TWO EVENINGS.
For a rapid, short-lived acquaintanceship, above all other animals upon
this terrestrial sphere, commend me to the Continental drummer. To
commence, he is always easy to chum with quickly, and always ready to
make the first advances. He is a salted traveller. He knows what is the
best of everything, how to get it, and, moreover, how to get it
cheaply. He never plagues you with "shop," or secondhand guide-book
extracts, or sentiment about scenery and sunsets. Cheeriness and
_bons mots_ are part of his stock-in-trade; brazen good-fellowship
is his strong specialty.
Haigh and I went up to our hotel, asked for a bedroom, and in Spanish
style got a suite of apartments. We were just in time for dinner, and,
having arrived _en prince_ in our own vessel, were going to be
billeted amongst the _habitues_ of the place--garrison soldiers,
petty "proprietors," and priests--who sat round the superior table in
the big room. There we should have been in company that was vastly
respectable and prodigiously slow. But nearer the street entrance was
another smaller room, occupied chiefly by the commercial fraternity,
and thither we went, the landlord fully comprehending our taste.
"Gentlemen do like to have a bit of a fling to rub away the salt, don't
they, senores?" said he.
There is no shyness about the drummer. Before we had eaten our
preliminary olive, the fat man at the end of the table had struck up
conversation with Haigh; and before the _sopa_ was out of the
room, my next-door neighbour, a dapper Marseillais in the ready-made
clothing line, was calling me _amigo_. Whilst he helped himself
from amongst the red sausages and beans and beef and pork and other
trifles on the dish which held the next course, the fat Cuban sketched
out a plan for the evening; and as he doused his salad with
full-flavoured oil, my little Frenchman endorsed the proposal of the
flaxen-haired timber agent opposite that they should stand treat. And
while we munched our burnt almonds for dessert, some one ordered in a
bottle of bad sherry (which, being imported, is naturally thought more
of than the good country wine), and we agreed that we were all dear
friends, and had known one another intimately for a matter of ten
years. And then we rerolled fresh cigarettes, got our hats, and went to
a _cafe_, six of us, where we crammed our _petits verres_
with sugar-knobs and lighted them, meanwhile drinking bitter black
coffee till the blue demon of the brandy should have flickered away.
You know the style; it's the usual way of beginning.
After some half-hour's stay in the _cafe_ we seperated--Haigh and
the Cuban going off to a dance, whilst the little Frenchman carried me
off elsewhere. He had not defined our destination very clearly, and I
had not made inquiries, caring little where I went; but I was a little
put out at finding myself, after passing a guard of soldiers who stared
curiously, and going down many flights of steps, in an anarchist's
club.
Perhaps the government of his most Catholic Majesty Alfonzo XIII. can
hardly be termed paternal; but that was nothing to me. Politics I
abhor, and anarchistic politics I particularly loathe. But as beating
an abrupt retreat would have been rude, and as unnecessary rudeness is
not one of my characteristics, I made the best of it, and stayed and
looked about me.
One room of the place had been fitted up as a kind of chapel, with
ecclesiastical candles and other properties on a table at the farther
end, with portraits of Mazzini, Gambetta, Prim, and other worthies of
the Red Kidney on the walls, and with orderly pews on either side of
the central aisle. In this cellar temple a preacher was just winding up
a fervid discourse on the comparative merits of melinite and blasting
gelatine as we came up, and a minute later I was being introduced to
him. I think he was the leanest man I ever came across. He stood good
six feet high, and couldn't have weighed more than seven stone. You
could almost see the bone of his face through the thin covering of
skin; and if one might judge from the fact that his smart black
frockcoat fitted like a stocking, it was fair to surmise that he was
actually proud of his leanness. One got the idea that all the
nourishment of his body had gone out into his long white beard.
We went out of the general hall into a smaller room, where we sat and
smoked.
Taltavull, my new acquaintance, was simply charming. Till that night I
had thought that an anarchist could only attain to his peculiar creed
through the most comprehensive ignorance; but this man had arrived at
the result through the diametrically opposite path. He spoke almost all
European languages with fluency, and knew Lingua Franca, Arabic, and
Sanscrit. I never met any one so widely read; nor was his reading
superficial; and he possessed a memory that refused nothing. He could
quote verbatim page after page of such writers as Schopenhauer,
Voltaire, Mazzini. And far better than this, he had studied men of
every grade in the living flesh. What his nationality was I couldn't
say, though I should guess him as either a Pole or an Italian; but it
is certain that he had had the constant _entree_ to places where a
man of his opinions would presumably be looked upon with round-eyed
horror. And yet he owned to never concealing his views from any man.
"The sublime importance of our end, Monsieur Cospatric," said he,
"justifies any means taken to attain it. We are associated with
dynamite? Justly. Dynamite is a deplorable necessity."
If Taltavull had merely kept on in this strain, I should have put him
down as one of those human paradoxes a man is bound to meet if he
vagabondizes much, and should have forgotten him and his gruesome
schemes and ideals by the next day. But he touched upon a theme which,
in view of the purpose which had brought us to Minorca, made me cock my
ears with a new interest.
"It is this dynamite," he said, "that is at once our strongest weakness
and our greatest weapon. Were it not for terrorism, the official
upholders of old _regimes_ would crush us out of existence as
venomous reptiles. For instance, you noticed a guard of soldiers at the
door as you came in? At the least disturbance down here those men would
fire mum-chance amongst the throng, and be delighted at the chance of
doing so. You see our school of thought is recognized, and though hated
it is respected. They, thanks to their dread of certain reprisals,
recognize the truce so long as we are not engaged in active and open
war against society. This is a great advance, monsieur, is it not?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"You are not in sympathy with us?"
"Not in the very least," I told him frankly. "Your principles are far
too explosive for my taste."
Taltavull waved a bony hand deprecatingly. "The universal complaint,
monsieur. It is the one great drawback to our Cause that we have as yet
discovered no means of propagating it save only by the theory of
devastation. It is only strong men and, I regret to say it, desperate
men who can accept the gospel of dynamite. There are teeming millions
of others ready enough to blow up society as it is at present
constituted, but who shrink from the only means we have to propose."
"Then in your heart of hearts," said I, "you must know that you can
never succeed."
The man smiled. "If even dynamite were taken away from us, I should not
despair of success, monsieur. With it I am confident; the end is only a
question of time. But I hope to hasten the consummation. There is
another method, which if attained and properly applied, could, I most
strongly believe, reduce society to one dead and happy level. And,
monsieur, I believe the Fates have chosen me to be the prime instrument
in this matter. I shall invent or refind the talisman, and then it will
be in my own hands to sweep out the grades from all the people of the
earth, and tear down all their laws. Think of it!"
"By Jove, senor," said I, "universal anarchy! That's a strong order."
"It is possible, though, and I believe probable. With my talisman it
can be done. I have thought over every tittle of the means through
patient years of waiting, and I am confident that I, and I alone, can
uproot all existing institutions when once I have this trivial lever."
Taltavull was stalking up and down the room like a long black spectre.
He had forgotten my presence. His fanatical schemes enwrapped his mind
completely. There was a minute's silence, and then I said half
jokingly,--
"They'd make you king of the anarchists."
I must have repeated his thoughts, for he replied instantly in a
half-whisper, "They must;" but perhaps remembering that the admission
was a damaging one, he stopped in his walk and addressed me with folded
arms and lowered brow.
"I beg of you to spare me such jest, Monsieur Cospatric. This is the
one subject I have at heart; it has occupied my life-work; to it I have
surrendered fortune, station, everything. Whether or no I look for a
recompense cannot interest you."
"Oh, all right," said I; "sorry I spoke. A comprehensive ignorance of
all brands of politics must be my excuse."
He stared at me thoughtfully for a minute, and then: "I fear you think
me a visionary, monsieur, or even worse, a trifler with men's lives. If
you are illiberal, you may deem me no better than a common murderer.
Our need is misunderstood, misrepresented. But I will not attempt to
defend it with you now--some other time perhaps. Let me tell you of my
great hope, and then you will understand how little it has to do with
the bloody holocausts we are so unfortunately associated with." And
then this strange creature began to unfold a scheme of policy which
seemed to me the maddest my ears had ever listened to, and yet with
cogent method in its madness. Briefly, he wanted to produce diamonds in
huge quantities, and sow them broadcast over the globe. As gems they
would then be no longer valuable. Castes would cease to exist. And then
governments could be stamped out.
Viewed in the light of after recollection, the whole thing seems
absurd, even paltry. But as I heard it then, declaimed with hot,
earnest fluency by an enthusiast who had spent long, clever years over
his case, it appeared to prove itself up to the hilt. Of course his
arguments must have been warped, and his premises utterly false; but so
cleverly were they compiled that I could not detect the flaws, and in
spite of the outcry of common sense, which shouted "Wrong, wrong, wrong
" at the close of each period, I felt myself agreeing implicitly to
every clause. And when at length he stopped, exhausted with his own
enthusiasm and vehemence, I nodded a tacit agreement, and questioned
nothing.
"You must wonder," he went on, after a little pause, "what brings me to
use this world-forgotten spot as a workplace; why I come to a town
where there are eight women to one man, to an island whose whole energy
is not equal to that of the smallest city on the Continent. Have you
heard of Raymond Lully? Yes? Then you may remember that he was born at
Miramar in Mallorca, and lived much of his life in these Balearic
Islands. It was an old journal of his which I found in Rome that first
gave me the embryo of my idea. I went round to Barcelona, and crossed
to Palma. In the Conde de M----'s library I found in other manuscripts
mention of the same thing. Beyond doubt that queer mixture of a
man--missionary, fanatic, quack, what you will--had made diamonds as
far back as the year 1280. He owned to having stumbled across the
Recipe accidentally. Like other alchemists of his time, the
transmutation of metals was his aim, and the crystallization of part of
his graphite crucible was quite a matter of chance; but it occurred
most surely; and he analyzed the why and wherefore, and wrote down the
method of working in a place where he says it would last for all time
unless he chose to divulge it."
"Great heavens!" said I, jumping up, "then you've got it?"
The anarchist smiled sadly. "I have searched and searched and searched,
and have had others on the quest for me. But so far our efforts have
been all unsuccessful. I can understand your excitement"--("Thank my
several stars you can't," thought I, settling back into my chair)--"You
think my great regeneration is already in commencement? You may even
have had trivial qualms about your own relatives' trinkets? No,
Monsieur Cospatric, the time has unfortunately not yet come."
"You cannot expect me to condole with you."
"You say you are a non-combatant, and that is better than I could have
expected. You English as a rule are singularly averse to our
propaganda. But wait and see how affairs order themselves."
"It will be a long time to wait. I'm afraid you'll never find the
Recipe."
I had risen to my legs to say good-bye. Taltavull gripped my hand in
his bony fingers. "You don't know me, Monsieur Cospatric. We
anarchists never give in. I shall not cease searching for this Recipe
till I find it, or until I learn for certain that it has been
destroyed. Buenas noches."
"Good-night," said I, and went out into the moonlight. My little
Frenchman had gone long ago, and so I strolled alone down the steep
cobbled street, conning over many things. Verily this life is full of
strange coincidences.
Haigh was at the hotel. I met him coming out of the room
_vis-a-vis_ to ours across the passage. We went in to our
quarters, and sat in wicker-lined rocking-chairs (relic of the time
when the Yankee had Port Mahon for a rendezvous), and he told me many
things. "But," he concluded, "it was the music that drove me out. Those
dark-eyed factory girls were just fine, and _la marguerita_ as a
dance perfection. But the orchestra was an addition I couldn't stand at
any price. It was something too ghastly for words. All the brass sharp
and the strings screechy. So I just skipped, came back here, and
forgathered with a lone, lorn Englishman on his first trans-Channel
trip. He was a splendid find. Needless to say, he's going to write a
book about his travels, and as he seemed eager for information, I gave
him a lot. Honestly, he's the most stupendous Juggins it's ever been my
fate to meet; and that's putting the matter strongly, for since I've
been--er--on the wander, I've come across most brands of fool."
"What manner of man is he to look at?"
"Oh, middle height, tweeds and cap all to match and new for the trip,
big brown eyes that look at you dreamily, and a rather Jewish face. Not
a bad-looking chap by any means, but oh, such a particularly verdant
sort of greenhorn. The only one point on which he showed a single grain
of sense was in refusing to play poker with me. He didn't want to
offend me; he hoped most sincerely that I should take no offence, but a
friend had extracted a promise from him before he left home to play no
card games with strangers. The fact was, he was really so unskilful
with cards. I wasn't offended, was I? His candour was so refreshing
that I could truthfully say I was not."
I tried to talk about my evening, but Haigh would not listen. Said he:
"I'm not interested in that particular kind of nonsense. If you haven't
embraced the glorious principles of anarchy, old chappie, that's enough
to tell. You've met a wise man who's a damned fool, and I've met a fool
who, in points, is a wise man; and I prefer my own find. If you'd heard
him talking about his book that is to be, you'd have stood good chance
of choking with suppressed emotion. It's going to turn out a great
success. He will spend quite three weeks here and in Mallorca, so as to
'do' both islands thoroughly. And then he would like to go to Ivica,
but didn't know whether it was advisable to risk it. Could I advise
him? Were the people there very savage? Oh, my Juggins, my Juggins, you
were something too delicious for words when you got on that tack,
evidently wanting authentic adventures to be enlarged upon for the
great work, and obviously fearing most tremendously to encounter the
same. You won't go to Ivica, I can see that; but I'd bet all I'm worth
that the chapter on 'My Adventure with the Brigands' will appear with
full detail. I've a bit of imagination myself, and I guess I gave you
enough subject-matter to fudge it from most thrillingly."
"Hard lines to stuff the poor wretch too much."
"Not a bit of it, dear boy. The great stay-at-home B.P. will swallow
the yarn chapter and verse, and know for certain that poor harmless
Ivica is a den of robbers; Juggins will believe it all, smoke, flash,
and report, after he has retailed it twice, and will pose as a hero;
and I, I've had my amusement. You should hear him talk about the
illustrations, too. He can't draw or paint; hasn't a notion of either.
And he's never taken a photograph. But a friend advised him to get a
hand camera of the 'Absolutely Simple' pattern, and he's been exposing
plates right and left. A pro.'s to develop them when he gets home if he
can succeed in passing them through the Customs, and if he doesn't get
the thing confiscated for getting pictures of fortresses, both of which
(he informs me) are mighty and great dangers. And, by the way, that
reminds me. He got spilt off a donkey this afternoon, and damaged his
nose and jolted up the camera. Being blissfully ignorant of the
picture-machine's mechanisms he doesn't like to meddle with it, but
'I'm afraid something's gone inside, Mr. Haigh, because it rattles when
I shake it.' So thinking I owed the chap something for the fun I'd had
out of him, I said I'd get you to fix it up for him. You've been
bottle-washer to a photographer for a bit, haven't you?"
"Something in that line, but I've no tackle here."
"Oh, that's all right. Here's his dark-room lamp, and the shutters to
this room are solid. They'll keep out the moonlight."
We swung-to the coverings over the windows, and put a lighted candle
behind the cherry-glass shade, and then I took the little camera out of
its leather case. It was a cheap quarter-plate, and the jar had started
up two of the angles.
"The rest of the illustrations for that book will have to wait till
this is coopered up," said I.
"Are the plate-things inside spoiled?" Haigh asked.
"No, they're all right so far as exposure to light goes. However, I'll
look. Phew! what a mess! Every blessed one smashed except the last
couple. Your man will have to go over his ground again to replace
these."
"What's that contrivance?" asked Haigh, who was peering over my
shoulder.
"A spare dark-slide to use instead of the big plate-holder. Empty.
Look, I'll put the two sound plates in there, and you can tell the
Juggins that he can put those in his pocket and take the camera to a
photographer man to get mended. Not that I expect that any one can do
it here. But he can try."
"All right, thanks. It'll be rather a blow to him, but I must break it
gently. Well, ta-ta, good-night. I think you'll own I've picked up most
amusement for this evening?"