When Christian crossed the reception room of the hotel he saw Crammon
sitting sadly in a chair. Christian stopped and smiled and held out
his hand. “Did you sleep well, Bernard?” he asked.
“If that were my only difficulty I should not complain,” Crammon
answered. “I always sleep well. The troubles begin when I’m awake. Age
with his stealing steps! The old pleasures no longer sting, the old
delights are worn out. One counts on gratitude and affection, and gets
care and disappointment. I think a monastery would be the best place
for me. I must look into that plan more closely.”
Christian laughed. “Come now, Bernard, you would be a very unsuitable
person in a monastery. Drive the black thoughts away and let us have
breakfast.”
“All right, let us have breakfast.” Crammon arose. “Have you any idea
why poor Rumpelstilzkin suddenly fled by night? She had bad news from
home, I am told, but that’s no reason why she should have gone without
a word. It was not nice or considerate. And in a few hours Ariel too
will be lost to us. Her rooms are filled with cases and boxes, and M.
Chinard is bursting with self-importance. Black clouds are over us, and
all our lovely rainbows fade. This caviare, by the way, is excellent.
I shall withdraw into an utterly private life. Perhaps I shall hire
a secretary, either a man or a fat, appetizing, and discreet woman,
and begin to dictate my memoirs. You, my dear fellow, seem in more
excellent spirits than for a long time.”
“Yes, excellent,” Christian said, and his smile revealed his beautiful
teeth. “Excellent!” he repeated, and held out his hand to his
astonished friend.
“So you have finally become reconciled to your loss?” he winked, and
pointed upward with a significant gesture.
Christian guessed his meaning. “Entirely,” he said cheerily. “I’m
completely recovered.”
“Bravo!” said Crammon, and, comfortably eating, he philosophized: “It
would be saddening were it otherwise. I repeat what I have often said:
Ariel was born for the stars. There are blessed stars and fateful
stars. Some are inhabited by good spirits, others by demons. We have
known that from times immemorial. Let them wage their battles among
themselves. If it comes to collisions and catastrophes, it is a cosmic
matter in which we mortals have no share. When all is said and done,
you are but a mortal too, though one so blessed that you were even
granted a stay in the happy hunting grounds of the gods. But excesses
are evil. You cannot compete with Muscovite autocrats. Siegfried
can conquer the dragons in the end; were Lucifer to attack him with
fire-breathing steeds, the hero would but risk his skin in vain. Your
renunciation is as wise as it is delightful. I drink to your pleasant
future, dearest boy!”
Christian went to a buffet where magnificent fruit was exposed for
sale. He knew Crammon’s passionate delight in rare and lovely fruit.
He selected a woven basket and placed in the middle a pine-apple cut
open so that its golden inside showed. He surrounded it with a wreath
of flawless apples and of great, amber-coloured peaches from the South
of France. They were elastic and yet firm. He added seven enormous
clusters of California grapes. He arranged the fruit artistically,
carried the basket to Crammon, and presented it to him with jesting
solemnity.
They separated. When, late that afternoon, Crammon returned to the
hotel, he learned to his bitter amazement that Christian had left.
He could not compose himself. It seemed to him that he was the victim
of some secret cabal. “They all leave me in the lurch,” he murmured
angrily to himself; “they make a mock of me. It’s like an epidemic. You
are through with life, Bernard Gervasius, you are in every one’s way.
Go to your cell and bemoan your fate.”
He ordered his valet to pack, and to secure accommodations on the train
to Vienna. Then he placed the basket of fruit on the table, and in his
sad reflections plucked berry after berry of the grape.