BOOK II: JULIUS DE BARAGLIOUL_The Vatican swindle

_“Puisqu’il ne faut jamais ôter le retour à personne.”_

--RETZ, VIII, p. 93.

On March 30th, at twelve o’clock at night, the Baragliouls got back to

Paris and went straight to their apartment in the Rue de Verneuil.

While Marguerite was getting ready for the night, Julius, with a small

lamp in his hand and slippers on his feet, went to his study--a room to

which he never returned without pleasure; it was soberly decorated and

furnished; one or two Lépines and a Boudin hung on the walls; in one

corner a marble bust of his wife by Chapu, which stood on a revolving

pedestal, made a patch of whiteness that was somewhat glaring; in the

middle of the room stood an enormous Renaissance table, littered with

books, pamphlets and prospectuses which had been accumulating during his

absence; in a salver of cloisonné enamel lay a few visiting-cards with

their corners turned down, and well in sight, apart from the others and

leaning against a bronze Barye, there was a letter addressed in a

handwriting which Julius recognised as his old father’s. He immediately

tore open the envelope and read as follows:

“MY DEAR SON,

“I have been growing much weaker lately. It is impossible to

misunderstand the nature of the warnings which tell me I must be

preparing to depart; and indeed I have not much to gain by delaying

longer.

“I know that you are returning to Paris to-night and I count on you

for doing me a service without delay. In order to make some

arrangements, of which I shall shortly inform you, it is necessary

for me to know whether a young man called Lafcadio Wluiki

(pronounced _Louki_--the _w_ and _i_ are hardly sounded) is still

living at No. 12 Impasse Claude-Bernard.

“I should be much obliged if you would be so good as to call at

this address and ask to see the said young man. (A novelist like

you will easily be able to invent some excuse for introducing

yourself.) I want to know:

“1. What the young man is doing;

“2. What he intends to do--whether he is ambitious, and, if so, in

what way?

“3. Lastly, tell me shortly what seem to you to be his means of

existence, his abilities, his inclinations and his tastes....

“Don’t try to see me for the present; I am in an unsociable mood.

You can give me the information I ask just as well by letter. If I

am inclined to talk or if I feel the final departure is at hand, I

will let you know.

“Yours affecˡʸ,

“JUSTE-AGÉNOR DE BARAGLIOUL.

“P.S. Don’t let it appear that you come from me. The young man

knows nothing of me and must continue to know nothing.

“Lafcadio Wluiki is now nineteen--a Roumanian subject--an orphan.

“I have looked at your last book. If after that you don’t get into

the Academy, such rubbish is unpardonable.”

There was no denying it, Julius’s last book had not been well received.

In spite of his fatigue, the novelist ran his eye over a bundle of

newspaper cuttings, in which he found his name mentioned with scant

indulgence. Then he opened a window and breathed for a moment the misty

night air. Julius’s study windows looked on to the gardens of an

Embassy--pools of lustral shadow, where eyes and mind could cleanse

themselves from the squalor of the streets and from the meannesses of

the world. The pure and thrilling note of a blackbird held him listening

a moment or two.... Then he went back to the bedroom where Marguerite

was already asleep.

As he was afraid of insomnia he took from the chest of drawers a bottle

of orange-flower water which he frequently used. Ever careful to observe

conjugal courtesy, he had taken the precaution of lowering the wick of

the lamp, before placing it where it would be least likely to disturb

the sleeper; but a slight tinkling of the glass as he put it down after

he had finished drinking, reached Marguerite, where she lay plunged in

unconsciousness; she gave an animal grunt and turned to the wall.

Julius, glad of an excuse for considering her awake, drew near the bed

and asked as he began to undress:

“Would you like to hear what my father says about my book?”

“Oh, my dear, your poor father has no feeling for literature. You’ve

told me so a hundred times,” murmured Marguerite whose one desire was to

go on sleeping. But Julius’s heart was too full.

“He says it’s unpardonable rubbish.”

There was a long silence, during which Marguerite sank once more into

the depths of slumber. Julius was already resigning himself to

uncompanioned solitude, when, making a desperate effort for his sake,

she rose again to the surface:

“I hope you’re not going to be upset about it.”

“I am taking it with perfect calm, as you can see,” answered Julius at

once. “But at the same time I really don’t think it’s my father’s place

to speak so--especially not my father’s--and especially not about that

book, which in reality is nothing from first to last but a monument in

his honour.”

Had not Julius, indeed, retraced in this book the old diplomat’s truly

representative career? As a companion picture to the turbulent follies

of romanticism, had he not glorified the dignified, the ordered, the

classic calm of Juste-Agénor’s existence in its twofold aspect,

political and domestic?

“Fortunately, you didn’t write it to please him.”

“He insinuates that I wrote _On the Heights_ in order to get into the

Academy.”

“Well! and if you did! Even if you did get into the Academy by writing a

fine book! What then?” And she added with contemptuous pity: “Let’s

hope, at any rate, that the reviews will set him right.”

Julius exploded.

“The reviews! Good God! The reviews!” he exclaimed, and then turning

furiously upon Marguerite as if it were her fault, added with a bitter

laugh:

“They do nothing but abuse me.”

At last Marguerite was effectually awakened.

“Is there a great deal of criticism?” she asked with solicitude.

“Yes, and a great deal of crocodile praise too.”

“Oh, how right you are to despise all those wretched journalists! Think

of what M. de Vogué wrote to you the day before yesterday: ‘A pen like

yours defends France like a sword!’”

“‘Threatened as France is with barbarism, a pen like yours defends her

better than a sword!’” corrected Julius.

“And when Cardinal André promised you his vote the other day, he

declared that you had the whole Church behind you.”

“A precious lot of good _that_’ll do me!”

“Oh, my dear Julius!”

“We’ve just seen in Anthime’s case what the protection of the clergy is

worth.”

“Julius, you’re getting bitter. You’ve often told me you didn’t work for

the hope of reward--nor for the sake of other people’s approval--that

your own was enough. You’ve even written some splendid things to that

effect.”

“I know, I know,” said Julius impatiently.

With such a rankling pain at his heart, this soothing syrup was of no

avail. He went back to his dressing-room.

Why did he let himself go in this lamentable fashion before his wife?

His was not the kind of trouble which could be comforted by the coddling

of a wife; pride--shame--should make him hide it in his heart.

“Rubbish!” All the time he was brushing his teeth, the word throbbed in

his temples and played havoc amongst his noblest thoughts. After all,

what did his last book matter? He forgot his father’s phrase--or at any

rate he forgot it was his father’s. For the first time in his life awful

questionings beset him. He, who up to that time had never met with

anything but approval and smiles, felt rising within him a doubt as to

the sincerity of those smiles, as to the value of that approval, as to

the value of his works, as to the reality of his thought, as to the

genuineness of his life. He returned to the bedroom, absent-mindedly

holding his tooth-glass in one hand and his tooth-brush in the other; he

placed the glass, which was half full of rose-coloured water, on the

chest of drawers, and put the brush in the glass; then he sat down at a

little satin-wood escritoire, where Marguerite did her writing. He

seized his wife’s pen-holder and, taking a sheet of paper, which was

tinted mauve and delicately perfumed, began:

“MY DEAR FATHER,

“I found your note awaiting me on my return home this evening. Your

errand shall be punctually performed to-morrow morning. I hope to

be able to manage the matter to your satisfaction, and by so doing

to give you a proof of my devoted attachment.”

For Julius was one of those noble natures whose true greatness flowers

amid the thorns of humiliation. Then, leaning back in his chair, he

remained a few moments, pen in hand, trying to turn his sentence:

“It is a matter of grief to me that you, of all people in the

world, should be the one to suspect my disinterestedness, which ...”

No! Perhaps:

“Do you think that literary honesty is less dear to me than ...”

The sentence wouldn’t come. Julius, who was in his night things, felt

that he was catching cold; he crumpled up the paper, took up his

tooth-glass and went back with it to his dressing-room, at the same time

throwing the crumpled letter into the slop-pail.

Just as he was getting into bed, he touched his wife upon the shoulder:

“And what do _you_ think of my book?” he asked.

Marguerite half opened a glazed and lifeless eye. Julius was obliged to

repeat his question. Turning partly round, Marguerite looked at him. His

eyebrows raised under a network of wrinkles, his lips contracted, Julius

was a pitiable object.

“What’s the matter, dear? Do you really think your last book isn’t as

good as the others?”

That was no sort of answer. Marguerite was eluding the point.

“I think the others are no better than this. So there!”

“Oh, well then!...”

And Marguerite, losing heart in the face of these monstrosities, and

feeling that all her tender arguments were wasted, turned round towards

the dark and once more slept.

Notwithstanding a certain amount of professional curiosity and the

flattering illusion that nothing human was alien to him, Julius had

rarely derogated from the customs of his class and he had very few

dealings except with persons of his own _milieu_. This was from lack of

opportunity rather than of taste. As he was preparing next morning to

start for his visit, Julius realised that his get-up was not exactly

what it should have been. His overcoat, his spread tie, even his

Cronstadt hat had something or other proper, staid, respectable about

them.... But, after all, it was perhaps better that his dress should

not encourage the young man to too prompt a familiarity. It would be

more suitable to engage his confidence by way of conversation. And as he

bent his steps towards the Impasse Claude-Bernard, Julius turned over in

his mind the manner in which he should introduce himself and pursue his

enquiries, running through all the precautions and pretexts that would

be necessary.

What in the world could Count Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul have to do with

this young man Lafcadio? The question buzzed importunate in Julius’s

mind. He was certainly not going to allow himself any curiosity on the

subject of his father’s life just at the very moment he had finished

writing it. He did not wish to know any more than his father chose to

tell him. During the last few years the Count had grown taciturn, but he

had never practised concealment. As Julius was crossing the Luxembourg

Gardens he was overtaken by a shower.

In front of the door of No. 12 Impasse Claude-Bernard a _fiacre_ was

drawn up, in which Julius as he passed caught sight of a lady whose hat

was a trifle large and whose dress was a trifle loud.

His heart beat as he gave his name to the porter of the lodging-house;

it seemed to the novelist that he was plunging into an unknown sea of

adventure; but as he went upstairs the place looked so common,

everything in it was so second-rate, that he was filled with disgust;

there was nothing here to kindle his curiosity, which flickered out and

was succeeded by repugnance.

On the fourth floor an uncarpeted passage, which was lighted only by the

staircase, turned at right angles a few steps from the landing; there

were shut doors on each side of this passage; the door at the end was

ajar and a small shaft of light came from it. Julius knocked; there was

no answer; he timidly pushed the door open a little further; there was

no one in the room. Julius went downstairs again.

“If he isn’t there, he won’t be long,” the porter had said.

The rain was falling in torrents. In the hall, opposite the staircase,

was a waiting-room, into which Julius made a half-hearted attempt to

enter; but its rancid smell and God-forsaken appearance drove him out

and made him reflect that he might just as well have opened the door

upstairs more decidedly and, without more ado, have waited for the young

man in his own room. Julius went up again.

As he turned down the passage for the second time, a woman came out of

the room that was next-door to the end one. Julius collided with her and

apologised.

“You are looking for ...?”

“Monsieur Wluiki lives here, doesn’t he?”

“He’s gone out.”

“Oh!” said Julius in a tone of such annoyance that the woman asked:

“Is it very urgent?”

Julius had prepared himself solely for an encounter with the unknown

Lafcadio and he was taken aback; yet here was a fine opportunity; this

woman was perhaps in a position to give him a great deal of information

about the young man; if only he could get her to talk....

“There was something I wanted to ask him about.”

“On whose behalf, may I ask?”

“Does she suspect I come from the police?” thought Julius.

“My name is Vicomte Julius de Baraglioul,” said he, rather pompously and

slightly raising his hat.

“Oh, Monsieur le Comte, I really must beg you to excuse me for not

having.... The passage is so very dark! Please, be so good as to come

in.” (She pushed open the door of the end room.) “Lafcadio’s certain to

be back in a moment. He was only going as far as the.... Oh! excuse me!”

And as Julius was going in, she brushed in front of him and darted

towards a pair of ladies’ drawers, which were very indiscreetly spread

out to view on a chair, and which, after an attempt at concealment had

proved ineffectual, she endeavoured to make at any rate less

conspicuous.

“I’m afraid the place is very untidy....

“Never mind! Never mind!” said Julius indulgently. “I’m quite accustomed

to....”

Carola Venitequa was a rather large-sized, not to say plump young

person; but her figure was good and she was wholesome-looking; her

features were ordinary but not vulgar and not unattractive; she had

gentle eyes like an animal’s and a voice that bleated. She was dressed

for going out and had on a little soft felt hat, a shirt blouse, a

sailor tie and a man’s collar and white cuffs.

“Have you known M. Wluiki long?”

“I might perhaps give him a message,” she remarked without answering.

“Well, I wanted to know whether he was very busy.”

“It depends.”

“Because if he had any free time, I thought of asking him to do a small

job for me.”

“What sort of job?”

“Well, that’s just it, you see.... To begin with, I should have liked to

know the kind of pursuits he’s engaged in.”

The question lacked subtlety. But Carola’s appearance was not of the

sort to invite subtlety. In the meantime the Comte de Baraglioul had

recovered his self-possession; he was seated in the chair which Carola

had cleared, and Carola was leaning on the table close to him, just

beginning to speak, when a loud disturbance was heard in the passage;

the door opened noisily and the woman Julius had noticed in the carriage

made her appearance.

“I was sure of it,” she said, “when I saw him going upstairs.”

Carola drew away a little from Julius and answered quickly:

“Nothing of the kind, my dear--we were just talking. My friend, Bertha

Grand-Marnier--Monsieur le Comte ... there now! I’m so sorry! I’ve

forgotten your name.”

“It’s of no consequence,” said Julius, rather stiffly, as he pressed the

gloved hand which Bertha offered him.

“Now, introduce _me_,” said Carola....

“Look here, dearie, we’re an hour late already,” went on the other,

after having introduced her friend. “If you want to talk to the

gentleman, let him come with us; I’ve got a carriage.”

“He hasn’t come to see me.”

“Oh, all right! Come along then! Won’t you dine with us to-night?”

“I’m exceedingly sorry, but....”

Carola blushed. She was anxious now to take her friend off as quickly as

possible.

“Will you please excuse me, Sir?” she said. “Lafcadio will be back in a

moment.”

* * * * *

The two women as they went out left the door open behind them. Every

sound in the uncarpeted passage was audible; a person coming from the

stairs would not be seen because of the turning, but he would certainly

be heard.

“After all,” thought Julius, “I shall find out even more from the room

than from the woman.” He set quietly to work to examine it.

In these commonplace lodgings there was hardly anything, alas! which

could offer a clue to curiosity so unskilled as his.

Not a bookshelf! Not a picture on the walls! Standing on the mantelpiece

was a vile edition of Defoe’s _Moll Flanders_ in English and only

two-thirds cut, and a copy of the _Novelle_ of Anton Francesco Grazzini,

styled the Lasca, in Italian. These two books puzzled Julius. Beside

them, and behind a bottle of spirits of peppermint, was a photograph

which did more than puzzle him. It showed, grouped upon a sandy beach, a

woman, who was no longer very young but strangely beautiful, leaning

upon the arm of a man of a pronounced English type, slim and elegant and

dressed in a sport suit, and at their feet, sitting on an overturned

canoe, a well-knit, slender lad of about fifteen, with a mass of fair,

tousled hair, with bold laughing eyes and without a stitch of clothes on

him.

Julius took up the photograph and, holding it to the light, saw written

in the right-hand corner a few words in faded ink: _Duino, July, 1889_.

He was not much the wiser for this, though he remembered that Duino was

a small town on the Austrian coast of the Adriatic. With tightened lips

and a disapproving shake of his head, he put the photograph back. In the

empty fire-place were stowed a box of oatmeal, a bag of lentils and a

bag of rice; a little further off was a chess-board leaning against the

wall. There was nothing which could give Julius any hint of the kind of

studies or occupations which filled the young man’s days.

* * * * *

Lafcadio had apparently just finished his breakfast; on the table was a

spirit lamp and a small saucepan; in this there was still to be seen one

of those little perforated, hollow eggs, which ingenious travellers use

for making tea; and there were a few bread crumbs and a dirtied cup.

Julius drew near the table; in the table was a drawer and in the drawer

a key....

I should be sorry if what follows were to give a wrong impression of

Julius’s character. Nothing was further from Julius than indiscretion;

he was respectful of the cloak with which each man chooses to cover his

inner life; he was highly respectful of the decencies. But upon this

occasion he was bound to waive his personal preferences in obedience to

his father’s command. He waited and listened for another moment, then,

as he heard nothing--against his inclinations and against his

principles, but with the delicate feeling of performing a duty--he

pulled open the drawer, the key of which had not been turned.

Inside was a Russia-leather pocket-book; which Julius took and opened.

On the first page, in the same writing as that on the photograph, were

these words:

For my trusty comrade Cadio,

This account book from his old uncle,

FABY,

and with hardly any space between came the following words, written in a

straight, regular and rather childish hand:

Duino. This morning, July 17th, ’89, Lord Fabian joined us here. He

brought me a canoe, a rifle and this beautiful pocket-book.

Nothing else on the first page.

On the third page, under the date Aug. 29th, was written:

Swimming match with Faby. Gave him four strokes.

And the next day:

Gave him twelve strokes.

Julius gathered that he had got hold of a mere training book. The list

of days soon stopped, however, and after a blank page, he read:

Sept. 20th. Left Algiers for the Aures.

The a few jottings of places and dates and finally this last entry:

Oct. 5th. Return to El Kantara--50 kilometres _on horseback_,[A]

without stopping.

Julius turned over a few blank pages, but, a little further on, the

entries began again. At the top of a page, the following words were

written in larger and more carefully formed characters, arranged so as

to look like a fresh title:

CENTER

QUI INCOMMINCIA IL LIBRO

DELLA NOVA ESIGENZA

DELLA SUPREMA VIRTU.

And below this came the motto:

“_Tanto quanto se ne taglia._”

--BOCCACCIO.

Any expression of moral ideas was quick to arouse the hunter’s instinct

in Julius; here was game for him. But the very next page was a

disappointment; it landed him in another batch of accounts. And yet

these accounts were of a different kind. Without any indication of dates

or places appeared the following entries:

For having beaten Protos at chess 1 punta.

For having shown that I spoke Italian 3 punte.

For having answered before Protos 1 p.

For having had the last word 1 p.

For having cried at hearing of Faby’s death 4 p.

Julius, reading hurriedly, took _punta_ to be some kind of foreign coin

and assumed that the figures were nothing but a childish and trifling

computation of merits and rewards. Then the accounts came to an end

again. Julius turned another page and read:

This 4th April, conversation with Protos:

“Do you understand the meaning of the words, ‘TO PUSH ON’?

There the writing stopped.

Julius shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips, shook his head and

put the book back where he had found it. He took out his watch, got up,

walked to the window and looked out; it had stopped raining. He went

towards the corner of the room where he had put down his umbrella when

he first came in; at that moment he saw, leaning back a little in the

opening of the doorway, a handsome, fair young man, who was watching him

with a smile on his lips.

III

The youth of the photograph had hardly aged. Juste-Agénor had said

nineteen; one would not have taken him for more than sixteen. Lafcadio

could certainly have only just arrived; when Julius was putting back the

pocket-book a moment before, he had raised his eyes to look at the door

and had seen no one; but how was it he had not heard him coming? An

instinctive glance at the young man’s feet showed Julius that he was

wearing goloshes instead of boots.

There was nothing hostile about Lafcadio’s smile; he seemed amused, on

the contrary--and ironical; he had kept his travelling-cap on his head,

but when he met Julius’s eyes, he took it off and bowed ceremoniously.

“Monsieur Wluiki?” asked Julius.

The young man bowed again without answering.

“Please excuse my sitting down in your room while I was waiting for you.

I really shouldn’t have ventured to do so if I hadn’t been shown in.”

Julius spoke faster and louder than usual to convince himself that he

was at ease. Lafcadio frowned imperceptibly; he went towards Julius’s

umbrella and without a word put it outside to stream in the passage;

then coming back into the room again, he motioned Julius to sit down.

“You are no doubt surprised to see me?”

Lafcadio quietly took a cigarette out of a silver cigarette case and lit

it.

“I will explain my reason for calling in a few words. Of course you will

understand....”

The more he spoke, the more he felt his assurance oozing away.

“Well, then!--But first allow me to introduce myself....” and as though

he felt embarrassed at having to pronounce his own name, he drew a

visiting-card out of his waistcoat pocket and held it out to Lafcadio,

who put it down on the table without looking at it.

“I am ... I have just finished a rather important piece of work; it’s a

small piece of work which I have no time to copy out myself. Someone

mentioned you to me as having an excellent handwriting and I thought

that, perhaps ...” here Julius’s glance travelled eloquently over the

bareness of the room--“I thought that perhaps you would have no

objection....”

“There is no one in Paris,” interrupted Lafcadio, “no one who could have

mentioned my handwriting to you.” As he spoke, he directed his eyes

towards the drawer, in opening which Julius had unwittingly destroyed a

minute and almost invisible seal of soft wax; then turning the key

violently in the lock and putting it in his pocket:

“No one, that is, who has any right to”; and as he spoke he watched

Julius’s face redden.

“On the other hand” (he spoke very slowly--almost stolidly, without any

expression at all), “I don’t quite grasp so far what reasons Monsieur

...” (he looked at the card) “what reasons Count Julius de Baraglioul

can have for taking a special interest in me. Nevertheless” (and his

voice suddenly became smooth and mellifluous in imitation of Julius’s),

“your proposal deserves to be taken into consideration by a person who,

as it has not escaped you, is in need of money.” (He got up.) “Kindly

allow me to bring you my answer to-morrow morning.”

The hint to leave was unmistakable. Julius felt too uncomfortable to

insist. He took up his hat, hesitated an instant and then:

“I should have liked a little further talk with you,” he said awkwardly.

“Let me hope that to-morrow ... I shall expect you any time after ten

o’clock.”

Lafcadio bowed.

* * * * *

As soon as Julius had turned the corner of the passage, Lafcadio pushed

to the door and bolted it. He ran to the drawer, pulled out the

pocket-book, opened it at the last telltale page and just at the place

where he had left off several months before, he wrote in pencil in a

large hand, sloping defiantly backwards and very unlike the former:

“For having let Olibrius poke his dirty nose into this book ... 1

punta.”

He took a penknife out of his pocket; its blade had been sharpened away

until nothing was left of it but a short point like a stiletto, which he

passed over the flame of a match and then thrust through his trouser

pocket, straight into his thigh. In spite of himself he made a grimace.

But he was still not satisfied. Leaning upon the table, without sitting

down, he again wrote just below the last sentence:

“And for having shown him that I knew it ... 2 punte.”

This time he hesitated; unfastened his trousers and turned them down on

one side. He looked at his thigh in which the little wound he had just

made was bleeding; he examined the scars of similar wounds, which were

like vaccination marks all round. Then, having once more passed the

blade over the flame of a match, he very quickly and twice in succession

plunged it into his flesh.

“I usedn’t to take so many precautions in the old days,” he said, going

to the bottle of spirits of peppermint and sprinkling a few drops on

each of the wounds.

His anger had cooled a little, when, as he was putting back the bottle,

he noticed that the photograph of himself and his mother had been

slightly disturbed. Then he seized it, gazed at it for the last time

with a kind of anguish, and as the blood rushed to his face, tore it

furiously to shreds. He tried to burn the pieces, but he could not get

them to light; so, clearing the fire-place of the bags which littered

it, he took his only two books and set them in the hearth to serve as

fire-dogs, pulled his pocket-book apart, hacked it to pieces, crumpled

it up, flung his picture on the top and set fire to the whole.

With his face close to the flames he persuaded himself that it was with

unspeakable satisfaction that he watched these keepsakes burning, but

when he rose to his feet after nothing was left of them but ashes, his

head was swimming. The room was full of smoke. He went to his

wash-hand-stand and bathed his face.

He was now able to consider the little visiting-card with a steadier

eye.

“Count Julius de Baraglioul,” he repeated. “_Dapprima importa sapere chi

è._”

He tore off the silk handkerchief which he was wearing instead of a

collar and tie, unfastened his shirt and, standing in front of the open

window, let the cool air play round his chest and sides. Then suddenly

all eagerness to go out, with his boots rapidly drawn on, his cravat

swiftly knotted, a respectable grey felt hat on his head--appeased and

civilised as far as in him lay--Lafcadio shut the door of his room

behind him and made his way to the Place St. Sulpice. There, in the big

lending-library opposite the town hall, he would be certain to find all

the information he wanted.

As he passed under the arcades of the Odéon, Julius’s novel, which was

on sale in the book shops, caught his eye; it was a yellow paper book,

the mere sight of which on any other occasion would have made him yawn.

He felt in his pocket and flung a five-franc piece on the counter.

“A fine fire for this evening,” thought he, as he carried off the book

and the change.

In the lending-library a “Who’s Who” gave a short account of Julius’s

invertebrate career, mentioned the titles of his works and praised them

in terms so conventional as effectually to quench any desire to read

them.

“Ugh!” said Lafcadio.... He was just going to shut up the book when

three or four words in the preceding paragraph caught his eye and made

him start.

A few lines above _Julius de Baraglioul (Vmte.)_ Lafcadio saw under the

heading _Juste-Agénor_: “Minister at Bucharest in 1873.” What was there

in these simple words to make his heart beat so fast?

Lafcadio, whose mother had given him five uncles, had never known his

father; he was content to regard him as dead and had always refrained

from asking questions. As for his uncles (all of them of different

nationalities and three of them in the diplomatic service), he had

pretty soon perceived that they had no other relationship with him than

that which the fair Wanda chose to give them. Now Lafcadio was just

nineteen. He had been born in Bucharest in 1874, exactly at the end of

the second year which the Comte de Baraglioul had spent there in his

official capacity.

Now that he had been put on the alert by Julius’s mysterious visit, how

was it possible to look upon this as merely a fortuitous coincidence? He

made a great effort to read Juste-Agénor’s biography, but the lines

danced before his eyes; he just managed to make out that Julius’s

father, the Comte de Baraglioul, was a man of considerable importance.

The explosion of insolent joy in his heart was so riotous that he

thought the outside world must hear it. But no! this covering of flesh

was unquestionably solid and impervious. He furtively examined his

neighbours--old habitués of the reading-room, all engrossed in their

dreary occupations.... He began to calculate: “If he was born in 1821,

the Count must be seventy-two by now. _Ma chi sa se vive ancora?..._”

He put the dictionary back and went out.

The azure sky was clearing itself of a few light clouds which a fresh

breeze had sent scudding. “_Importa di domesticare questo nuovo

proposito_,” said Lafcadio to himself, who prized above all things the

free possession of his soul; and hopeless of reducing so turbulent a

thought to order, he resolved to banish it for a moment from his mind.

He took Julius’s novel out of his pocket and made a great effort to

distract himself with it; but the book had no allurement in it of

indirectness or mystery, and nothing could have helped him less to

escape from a too urgent self.

“And yet it is to the author of _that_ that I am going to-morrow to play

at being secretary!” he couldn’t refrain from repeating.

He bought a newspaper at a kiosk and went into the Luxembourg. The

benches were sopping; he opened the book, sat down on it and unfolded

the paper to look at the various items of the day. Suddenly, and as

though he had been expecting to find it there, his eye fell upon the

following announcement:

“It is hoped that Count Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul, whose health

has lately given grave cause for anxiety, is now recovering. His

condition, however, still remains too precarious to admit of his

receiving any but a few intimate friends.”

Lafcadio sprang from the bench. In a moment he had made up his mind.

Forgetting his book, he hurried off to a stationer’s shop in the Rue de

Médicis, where he remembered having seen in the window a notice that

visiting-cards were printed “while you wait at three francs the

hundred.” He smiled as he went, amused by the boldness of his idea and

possessed by the spirit of adventure.

“How long will it take to print a hundred cards?” he asked the

shopkeeper.

“You can have them before nightfall.”

“I’ll pay you double if you let me have them by two o’clock this

afternoon.”

The shopkeeper made a pretence of consulting his order-book.

“Very well ... to oblige you. You can call for them at two o’clock. What

name?”

Then, without a tremor or a blush, but with a heart that beat a little

unsteadily, he signed:

Lafcadio de Baraglioul.

“The rascal doesn’t believe me,” said he to himself as he left, for he

was piqued that the shopkeeper’s bow had not been lower. Then, as he

looked at his reflection in a shop window, “I must admit I don’t look

very like a Baraglioul,” he thought. “We must see whether we can’t

improve the resemblance before this afternoon.”

It was not yet twelve o’clock. Lafcadio, who was in a state of madcap

exhilaration, had not begun to feel hungry.

“First, let’s take a little walk, or I shall fly into the air,” thought

he. “And I must keep in the middle of the road. If I go too near the

passers-by, they will notice that I’m a head and shoulders taller than

any of them. Another superiority to conceal. One has never done putting

the finishing touches to one’s education.”

He went into a post office.

“Place Malesherbes ... this afternoon!” he said to himself, as he copied

out Count Juste-Agénor’s address from the directory. “But what’s to

prevent me from going this morning to prospect Rue de Verneuil?” (This

was the address on Julius’s card.)

Lafcadio knew and loved this part of Paris; leaving the more frequented

thoroughfares, he took a roundabout way by Rue Vaneau; in that quiet

street the young freshness of his joy would have space to breathe more

freely. As he turned into the Rue de Babylone he saw people running;

near the Impasse Oudinot a crowd was collecting in front of a

two-storied house from which was pouring an evil-looking smoke. He

forced himself not to hurry his pace, though he was naturally a quick

walker....

Lafcadio, my friend, here you require the pen of a newspaper

reporter--mine abandons you! My readers must not expect me to relate the

incoherent comments of the onlookers, the broken exclamations, the....

Wriggling through the crowd like an eel, Lafcadio made his way to the

front. There a poor woman was sobbing on her knees.

“My children! My little children!” she wept. She was being supported by

a young girl, whose simple elegance of dress showed she was no relation;

she was very pale and so lovely that Lafcadio was instantly drawn to

her. She answered his questions.

“No, I don’t know her. I have just made out that her two little children

are in that room on the second floor which the flames are just going to

reach--they have caught the staircase already; the fire brigade has been

sent for, but by the time they come the children will have been

smothered by the smoke. Oh! wouldn’t it be possible to get up to the

balcony by climbing that wall--look!--and helping oneself up by that

waterpipe? Some of these people say that thieves did it a little while

ago--thieves did it to steal money, but no one dares do it to save two

children. I’ve offered my purse, but it’s no good. Oh! if only I were a

man!”

Lafcadio listened no longer. Dropping his stick and hat at the young

lady’s feet, he darted forward. With a bound he caught hold of the top

of the wall unaided; a pull of his arms raised him on to it; in a moment

he was standing upright and walking along the narrow edge, regardless of

the broken pieces of glass with which it bristled.

But the amazement of the crowd redoubled when, seizing hold of the

vertical pipe, he swarmed up it, hardly resting his feet here and there

for a second on the clamps which fixed it to the wall. There he is--at

the balcony now--now he has vaulted the railings; the admiring crowd no

longer trembles--it can only admire, for, indeed, he moves with

consummate ease. One push of his shoulder shivers the window-pane; he

has disappeared into the room. Agonising moment of unspeakable suspense!

Here he comes again, holding a crying infant in his arms. Out of a sheet

torn in two and knotted together end to end, he hastily contrives a

rope--ties the child to it--lowers it gently to the arms of the

distracted mother. The second child is saved in the same way.

When Lafcadio came down in his turn, the crowd cheered him as a hero.

“They take me for a clown,” thought he, as he roughly and ungraciously

repulsed their greetings, exasperated at feeling himself blush. But

when the young lady, whom he again approached, shyly held out to him his

hat and stick and with them the purse she had promised, he took it with

a smile, emptied it of the sixty francs that it contained, and gave the

money to the poor mother, who was smothering her children with kisses.

“May I keep the purse in remembrance of you, Mademoiselle?”

He kissed the little embroidered purse. The two looked at each other for

a moment. The young girl was agitated and paler than ever; she seemed

desirous of speaking, but Lafcadio abruptly turned on his heel and

opened a way through the crowd with his stick. His air was so forbidding

that they very soon stopped cheering and following him.

* * * * *

He regained the Luxembourg, made a hasty meal at the restaurant

Gambrinus near the Odéon and returned swiftly to his room. There under a

board in the floor he kept his store of money; three twenty-franc pieces

and one ten-franc piece were extracted from their hiding-place. He

reckoned:

Visiting-cards six francs

A pair of gloves five francs

A tie five francs (how shall I get anything decent at that price?)

A pair of shoes thirty-five francs (I shan’t use them long.)

Left over nineteen francs for emergencies.

(Lafcadio had a horror of owing anything to anyone and always paid ready

money.)

He went to a wardrobe and pulled out a suit made of soft dark tweed,

perfectly cut and still fresh.

“Unfortunately,” he said to himself, “I’ve grown since....” His thoughts

went back to that dazzling time, not so long ago, when he used to dance

gaily off with the Marquis de Gesvres (the last of his uncles) to the

tailor’s, the hatter’s, the shirtmaker’s.

Ill-fitting clothes were as shocking to Lafcadio as lying to a

Calvinist.

“The most urgent first. My uncle de Gesvres used always to say you could

judge a man by his foot-wear.”

And out of respect for the shoes he was going to try on, he began by

changing his socks.

Comte Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul had not left the luxurious apartment

which he occupied in the Place Malesherbes, for the last five years. It

was there that he set about preparing for death; this was his care as he

wandered pensively among the rare objects with which his great salons

were crowded, or oftener still as he sat shut up in his bedroom, seeking

to ease the pain of his aching arms and shoulders with hot cloths and

soothing compresses. An enormous madeira-coloured silk handkerchief was

wrapped round his fine head like a turban, one end of which fell loose

and hung down upon his lace collar and upon his thick brown knitted

waistcoat, over which his beard flowed like a silvery waterfall. His

feet, shod in soft white leather slippers, rested on a hot water bottle.

Beside him, and heated by a spirit lamp, was a bath of hot sand into

which he plunged first one and then the other of his pale emaciated

hands. A grey shawl was spread over his knees. Incontestably he was like

Julius; but he was still more like a portrait by Titian; and Julius’s

features were only a vapid replica of his father’s, just as Julius’s

novel was a bowdlerised and namby-pamby version of his life.

Juste-Agénor was drinking a cup of tisane and listening to a homily from

his confessor, Father April, whom he had fallen into the habit of

frequently consulting; at this moment there was a knock at the door and

the faithful Hector, who for the last twenty years had acted as the

Count’s valet and nurse, and on occasion as his confidential adviser,

brought in a small envelope on a lacquered salver.

“The gentleman hopes that M. le Comte will be good enough to see him.”

Juste-Agénor put down his cup, tore open the envelope and took out

Lafcadio’s card. He crumpled it nervously in his hand.

“Tell him....” Then, controlling himself with an effort: “A

gentleman?... a young man, you mean? What kind of person is he, Hector?”

“M. le Comte may very well receive him.”

“My dear Abbé,” said the Count, turning to Father April, “please forgive

me if I ask you to put off the rest of our conversation for the present;

but mind you come again to-morrow. I shall probably have some news for

you; I think you will be pleased.”

With his forehead bowed on his hand, he waited until Father April had

left the room by the drawing-room door; then at last, raising his head:

“Show him in,” he said.

Lafcadio, holding his head high, stepped into the room with a manly and

self-confident bearing; as soon as he was in front of the old man, he

bowed gravely. As he had made up his mind not to speak before he had had

time to count twelve, it was the Count who began.

“In the first place, let me tell you there is no such person as Lafcadio

de Baraglioul,” said he, tearing up the visiting-card, “and be so good

as to inform Monsieur Lafcadio Wluiki, since he is a friend of yours,

that if he makes any use of these cards--that if he fails to destroy

them all like this” (he tore it up into minute fragments, which he

dropped into his empty cup), “I shall give notice to the police and have

him arrested for a common swindler. Do you understand?... Now, come to

the light and let me look at you.”

“Lafcadio Wluiki will obey you, Sir.” (His voice was very deferential

and trembled a little.) “Forgive him for approaching you by such means

as these; he had no evil intention. He wishes he could convince you that

he is not undeserving of ... your esteem, at any rate.”

“Your figure is good, but your clothes don’t fit,” went on the Count,

who was determined not to hear.

“Then I was not mistaken?” said Lafcadio, venturing upon a smile and

submitting himself good-humouredly to the scrutiny.

“Thank God! it’s his mother he takes after,” muttered the old Count.

“If I don’t let it be too apparent, mayn’t I be allowed as well to take

after....”

“I was speaking of your looks. It is too late now for me to know whether

your mother is the only person you are like. God will not grant me

time.”

Just then, the grey shawl slipped off his knees on to the floor.

Lafcadio sprang forward and as he bent down he felt the old man’s hand

weigh gently on his shoulder.

“Lafcadio Wluiki,” went on Juste-Agénor, when he had raised himself, “my

days are numbered. I shall not fence with you--it would be too

fatiguing. I am willing to grant that you are not stupid; I am glad that

you are not ugly. There is a touch of boldness in this venture of yours

which is not unbecoming. I thought at first it was impudence, but your

voice, your manner reassure me. As to other things, I asked my son

Julius to report to me, but I find that I take no great interest in

them--it was more important to see you. Now, Lafcadio, listen. There is

not a single document of any sort in existence which testifies to your

identity. I have been careful to leave you no possibility of making any

claims. No, don’t protest. It’s useless. Don’t interrupt me. Your

silence up to now is a sign that your mother kept her word not to speak

of me to you. Very good. In accordance with the promise I made her, you

shall have material proof of my gratitude. In spite of legal

difficulties, you will receive at the hands of my son Julius that share

of my inheritance which I told your mother should be reserved for you.

That is to say, I shall increase my son Julius’s legacy by the amount by

which the law permits me to reduce that of my other child, the Countess

Guy de Saint-Prix--which is actually the exact sum I mean him to pass on

to you. It will, I think, come to ... let us say about forty thousand

francs[B] a year. But I must see my solicitor and go into the exact

figures with him.... Sit down, you will listen more comfortably.”

(Lafcadio had leant for a breathing-space on the edge of the table.)

“Julius may make objections; the law is on his side; but I count on his

fairness not to--and I count on yours never to trouble Julius’s family,

just as your mother never troubled mine. As far as Julius is concerned,

the only person who exists is Lafcadio Wluiki. I don’t wish you to wear

mourning for me. My child, the institution of the family is a closed

thing. You will never be anything but a bastard.”

Lafcadio, who had been caught by his father’s glance in the act of

staggering, had nevertheless refused the invitation to be seated. He had

already overcome the swimming of his brain and was now leaning on the

table on which were placed the cup and the spirit lamp. His attitude

remained highly deferential.

“Now, tell me--you saw my son Julius this morning? Did he tell you ...?”

“He told me nothing. I guessed.”

“Clumsy fellow!... Oh! I don’t mean _you_.... Are you to see him again?”

“He asked me to be his secretary.”

“Have you accepted?”

“Do you object?”

“No. But I think it would be better for you not to recognise each

other.”

“I thought so too. But without recognising him exactly, I should like to

get to know him a little.”

“I suppose, though, that you don’t mean to fill a subordinate position

like that for long?”

“Just long enough to look round.”

“And after that what do you think of doing, now that you are well off?”

“Why, yesterday I hardly had enough to eat, Sir. Give me time to take

the measure of my appetite.”

At this moment Hector knocked at the door.

“Monsieur le Vicomte to see you, Sir. Shall I show him in?”

The old man’s forehead grew sombre. He kept silent for a moment, but

when Lafcadio discreetly rose to take leave:

“Don’t go!” cried Juste-Agénor, so violently that the young man’s heart

went out to him; then turning to Hector:

“It can’t be helped. It’s his own fault. I told him particularly not to

try and see me.... Tell him I’m busy, that ... I’ll write to him.”

Hector bowed and went out.

The old man remained for a few moments with his eyes closed. He seemed

asleep, except that his lips, half-hidden by his beard, could be seen

moving. At last he raised his eyelids, held out his hand to Lafcadio,

and in a voice that was changed and softened, a voice that seemed broken

with fatigue:

“Give me your hand, child,” he said. “You must leave me now.”

“I must make a confession,” said Lafcadio, hesitating. “In order to make

myself presentable to come and see you, I exhausted my supplies. If you

don’t help me, I shall have very little dinner to-night and none at all

to-morrow ... unless your son, M. le Vicomte....”

“In the meantime you can have this,” said the Count, taking five

hundred francs out of a drawer. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I should like to ask you, too ... whether I mayn’t hope to see you

again?”

“Upon my word, I’ll admit, it would give me pleasure. But the reverend

persons who are in charge of my soul, keep me in a frame of mind in

which pleasure passes as a secondary consideration. As for my blessing,

I’ll give it to you at once.” And the old man opened his arms to receive

him. But Lafcadio, instead of throwing himself into them, knelt down

before him and laid his head, sobbing, on the Count’s knees; touched in

a moment and all subdued to tenderness by the embrace, he felt his heart

and all its fierce resolves melt within him.

“My child, my child,” stammered the old man, “I have delayed too long.”

When Lafcadio got up his face was wet with tears.

At the moment of leaving, as he was putting the note, which he had not

immediately taken, into his pocket, Lafcadio came upon his

visiting-cards. Holding them out to the Count:

“Here is the whole packet,” said he.

“I trust you. Tear them up yourself. Good-bye.”

“He would have made the best of uncles,” thought Lafcadio, as he was

walking back to the Quartier Latin; “and even,” he added, with the

faintest touch of melancholy, “a little more into the bargain.--Pooh!”

He took the packet of cards, spread them out fan-wise and with a single

easy movement tore them in half.

“I never had any confidence in drains,” murmured he, as he threw

“Lafcadio” down a grating in the street; and it was not till two

gratings further on that he threw down “de Baraglioul.”

“Never mind! Baraglioul or Wluiki, let’s set to work now to settle up

our arrears.”

There was a jeweller’s shop in the Boulevard St. Germain before which

Carola used to keep him standing every day. A day or two earlier, she

had discovered a curious pair of sleeve-links in the flashy shop window;

they were joined together two and two by a little gilt chain and were

cut out of a peculiar kind of quartz--a sort of smoky agate, which was

not transparent, though it looked as if it were--and made to represent

four cats’ heads. Venitequa, as I have already said, was in the habit of

wearing a tailormade coat and skirt and a man’s shirt with stiff cuffs,

and as she had a taste for oddities, she coveted these sleeve-links.

They were more queer than attractive; Lafcadio thought them hideous; it

would have irritated him to see his mistress wearing them; but now that

he was going to leave her.... He went into the shop and paid a hundred

and twenty francs for the links.

“A piece of writing-paper, please.” And leaning on the counter, he wrote

on a sheet of note-paper which the shopman brought him, these words:

NIND

“For Carola Venitequa,

With thanks for having shown the stranger into my room, and begging

her never to set her foot in it again.”

He folded the paper and slipped it into the box in which the trinkets

were packed.

“No precipitation!” he said to himself as he was on the point of

handing the box to the porter. “I’ll pass one more night under this

roof. For this evening let’s be satisfied with locking Miss Carola out.”

The moral law which Descartes considered provisional, but to which he

submitted in the meantime, until he had established the rules that

should regulate his life and conduct hereafter, was the same law--its

provisional powers indefinitely protracted--which governed Julius de

Baraglioul.

But Julius’s temperament was not so intractable nor his intellect so

commanding as to have given him hitherto much trouble in conforming to

the proprieties. On the whole all that he demanded of life was his

comfort--part of which consisted in his being successful as a man of

letters. The failure of his last novel was the first experience of his

life which had ever really galled him.

He had been not a little mortified at being refused admittance to his

father; he would have been much more so if he had known who it was who

had forestalled him. On his way back to the Rue de Verneuil, it was with

less and less conviction that he repelled the importunate supposition

which had assailed him as he went to visit Lafcadio in the morning. He

too had juxtaposed facts and dates; he too was obliged to recognise in

this strange conjunction something more than a mere coincidence.

Lafcadio’s youthful grace, moreover, had captivated him, and though he

suspected his father was going to cheat him of a portion of his

patrimony for the sake of this bastard brother, he felt no ill will

towards him; he was even expecting him this morning with a curiosity

that was almost tender in its solicitude.

As for Lafcadio, shy of approach and reticent though he was, this rare

opportunity of speaking tempted him--and also the pleasure of making

Julius feel a little uncomfortable. For he had never taken even Protos

very deeply into his confidence. And how far he had travelled since

then! After all he did not dislike Julius--absurd and shadowy though he

thought him. It amused him to know that they were brothers.

As he was on his way to Julius’s house, the morning after his visit, a

somewhat curious adventure befell him.

Whether it was his liking for the roundabout that prompted him, or the

inspiration of his guiding genius, or whether he wanted to quell a

certain unruliness of body and mind, so as to be master of himself when

he arrived at his brother’s--for whatever reason, Lafcadio took the

longest way round; he had followed the Boulevard des Invalides, passed

again by the scene of the fire, and was going down the Rue de

Bellechasse.

“Thirty-four Rue de Verneuil,” he was saying to himself as he walked

along, “four and three, seven--a lucky number.”

He was turning out of the Rue St. Dominique where it intersects the

Boulevard St. Germain, when, on the other side of the road, he thought

he saw and recognised the young girl, who, it must be confessed, had

occupied his thoughts not a little since the day before. He immediately

quickened his pace.... Sure enough, it was she! He caught her up at the

end of the short Rue de Villersexel, but, reflecting that it would not

be very like a Baraglioul to accost her, he contented himself with

smiling, raising his hat a little and bowing discreetly; then, after

passing her swiftly, he thought it highly expedient to drop into a

tobacconist’s shop, while the young lady, who was again in front, turned

down the Rue de l’Université.

When Lafcadio came out of the tobacconist’s and entered the same street

in his turn, he looked right and left: the young girl had

vanished.--Lafcadio, my friend, you are verging on the commonplace. If

you are going to fall in love, do not count on my pen to paint the

disturbance of your heart.... But no! the idea of beginning a pursuit

was distasteful to him; and besides he did not want to be late for his

appointment with Julius, and the roundabout way by which he had come

allowed no time for further dawdling. Fortunately the Rue de Verneuil

was near at hand, and the house in which Julius lived, at the first

corner. Lafcadio tossed the Count’s name to the porter and darted

upstairs.

In the meantime, Genevieve de Baraglioul, Count Julius’s elder

daughter--for it was she, on her way back from the Hospital for Sick

Children, where she went every morning--had been far more agitated than

Lafcadio by this second meeting, and hurrying home as quickly as she

could, she had entered the front door just as Lafcadio had turned into

the street, and was already nearing the second floor, when the sound of

rapid steps behind her made her look round; someone was coming upstairs

more quickly than she; she stood aside to let the person pass, but when

she recognized Lafcadio, who stopped, petrified, in front of her:

“Is it worthy of you,” she said in as angry a tone as she could muster,

“to follow me like this?”

“Oh! what can you think of me?” cried Lafcadio. “I’m afraid you’ll not

believe me when I say that I didn’t see you coming into this house--that

I’m extremely astonished to meet you here. Isn’t this where Count Julius

de Baraglioul lives?”

“What?” said Genevieve, blushing; “can you be the new secretary my

father is expecting? Monsieur Lafcadio Wlou ... you have such a peculiar

name, I don’t know how to pronounce it.” And as Lafcadio, blushing in

his turn, bowed, she went on:

“Since I’ve met you, may I ask you as a favour not to speak to my

parents about yesterday’s adventure, which I don’t think would be at all

to their taste; and particularly not to say anything about my purse,

which I told them I had lost.”

“I was going to ask you myself to say nothing about the absurd part you

saw me play in the business. I’m like your parents; I don’t at all

understand it or approve of it. You must have taken me for a

Newfoundland. I couldn’t restrain myself. Forgive me. I have much to

learn.... But I shall learn in time, I promise you.... Will you give me

your hand?”

Genevieve de Baraglioul, who did not own to herself that she thought

Lafcadio very handsome, did not own to Lafcadio that, far from thinking

him ridiculous, she had set him up as the image of a hero. She held out

her hand to him and he raised it impetuously to his lips; then smiling

simply, she begged him to go down a few steps and wait till she had gone

in and shut the door before ringing in his turn, so that they might not

be seen together; and he was to take special care not to show that they

had ever met before.

A few minutes later Lafcadio was ushered into the novelist’s study.

Julius’s welcome was kindly and encouraging; Julius, however, was a

blunderer; the young man immediately assumed the defensive.

“I must begin by warning you, M. le Comte, that I can’t abide either

gratitude or debts; and whatever you may do for me, you will never be

able to make me feel that I am under any obligation to you.”

Julius in his turn was nettled.

“I am not trying to buy you, Monsieur Wluiki,” he began loftily....

Then, both realising that to continue in this way would mean burning

their boats, they pulled themselves up short. After a moment’s silence

Lafcadio began in a more conciliatory manner:

“What work was it that you thought of giving me?”

Julius made an evasive answer, excusing himself that his MS. was not

quite ready yet; and besides it would be no bad thing for them to begin

by getting better acquainted with each other.

“You must admit, M. de Baraglioul,” said Lafcadio pleasantly, “that you

have lost no time in beginning that without me, and that you did me the

honour yesterday of examining a certain pocket-book of mine....”

Julius lost countenance and answered in some confusion: “I admit that I

did.” And then he went on with dignity: “I apologise. If the thing were

to occur again....”

“It will not occur again. I have burnt the pocket-book.”

Julius’s features expressed grief.

“Are you very angry?”

“If I were still angry I shouldn’t mention it. Forgive my manner when I

came in just now,” went on Lafcadio, determined to send his thrust home.

“All the same I should like very much to know whether you read a scrap

of letter as well, that happened to be in the pocket-book?”

Julius had not read any scrap of letter, for the very good reason that

he had not found any; but he took the opportunity of protesting his

discretion. It amused Lafcadio to show his amusement.

“I partly revenged myself yesterday on your new book.”

“It is not at all likely to interest you,” Julius hastened to say.

“Oh, I didn’t read the whole of it. I must confess I am not very fond of

reading. In reality the only book I ever enjoyed was _Robinson

Crusoe_.... Oh, yes! _Aladdin_ too.... That must do for me in your

opinion.”

Julius raised his hand gently.

“I merely pity you. You deprive yourself of great joys.”

“I have others.”

“Perhaps not of such sterling quality.”

“Oh, you may be sure of that!” and Lafcadio’s laugh was decidedly

impertinent.

“You will suffer for it some day,” returned Julius, a little ruffled by

this disrespectful gibing.

“When it will be too late,” Lafcadio finished the sentence with affected

gravity; then he asked abruptly: “Does it really amuse you very much to

write?”

Julius drew himself up.

“I don’t write for the sake of amusement,” he answered nobly. “The joy

that I feel in writing is superior to any that I might find in living.

Moreover, the one is not incompatible with the other.”

“So they say,” replied Lafcadio. Then abruptly raising his voice, which

he had dropped as though inadvertently: “Do you know what it is I

dislike about writing?--All the scratchings out and touchings up that

are necessary.”

“Do you think there are no corrections in life too?” asked Julius,

beginning to prick up his ears.

“You misunderstand me. In life one corrects _oneself_--one improves

_oneself_--so people say; but one can’t correct what one _does_. It’s

the power of revising that makes writing such a colourless affair--such

a....” (He left his sentence unfinished.) “Yes! that’s what seems to me

so fine about life. It’s like fresco-painting--erasures aren’t allowed.”

“Would there be much to erase in your life?”

“No ... not much so far.... And as one can’t....”

Lafcadio was silent a moment, and then: “All the same, it was because I

wanted to make an erasure that I flung my pocket-book into the fire!...

Too late--as you see! You must admit, however, that you didn’t

understand what it was all about.”

No! Julius would never admit that.

“Will you allow me a few questions?” he said, by way of answer.

Lafcadio rose to his feet so abruptly that Julius thought he was going

to make off on the spot; but he only went up to the window and, raising

the muslin curtain:

“Is this garden yours?” he asked.

“No,” said Julius.

“M. de Baraglioul, I have hitherto allowed no one to pry in the smallest

degree into my life,” went on Lafcadio without turning round. Then, as

he walked back towards Julius, who had begun to take him for nothing

more than a schoolboy: “But to-day is a red-letter day; for once in my

life I will give myself a holiday. Put your questions--I undertake to

answer them all.... Oh! let me tell you first that I have turned away

that young baggage who showed you into my room yesterday.”

Julius thought it proper to put on an air of concern.

“Because of me? Really....”

“Pooh! I had been looking for an excuse to get rid of her for some time

past.”

“Were you ... m ... m ... living with her?” asked Julius, rather

awkwardly.

“Yes; for health’s sake.... But as little as possible, and in memory of

a friend of mine whose mistress she had been.”

“Monsieur Protos, perhaps?” ventured Julius, who was now firmly

determined to stifle his indignation--his disgust--his reprobation--and

to show--on this first occasion--no more of his astonishment than was

necessary to make his rejoinders sufficiently lively.

“Yes, Protos,” replied Lafcadio, brimming over with laughter. “Would you

like to know about Protos?”

“To know something of your friends would be perhaps a step towards

knowing you.”

“He was an Italian of the name of.... My word, I’ve forgotten, and it’s

of no consequence. The other boys--even the masters--never called him

anything but Protos from the day he unexpectedly carried off a first for

Greek composition.”

“I don’t remember ever having been first myself,” said Julius, to

encourage confidence, “but, like you, I have always wanted to be friends

with those who were. So Protos ...?”

“Oh! it was because of a bet he made. Before that, though he was among

the elder boys, he had always been one of the last of the class--whilst

I was one of the youngest--not that I worked any the better for that.

Protos showed the greatest contempt for everything the masters taught

us; but one day, when one of the fellows who was good at book-learning

and whom he detested, said to him: ‘It’s all very fine to despise what

you can’t do’ (or something to that effect), Protos got his back up,

worked hard for a fortnight and to such purpose that at the next Greek

composition class he went up over the other fellows’ heads and took the

first place to the utter amazement of us all--of _them_ all, I should

say. As for me, I had too high an opinion of Protos to be much

astonished. When he said to me: ‘I’ll show them it’s not so difficult as

all that,’ I believed him.”

“If I understand you rightly, Protos influenced you not a little?”

“Perhaps. At any rate he rather overawed me. As a matter of fact,

however, I never had but one single intimate conversation with him--but

that seemed to me so cogent that the very next day I ran away from

school, where I was beginning to droop like a plant in a cellar, and

made my way on foot to Baden, where my mother was living at that time

with my uncle, the Marquis de Gesvres.... But we are beginning by the

end. You would certainly question me very badly. Just let me tell you my

own story as it comes. You will learn more in that way than you would

ever dream of asking me--more, very likely, than you will care to

learn.... No, thank you, I prefer my own,” said he, taking out his case

and throwing away the cigarette which Julius had offered him when he

first came in and which he had allowed to go out while he was talking.

VII

“I was born at Bucharest in 1874,” he began slowly, “and, as I think you

know, I lost my father a few months after my birth. The first person who

stands out in my recollection at my mother’s side, was a German, my

uncle, the Baron Heldenbruck. But as I lost him when I was twelve years

old, I have only a hazy recollection of him. He was, it seems, a

distinguished financier. As well as his own language, he taught me

arithmetic, and that by such ingenious devices that I found it

prodigiously amusing. He made me what he used laughingly to call his

‘cashier’--that is, he gave into my keeping a whole fortune of petty

cash, and wherever we went together, it was I who had to do the paying.

Whatever he bought--and he used to buy a great deal--he insisted on my

adding up the bill in as short a time as it took me to pull the notes or

coins out of my pocket. Sometimes he used to puzzle me with foreign

money, so that there were questions of exchange; then of discount, of

interest, of brokerage and finally even of speculation. With such a

training, I very soon became fairly clever at doing multiplication--and

even division--sums of several figures in my head.... Don’t be alarmed”

(for he saw Julius’s eyebrows beginning to frown), “it gave me no taste

either for money or reckoning. For instance, if you care to know, I

never keep accounts. In reality this early education of mine was merely

practical and matter-of-fact. It never touched anything vital in me....

Then Heldenbruck was wonderfully understanding about the proper hygiene

for children; he persuaded my mother to let me go bare-headed and

bare-footed in all weathers, and to keep me out of doors as much as

possible; he used even to give me a cold dip himself every day, summer

and winter. I enjoyed it immensely.... But you don’t care about these

details.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Then he was called away on business to America and I never saw him

again.

“My mother’s salon in Bucharest was frequented by the most brilliant,

and also, as far as I can judge from recollection, by the most mixed

society; but her particular intimates at that time were my uncle, Prince

Wladimir Bielkowski and Ardengo Baldi, whom for some reason I never

called my uncle. They spent three or four years at Bucharest in the

service of Russia (I was going to say Poland) and of Italy. I learnt

from each of them his own language--Polish, that is, and Italian--as for

Russian, I read and understand it pretty well, but I have never spoken

it fluently. In the society of the kind of people who frequented my

mother’s house and who made a great deal of me, not a day passed without

my having occasion to practise three or four languages; and at the age

of thirteen I could speak them all without any accent and with almost

equal ease--and yet French preferably, because it was my father’s tongue

and my mother had made a point of my learning it first.

“Bielkowski, like everyone else who wanted to please my mother, took

considerable notice of me; it always seemed as though _I_ were the

person to be courted; but in his case I think it was disinterested, for

he always followed his bent, however rapidly it led him and in whatever

direction. He paid a great deal of attention to me even outside of

anything my mother could have knowledge of, and I couldn’t help being

flattered by the particular attachment he had for me. Our rather humdrum

existence was transformed by this singular person, from one day to the

next, into a kind of riotous holiday. No! to talk of his _yielding_ to

his bent is not enough; his bent was a wild and precipitous rush; he

flung himself upon his pleasure with a kind of frenzy.

“For three summers he carried us off to a villa, or rather to a castle,

on the Hungarian slope of the Carpathians, near Eperjes; we often used

to drive there, but we preferred riding and my mother enjoyed nothing

better than scouring the country and the forests--which were very

beautiful--on horseback and in any direction our fancy led us. The pony

which Wladimir gave me was the thing I loved best on earth for a whole

year.

“During the second summer, Ardengo Baldi joined us; it was then that he

taught me chess. Heldenbruck had broken me in to doing sums in my head

and I was pretty soon able to play without looking at the chess-board.

“Baldi got on very well with Bielkowski. Of an evening, in our solitary

tower, plunged in the silence of the park and the forest, we all four

used to sit up till late into the night, playing game after game of

cards; for though I was only a child--thirteen years old--Baldi, who

hated dummy, had taught me how to play whist--and how to cheat.

“Juggler, conjurer, mountebank, acrobat, he began to frequent us just at

the time when my imagination was emerging from the long fast to

which it had been subjected by Heldenbruck. I was hungry for

marvels--credulous--of a green and eager curiosity. Later on, Baldi

explained his tricks to me, but no familiarity could abolish that first

sensation of mystery when, the first evening, I saw him light his

cigarette at his little finger-nail, and then, as he had been losing at

cards, draw out of my ears and my nose as many roubles as he

wanted--which absolutely terrified me, but greatly entertained the

company, for he kept saying, still with the same perfect coolness:

‘Fortunately this boy here is an inexhaustible mine!’

“On the evenings when he was alone with my mother and me, he was for

ever inventing some new game, some surprise, some absurd joke or other;

he mimicked all our acquaintance, pulled faces, made himself

unrecognisable, imitated all sorts of voices, the cries of animals, the

sounds of instruments, produced extraordinary noises from Heaven knows

where, sang to the accompaniment of the guzla, danced, pranced, walked

on his hands, jumped over the tables and chairs, juggled with his bare

feet like a Japanese, twirling the drawing-room screen or the small

tea-table on the tip of his big toe; he juggled with his hands still

better; at his bidding, a torn and crumpled piece of paper would burst

forth into a swarm of white butterflies, which I would blow this way and

that, and which the fluttering of his fan would keep hovering in the

air. In his neighbourhood, objects lost their weight and reality--their

presence even--or else took on some fresh, queer, unexpected

significance, totally remote from all utility. ‘There are very few

things it isn’t amusing to juggle with,’ he used to say. And with it all

he was so funny that I used to grow faint with laughing, and my mother

would cry out: ‘Stop, Baldi! Cadio will never be able to sleep.’ And,

indeed, my nerves must have been pretty solid to hold out against such

excitements.

“I benefited greatly by this teaching; at the end of a few months I

could have given points to Baldi himself in more than one of his tricks,

and even....”

“It is clear, my dear boy, that you were given a most careful

education,” interrupted Julius at this moment.

Lafcadio burst out laughing at the novelist’s horrified countenance.

“Oh! none of it sank very deep; don’t be alarmed. But it was high time

Uncle Faby appeared on the scene, wasn’t it? It was he who became

intimate with my mother when Bielkowski and Baldi were called away to