"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his nervous
crises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding some
pretext for making himself militarily insupportable.
This time chance had favored him.
He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proof
of a photograph that I knew well.
"What is that?" he repeated disdainfully.
Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none too
kindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room not to be
convinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.
I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in the
drawer.
But my calmness did not pacify him.
"Henceforth," he said, "take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes of
your gallantry with the official papers."
He added, with a smile that spoke insult:
"It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut."
"André," I said, and I was white, "I demand--"
He stood up to the full height of his stature.
"Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you to
speak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I should
think--"
"André!"
Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait the
replica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.
"There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselves
you will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?"
And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,
humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:
"_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
On aime bien, on aime bien,
Nini, Peau de Chien_."
For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My exasperation was
too deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for his
avatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed always
some allusion--
"The situation is intolerable," I said to myself. "It cannot last
longer."
It was to cease very soon.
One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I had
scarcely glanced at the index of the _Zeitschrift_, the German review
of which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollable
amazement. I had just read: _"Reise und Entdeckungen zwei
fronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants de
Saint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara."_
At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.
"Anything interesting in this number?"
"No," I answered carelessly.
"Let's see."