“Tell me--what are they going to do with him?”
I turned round. She had raised a crushed face from the pillows, and
looked at me haggardly. I noticed a carafe of brandy and a siphon by the
bedside. I mixed her a strong dose, and, before replying, made her drink
it.
“They'll place him under restraint, that's all. He's not responsible for
his actions.”
“He did that once before--I told you--but without the knife--I wish I
could cry--I can't--You don't think it heartless of me--but my brain is
on fire--I shall always see it--I wish to God I had never asked him to
come--Why did I? My God, why did I?--It was my fault--I wanted to see
him--to judge for myself how much of the old Andre was left--there was
good in him once--I thought I might possibly help him--There was nothing
for me to do in the world--Without you any kind of old hell was good
enough--That's why I sent for him--When he came, after a bit, I was
afraid, and sent for you----”
“Afraid of what?” I asked.
“He asked me at once what money I had--Then there seemed to be no doubt
in his mind that I would join him--We spoke of you--the friend who could
advise me--He never said--what he said afterwards--I thought it kind
of him to consent to see you--I rang the bell and sent the chasseur for
you. I supposed Anastasius had gone home--I never thought of him. The
poor little man was sweet to me, just like a dog--a silent,
sympathetic dog--I spoke to him as I would to something that wouldn't
understand--all sorts of foolish things--Now and then a woman has to
empty her heart”--she shivered--her hands before her face.
“It's my fault, it's my fault.”
“These things are no one's fault,” I said gently. But just as I was
beginning to console her with what thumb-marked scraps of platitude I
could collect--the only philosophy after all, such is the futility of
systems, adequate to the deep issues of life--the door opened and the
manager announced that the police had arrived.
We went through the ordeal of the _proces-verbal_. Anastasius,
confronted with his victim, had no memory of what had occurred. He
shrieked and shrank and hid his face in Lola's dress. When he was forced
to speak he declared that the dead man was not Captain Vauvenarde.
Captain Vauvenarde was at the Cercle Africain. He, himself, was seeking
him. He would take the gendarmes there, and they could arrest the
Captain for the murder of Sultan of which his papers contained
indubitable proofs. Eventually the poor little wretch was led away in
custody, proud and smiling, entirely convinced that he was leading his
captors to the arrest of Captain Vauvenarde. On the threshold he turned
and bowed to us so low that the brim of his silk hat touched the
floor. Then Lola's nerve gave way and she broke into a passion of awful
weeping.
The _commissaire de police_ secured the long thin knife (how the dwarf
had managed to conceal it on his small person was a mystery) and the
bundle of documents, and accompanied me to my room to see whether he had
left anything there to serve as a _piece de conviction_. We found
only the crumpled picture of the horse Sultan neatly pinned against my
bedroom wall, and on the floor a ribbon tied like a garter with a little
bell opposite the bow. On it was written “Santa Bianca,” and I knew it
was the collar of the beloved cat which he must have been carrying about
him for a talisman. The _commissaire_ took this also.
If you desire to know the details of the judicial proceedings connected
with the murder of Andre Marie-Joseph Vauvenarde, ex-Captain in the
Chasseurs d'Afrique, and the trial of Anastasius Papadopoulos, I must
refer you to the Algerian, Parisian, and London Press. There you will
find an eagerly picturesque account of the whole miserable affair. Now,
not only am I unable to compete with descriptive verbatim reporters
on their own ground, but also a consecutive statement, either bald or
graphic, of the tedious horrors Lola Brandt and I had to undergo,
would be foreign to the purpose of these notes, however far from their
original purpose an ironical destiny has caused them to wander. You know
nearly all that is necessary for you to know, so that when I am dead
you may not judge me too harshly. The remainder I can summarise in a few
words. At any rate, I have told the truth, often more naively than one
would have thought possible for a man who prided himself as much as I
did on his epicurean sophistication.
These have been days, as I say, of tedious horror. There have been
endless examinations, reconstructions of the crime, exposures in daring
publicity of the private lives of the protagonists of the lunatic drama.
The French judges and advocates have accepted the account given by Lola
and myself of our mutual relations with a certain mocking credulity. The
Press hasn't accepted it at all. It took as a matter of course the
view held by the none too noble victim. At first, seeing Lola shrug her
shoulders with supreme indifference as to her own reputation, I cared
but little for these insinuations. I wrote such letters to my sisters
and to Dale as I felt sure would be believed, and let the long-eared,
gaping world go hang. Besides, I had other things to think of. Physical
pain is insistent, and I have suffered damnable torture. The pettiness
of the legal inquiry has been also a maddening irritation. Nothing has
been too minute for the attention of the French judiciary. It seemed as
though the whole of the evil gang of the Cercle Africain were called as
witnesses. They testified as to Captain Vauvenarde's part proprietorship
of the hell--as to wrong practices that occurred there--as to the crazy
conduct of both Anastasius and myself on the occasion of my insane
visit. Officers of the Chasseurs d'Afrique were compelled further to
blacken the character of the dead man--he had been a notorious plucker
of pigeons during most of his military career, and when at last he was
caught red-handed palming the king at _ecarte_, he was forced to resign
his commission. Arabs came from the slums with appalling stories. Even
the stolid Saupiquet, dragged from Toulon, gave evidence as to the
five-franc bribe and the debt of fifteen sous, and identified the horse
Sultan by the crumpled photograph. Lola and I have been racked day
after day with questions--some, indeed, prompted by the suspicion that
Vauvenarde might have met his death directly by our hand instead of that
of Anastasius. It was the Procureur-general who said: “It can be argued
that you would benefit by the decease of the defunct.” I replied that
we could not benefit in any way. My sole object was to effect a
reconciliation between husband and wife. “Will you explain why you gave
yourself that trouble?” I never have smiled so grimly as I did then.
How could I explain my precious pursuit of the eumoirous to a French
Procureur-general? How could I put before him the point of view of a
semi-disembodied spirit? I replied with lame lack of originality that
my actions proceeded from disinterested friendship. “You are a pure
altruist then?” said he. “Very pure,” said I. . . . It was only the
facts of the scabbard of the knife having been found attached to the
dwarf's person beneath his clothes, and of certain rambling menaces
occurring in his Sultan papers that saved us from the indignity of being
arrested and put into the dock. . . .
During all this time I remained at the hotel at Mustapha Superieur. Lola
moved to a suite of rooms in another hotel a little way down the hill. I
saw her daily. At first she shrank from publicity and refused to go out,
save in a closed carriage to the town when her presence was necessary
at the inquiries. But after a time I persuaded her to brave the stare of
the curious and stroll with me among the eucalyptus woods above. We
cut ourselves off from other human companionship and felt like two lost
souls wandering alone through mist. She conducted herself with grave and
simple dignity. . . . Once or twice she visited Anastasius in prison.
She found him humanely treated and not despondent. He thought they
had arrested him for the poisoning of the horse, and laughed at their
foolishness. As they refused to return him his dossier, he occupied
himself in reconstructing it, and wrote pages and pages of incoherence
to prove the guilt of Captain Vauvenarde. He was hopelessly mad. . . .
The bond of pain bound me very close to Lola.
“What are you going to do with your life?” I asked her one day.
“So long as I have you as a friend, it doesn't greatly matter.”
“You forget,” I said, “that you can't have me much longer.”
“Are you going to leave me? It's not because I have dragged you through
all this dirt and horror. Another woman might say that of another
man--but not I of you. Why are you going to leave me? I want so
little--only to see you now and then--to keep the heart in me.”
“Can't you realise, that what I said in London is true?”
“No. I can't. It's unbelievable. You can't believe it yourself. If
you did, how could you go on behaving like anybody else--like me for
instance?”
“What would you do if you were condemned to die?”
She shuddered. “I should go mad with fear--I----” She broke off and
remained for some moments reflective, with knitted brow. Then she lifted
her head proudly. “No, I shouldn't. I should face it like you. Only
cowards are afraid. It's best to show things that you don't care a hang
for them.”
“Keep that sublime _je m'en fich'isme_ up when I'm dead and buried,”
said I, “and you'll pull through your life all right. The only thing you
must avoid is the pursuit of eumoiriety.”
“What on earth is that?” she asked.
“The last devastating vanity,” said I.
And so it is.
“When you are gone,” she said bravely, “I shall remember how strong and
true you were. It will make me strong too.”
I acquiesced silently in her proposition. In this age of flippancy
and scepticism, if a human soul proclaims sincerely its faith in the
divinity of a rabbit, in God's name don't disturb it. It is _something_
whereto to refer his aspirations, his resolves; it is a court of
arbitration, at the lowest, for his spiritual disputes; and the rabbit
will be as effective an oracle as any other. For are not all religions
but the strivings of the spirit towards crystallisation at some point
outside the environment of passions and appetites which is the flesh, so
that it can work untrammelled: and are not all gods but the accidental
forms, conditioned by circumstance, which this crystallisation takes?
All gods in their anthropo-, helio-, thero-, or what-not-morphic forms
are false; but, on the other hand, all gods in their spiritual essence
are true. So I do not deprecate my prospective unique position in Lola
Brandt's hagiology. It was better for her soul that I should occupy it.
Even if I were about to live my normal life out, like any other hearty
human, marry and beget children, I doubt whether I should attempt to
shake my wife's faith in my heroical qualities.
This was but a fragment of one among countless talks. Some were lighter
in tone, others darker, the mood of man being much like a child's
balloon which rises or falls as the strata of air are more rarefied or
more dense. Perhaps during the time of strain, the atmosphere was more
often rarefied, and our conversation had the day's depressing incidents
for its topics. We rarely spoke of the dead man. He was scarcely a
subject for panegyric, and it was useless to dwell on the memory of
his degradation. I think we only once talked of him deeply and at
any length, and that was on the day of the funeral. His brother, a
manufacturer at Clermont-Ferrand, and a widowed aunt, apparently his
only two surviving relatives, arrived in Algiers just in time to attend
the ceremony. They had seen the report of the murder in the newspapers
and had started forthwith. The brother, during an interview with Lola,
said bitter things to her, reproaching her with the man's downfall, and
cast on her the responsibility of his death.
“He spoke,” she said, “as if I had suggested the murder and practically
put the knife into the poor crazy little fellow's hand.”
The Vauvenardes must have been an amiable family.
“Before I came,” she said a little while later, “I still had
some tenderness for him--a woman has for the only man that has
been--really--in her life. I wish I could feel it now. I wish I could
feel some respect even. But I can't. If I could, it would lessen the
horror that has got hold of me to my bones.”
It was a torture to her generous soul that she could not grieve for him.
She could only shudder at the tragedy. In her heart she grieved more for
Anastasius Papadopoulos, and in so doing she was, in her feminine way,
self-accusative of callous lack of human feeling. It was my attempt to
bring her to a more rational state of mind that caused us to review the
dead man's career, and recapitulate the unpleasing incidents of the last
interview.
Of Captain Vauvenarde, no more. He has gone whither I am going. That his
soul may rest in peace is my earnest prayer. But I do not wish to meet
him.
Lola went tearless and strong through the horrible ordeal of
the judicial proceedings. She said I gave her courage. Perhaps,
unconsciously, I did. It was only when the end came that she broke down,
although she knew exactly what the end would be. And I, too, felt a lump
in my throat when they sentenced Anastasius Papadopoulos to the asylum,
and I saw him for the last time, the living parody of Napoleon III,
frock-coated and yellow-gloved, the precious, newly written dossier in
his hand, as he disappeared with a mournful smile from the court,
after bowing low to the judge and to us, without having understood the
significance of anything that had happened.
In the carriage that took us home she wept and sobbed bitterly.
“I loved him so. He was the only creature on earth that loved me. He
loved me as only a dog can love--or an angel.”
I let her cry. What could I say or do?
These have been weeks of tedious horror and pain. With the exception of
Colonel Bunnion, I have kept myself aloof from my fellow creatures
in the hotel, even taking my meals in my own rooms, not wishing to be
stared at as the hero of the scandal that convulsed the place. And with
regard to Colonel Bunnion shall I be accused of cynicism if I say that
I admitted him--not to my confidence--but to my company, because I know
that it delighted the honest but boring fellow to prove to himself that
he could rise above British prejudice and exhibit tact in dealing with
a man in a delicate position? For, mark you, all the world--even those
nearest and dearest to me as I soon discovered--believed that the wife
of the man who was murdered before my eyes was my mistress. Colonel
Bunnion was kind, and he meant to be kind. He was a gentleman for all
his wearisomeness, and his kindness was such as I could accept. But I
know what I say about him is true. Ye gods! Haven't I felt myself the
same swelling pride in my broadmindedness? When a man is going on my
journey he does not palter with truth.
Though I held myself aloof, as I say, from practically all my fellow
creatures here, I have not been cut off from the outside world. My
sisters, like this French court in Algiers, have accepted my statement
with polite incredulity. Their letters have been full of love,
half-veiled reproach, anxiety as to their social position, and an insane
desire to come and take care of me. This I have forbidden them to do.
The pain they would have inflicted on themselves, dear souls, would have
far outweighed the comfort I might have gained from their ministrations.
Then I have had piteous letters from Dale.
“. . . Your telegram reassured me, though I was puzzled. Now I get a
letter from Lola, telling me it's all off--that she never loved me--that
she valued my youth and my friendship, but that it is best for us not to
meet again. What is the meaning of it, Simon? For Heaven's sake tell me.
I can't think of anything else. I can't sleep. I am going off my
head. . . .”
Again. “. . . This awful newspaper report and your letter of
explanation--I have them side by side. Forgive me, Simon. I don't know
what to believe, where to turn. . . . I have looked up to you as the
best and straightest man I know. You must be. Yet why have you done
this? Why didn't you tell me she was married? Why didn't she tell me? I
can't write properly, my head is all on a buzz. The beastly papers say
you were living with her in Algiers--but you weren't, were you? It would
be too horrible. In fact, you say you weren't. But, all the same,
you have stolen her from me. It wasn't like you. . . . And this awful
murder. My God! you don't know what it all means to me. It's breaking my
heart. . . .”
And Lady Kynnersley wrote--with what object I scarcely know. The
situation was far beyond the poor lady's by-laws and regulations for the
upbringing of families and the conduct of life. The elemental mother
in her battled on the side of her only son--foolishly, irrationally,
unkindly. Her exordium was as correct as could be. The tragedy shocked
her, the scandal grieved her, the innuendoes of the Press she refused to
believe; she sympathised with me deeply. But then she turned from me
to Dale, and feminine unreason took possession of her pen. She bitterly
reproached herself for having spoken to me of Madame Brandt. Had she
known how passionate and real was this attachment, she would never have
interfered. The boy was broken-hearted. He accused me of having
stolen her from him--his own words. He took little interest in his
electioneering campaign, spoke badly, unconvincingly; spent hours in
alternate fits of listlessness and anger. She feared for her darling's
health and reason. She made an appeal to me who professed to love
him--if it were honourably possible, would I bring Madame Brandt back to
him? She was willing now to accept Dale's estimate of her worth. Could
I, at the least, prevail on Madame Brandt to give him some hope--of what
she did not know--but some hope that would save him from ruining his
career and “doing something desperate”?
And another letter from Dale:
“. . . I can't work at this election. For God's sake, give her back to
me. Then I won't care. What is Parliament to me without her? And the
election is as good as lost already. The other side has made as much as
possible of the scandal. . . .”
The only letters that have not been misery to read have come from
Eleanor Faversham. There was one passage which made me thank God that He
had created such women as Eleanor--
“Don't fret over the newspaper lies, dear. Those who love you--and why
shouldn't I love you still?--know the honourable gentleman that you are.
Write to me if it would ease your heart and tell me just what you feel
you can. Now and always you have my utter sympathy and understanding.”
And this is the woman of whose thousand virtues I dared to speak in
flippant jest.
Heaven forgive me.
After receiving Lady Kynnersley's appeal, I went to Lola. It was just
before the case came on at the Cour d'Assises. She had finished luncheon
in her private room and was sitting over her coffee. I joined her. She
wore the black blouse and skirt with which I have not yet been able
to grow familiar, as it robbed her of the peculiar fascinating quality
which I have tried to suggest by the word pantherine. Coffee over, we
moved to the window which opened on a little back garden--the room was
on the ground floor--in which grew prickly pear and mimosa, and newly
flowering heliotrope. I don't know why I should mention this, except
that some scenes impress themselves, for no particular reason, on the
memory, while others associated with more important incidents fade into
vagueness. I picked a bunch of heliotrope which she pinned at her bosom.
“Lola,” I said, “I want to speak to you seriously.”
She smiled wanly: “Do we ever speak otherwise these dreadful days?”
“It's about Dale. Read this,” said I, and I handed her Lady Kynnersley's
letter. She read it through and returned it to me.
“Well?”
“I asked you a week or two ago what you were going to do with your
life,” I said. “Does that letter offer you any suggestion?”
“I'm to give him some hope--what hope can I give him?”
“You're a free woman--free to marry. For the boy's sake the mother will
consent. When she knows you as well as we know you she will--”
“She will--what? Love me?”
“She's a woman not given to loving--except, in unexpected bursts, her
offspring. But she will respect you.”
She stood for a few moments silent, her arm resting against the window
jamb and her head on her arm. She remained there so long that at last I
rose and, looking at her face, saw that her eyes were full of tears. She
dashed them away with the back of her hand, gave me a swift look, and
went and sat in the shadow of the room. An action of this kind on the
part of a woman signifies a desire for solitude. I lit a cigarette and
went into the garden.
It was a sorry business. I saw as clearly as Lola that Lady Kynnersley
desired to purchase Dale's immediate happiness at any price, and that
the future might bring bitter repentance. But I offered no advice.
I have finished playing at Deputy Providence. A madman letting off
fireworks in a gunpowder factory plays a less dangerous game.
Presently she joined me and ran her arm through mine.
“I'll write to Dale this afternoon,” she said. “Don't let us talk of it
any more now. You are tired out. It's time for you to go and lie down.
I'll walk with you up the hill.”
It has come to this, that I must lie down for some hours during the day
lest I should fall to pieces.
“I suppose I'll have to,” I laughed. “What a thing it is to have the
wits of a man and the strength of a baby.”
She pressed my arm and said in her low caressing voice which I had not
heard for many weeks: “I shouldn't be so proud of those man's wits, if I
were you.”
I knew she said it playfully with reference to masculine non-perception
of the feminine; but I chose to take it broadly.
“My dear Lola,” said I, “it has been borne in upon me that I am the most
witless fool that the unwisdom of generations of English country squires
has ever succeeded in producing.”
“Don't talk rot,” she said, with foolishness in her eyes.
She accompanied me bareheaded in the sunshine to the gate of my hotel.
“Come and dine with me, if you're well enough,” she said as we parted.
I assented, and when the evening came I went. Did I not say that we were
like two lost souls wandering alone in the mist?
It was only when I rose to bid her good-night that she referred to Dale.
“I wrote to him this afternoon,” she announced curtly.
“You said you would do so.”
“Would you like to know what I told him?”
She put her hands behind her back and stood facing me, somewhat
defiantly, in all her magnificence. I smiled. Women, much as they scoff
at the blindness of our sex, are often transparent.
“It's your firm determination to tell me,” said I. “Well?”
She advanced a step nearer to me, and looked me straight in the eyes
defiantly.
“I told him that I loved you with all my heart and all my soul. I told
him that you didn't know it; that you didn't care a brass curse for me;
that you had acted as you thought best for the happiness of himself and
me. I told him that while you lived I could not think of another man.
I told him that if you could face Death with a smile on your face, he
might very well show the same courage and not chuck things right and
left just because a common woman wouldn't marry him or live with him and
spoil his career. There! That's what I told him. What do you think?”
“Heaven knows what effect it will have,” said I, wearily, for I was
very, very tired. “But why, my poor Lola, have you wasted your love on a
shadow like me?”
She answered after the foolish way of women.
I have not heard from either Dale or Lady Kynnersley. A day or two ago,
in reply to a telegram to Raggles, I learned that Dale had lost the
election.
This, then, is the end of my _apologia pro vita mea_, which I began with
so resonant a flourish of vainglory. I have said all that there is to be
said. Nothing more has happened or is likely to happen until they put me
under the earth. Oh, yes, I was forgetting. In spite of my Monte Cristo
munificence, poor Latimer has been hammered on the Stock Exchange. Poor
Lucy and the kids!
I shall have, I think, just enough strength left to reach Mentone--this
place is intolerable now--and there I shall put myself under the care of
a capable physician who, with his abominable drugs, will doubtless begin
the cheerful work of inducing the mental decay which I suppose must
precede physical dissolution.
I must confess that I am disappointed with the manner of my exit. I had
imagined it quite different. I had beheld myself turning with a smile
and a jest for one last view of the faces over which I, in my eumoirous
career, had cast the largesse of happiness, and the vanishing with a
gallant carelessness through the dusky portals. Instead of that, here
am I sneaking out of life by the back door, covering my eyes for very
shame. And glad? Oh, God, how glad I am to slink out of it!
I have indeed accomplished the thing which I set out to do. I have
severed a boy from the object of his passion. What an achievement
for the crowning glory of a lifetime! And at what a cost: one
fellow-creature's life and another's reason. On me lies the
responsibility. Vauvenarde, it is true, did not adorn this grey world,
but he drew the breath of life, and, through my jesting agency, it
was cut off. Anastasius Papadopoulos, had he not come under my malign
influence would have lived out his industrious, happy and dream-filled
days. Lesser, but still great price, too, has been paid. Jealous hatred,
misery and failure for the being I care most for in the world, the shame
of a sordid scandal to those that hold me dear, the hopeless love and
speedy mourning of a woman not without greatness.
I have tried to make a Tom Fool of Destiny--and Destiny has proved
itself to be the superior jester of the two, and has made a grim and
bedraggled Tom Fool of me.
. . . I must end this. I have just fallen in a faint on the floor, and
Rogers has revived me with some drops Hunnington had given me in view of
such a contingency.
These are the last words I shall write. Life is too transcendentally
humorous for a man not to take it seriously. Compared with it, Death is
but a shallow jest.