"Ah--a puppet show!"
"No, not exactly. I will explain.... No; come to think of it, there is
no explanation. But it is extremely amusing. To-night, for instance, I
nearly laughed.... Have you ever watched shadows upon a wall? Really,
they are diverting beyond belief."
"Yes. I have watched them often. They are more real to me than actual
people, because they are uglier. Beauty is a lie!"
A note of dreadful conviction crept into the hunchback's voice. Suvaroff
looked at him intently, and said, quite simply:
"What a bitter truth _you_ are, my friend!"
Minetti stared at Suvaroff, and he rose. "Perhaps I shall see you at
your puppet show some evening," he said. And, without waiting for a
reply, he left the room.
Suvaroff lay again all night upon his bed staring in a mute agony at the
ceiling. Once or twice he fancied he heard the sounds of music from the
next room. His heart leaped joyfully. But almost instantly his hopes
sank back, like spent swimmers in a relentless sea. It seemed as if his
brain were thirsting. He was in a pitiless desert of white-heated
thought, and there was not a cloud of oblivion upon the horizon of his
despair. Remembrance flamed like a molten sun, greedily withering every
green, refreshing thing in its path. How long before this dreadful
memory would consume him utterly?
"If I could only laugh!" he cried in his agony. "_If I could only
laugh!_"
* * *
All next day Suvaroff was in a fever; not a physical fever, but a mental
fever that burned with devastating insistence. He could not lie still
upon his bed, so he rose and stumbled about the city's streets. But
nothing diverted him. Before his eyes a sheet of fire burned, and a
blinding light seemed to shut out everything else from his vision. Even
his thoughts crackled like dry faggots in a flame.
"When evening comes," he said, "a breeze will spring up and I shall have
some relief." But almost at once he thought: "A breeze will do no good.
It will only make matters worse! I have heard that nothing puts out a
fire so quickly as a shower. Let me see--It is now the middle of
August.... It does not rain in this part of the world until October.
Well, I must wait until October, then. No; a breeze at evening will do
no good. I will go and watch the shadows again. Shadows are cool affairs
if one sits in them, but how...."
And he began to wonder how he could contrive to sit in shadows that fell
only on a wall.
How he got to the wine-shop he did not know, but at a late hour he found
himself sitting at his accustomed seat. His bottle of brandy stood
before him. To-night the shadows were blacker than ever, as if the fury
of the flames within him were providing these dancing figures with a
brighter background.
"These shadows are not the pictures of my thoughts," he said to himself.
"Neither are they chained souls seeking to escape. They are the smoke
from the fire in my head. They are the black smoke from my brain which
is slowly burning away!"
He sat for hours, staring at the wall. The figures came and went, but
they ceased to have any form or meaning. He merely sat and drank, and
stared.... All at once a strange shadow appeared. A shadow? No; a
phantom--a dreadful thing! Suvaroff leaned forward. His breath came
quickly, his body trembled in the grip of a convulsion, his hands were
clenched. He rose in his seat, and suddenly--quite suddenly, without
warning--he began to laugh.... The shadow halted in its flight across
the wall. Suvaroff circled the room with his gaze. In the center of the
wine-shop stood Flavio Minetti. Suvaroff sat down. He was still shaking
with laughter.
Presently Suvaroff was conscious that Minetti had disappeared. The fire
in his brain had ceased to burn. Instead his senses seemed chilled, not
disagreeably, but with a certain pleasant numbness. He glanced about.
What was he doing in such a strange, squalid place? And the brandy was
abominable! He called the waiter, paid him what was owing, and left at
once.
There was no mist in the air to-night. The sky was clear and a wisp of
moon crept on its disdainful way through the heavens.
"I shall sleep to-night," muttered Suvaroff, as he climbed up to his
room upon the third story of the Hôtel des Alpes Maritimes.
He undressed deliberately. All his former frenzy was gone. Shortly after
he had crawled into bed he heard a step on the landing. Then, as usual,
sounds began to drift down the passageway, not in heavy and clattering
fashion, but with a pattering quality like a bird upon a roof. And,
curiously, Suvaroff's thoughts wandered to other things, and a picture
of his native country flashed over him--Little Russia in the languid
embrace of summer--green and blue and golden. The soft notes of the
balalaika at twilight came to him, and the dim shapes of dancing
peasants, whirling like aspen-leaves in a fresh breeze. He remembered
the noonday laughter of skylarks; the pear-trees bending patiently
beneath their harvest; the placid river winding its willow-hedged way,
cutting the plain like a thin silver knife.
A fresh current of air began to blow upon him. He heard the creak of a
rusty hinge.
"He has opened the door," Suvaroff whispered. His teeth began to
chatter. "Nevertheless, I shall sleep to-night," he said to himself
reassuringly.
A faint footfall sounded upon the threshold.... Suvaroff drew the
bedclothes higher.