CAPTAIN BERSELIUS
Next morning was chill and a white Seine mist wrapped Paris in its folds.
It clung to the trees of the Avenue Champs Elysées, and it half veiled the
Avenue Malakoff as Adams's _fiacre_ turned into that thoroughfare and drew
up at No. 14, a house with a carriage drive, a porter's lodge, and
wrought-iron gates.
The American paid off his cab, rang at the porter's lodge, was instantly
admitted, and found himself in an enormous courtyard domed in with glass.
He noted the orange and aloe trees growing in tubs of porcelain, as the
porter led him to the big double glass doors giving entrance to the
house.
"He's got the money," thought Adams, as the glass swing-door was opened by
a flunkey as magnificent as a Lord Mayor's footman, who took the visitor's
card and the card of M. Thénard and presented them to a functionary with a
large pale face, who was seated at a table close to the door.
This personage, who was as soberly dressed as an archbishop, and had
altogether a pontifical air, raised himself to his feet and approached the
visitor.
"Has monsieur an appointment----"
"No," said Adams. "I have come to see your master on business. You can
take him my card--yes, that one--Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thénard."
The functionary seemed perplexed; the early hour, the size of the visitor,
his decided manner, all taken together, were out of routine. Only for a
moment he hesitated, then leading the way across the warm and
flower-scented hall, he opened a door and said, "Will monsieur take a
seat?" Adams entered a big room, half library, half museum; the door
closed behind him, and he found himself alone.
The four walls of the room showed a few books, but were mostly covered
with arms and trophies of the chase. Japanese swords in solid ivory
scabbards, swords of the old Samurai so keen that a touch of the edge
would divide a suspended hair. Malay krisses, double-handed Chinese
execution swords; old pepper-pot revolvers, such as may still be found on
the African coast; knob-kerries, assegais, steel-spiked balls swinging
from whips of raw hide; weapons wild and savage and primitive as those
with which Attila drove before him the hordes of the Huns, and modern
weapons of to-day and yesterday; the big elephant gun which has been
supplanted by the express rifle; the deadly magazine rifle, the latest
products of Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix and Westley Richards of
London.
Adams forgot time as he stood examining these things; then he turned his
attention to the trophies, mounted by Borchard of Berlin, that prince of
taxidermists. Here stood a great ape, six feet and over--_monstrum
horrendum_--head flung back, mouth open, shouting aloud to the imagination
of the gazer in the language that was spoken ere the earliest man lifted
his face to the chill mystery of the stars. In the right fist was clutched
the branch of a M'bina tree, ready lifted to dash your brains out--the
whole thing a miracle of the taxidermist's art. Here crawled an alligator
on a slab of granitic rock; an alligator--that is to say, the despair of
the taxidermist--for you can make nothing out of an alligator; alive and
not in motion he looks stuffed, stuffed, he looks just the same.
Hartbeest, reedbuck, the maned and huge-eared roan antelope, gazelle, and
bush-buck, all were here, skull or mask, dominated by the vast head of the
wildebeest, with ponderous sickle-curved horns.
Adams had half completed the tour of the walls when the door of the
library opened and Captain Berselius came in. Tall, black-bearded and
ferocious looking--that was the description of man Adams was prepared to
meet. But Captain Berselius was a little man in a frock-coat, rather worn,
and slippers. He had evidently been in _négligé_ and, to meet the visitor,
slipped into the frock-coat, or possibly he was careless, taken up with
abstractions, dreams, business affairs, plans. He was rather stout, with
an oval, egg-shaped face; his beard, sparse and pointed and tinged with
gray, had originally been light of hue; he had pale blue eyes, and he had
a perpetual smile.
It is to be understood by this that Captain Berselius's smile was, so to
speak, hung on a hair-trigger; there was always a trace of it on his face
round the lips, and in conversation it became accentuated.
At first sight, during your first moments of meeting with Captain
Berselius, you would have said, "What a happy-faced and jolly little
man!"
Adams, completely taken aback by the apparition before him, bowed.
"I have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thénard?"
said Captain Berselius, motioning the visitor to a chair. "Pray take a
seat, take a seat--yes----" He took a seat opposite the American, crossed
his legs in a comfortable manner, caressed his chin, and whilst chatting
on general subjects stared full at the newcomer, as though Adams had been
a statue, examining him, without the least insolence, but in that thorough
manner with which a purchaser examines the horse he is about to buy or the
physician of an insurance company a proposer.
It was now that Adams felt he had to deal with no common man in Captain
Berselius.
Never before had he conversed with a person so calmly authoritative, so
perfectly at ease, and so commanding. This little commonplace-looking,
negligently dressed man, talking easily in his armchair, made the spacious
Adams feel small and of little account in the world. Captain Berselius
filled all the space. He was _the_ person in that room; Adams, though he
had personality enough, was nowhere. And now he noticed that the perpetual
smile of the Captain had no relation to mirth or kindliness, it was not
worn as a mask, for Captain Berselius had no need for masks; it was a
mysterious and unaccountable thing that was there.
"You know M. Thénard intimately?" said Captain Berselius, turning suddenly
from some remarks he was making on the United States.
"Oh, no," said Adams. "I have attended his clinics; beyond that----"
"Just so," said the other. "Are you a good shot?"
"Fair, with the rifle."
"You have had to do with big game?"
"I have shot bear."
"These are some of my trophies," said the Captain, rising to his feet. He
took his stand before the great ape and contemplated it for a moment. "I
shot him near M'Bassa on the West Coast two years ago. The natives at the
village where we were camping said there was a big monkey in a tree near
by. They seemed very much frightened, but they led me to the tree. He knew
what a gun was; he knew what a man was, too. He knew that his hour of
death had arrived, and he came roaring out of the tree to meet me. But
when he was on the ground, with the muzzle of my Mannlicher two yards from
his head, all his rage vanished. He saw death, and to shut out the sight
he put his big hands before his face----"
"And you?"
"I shot him through the heart. This room does not represent all my work.
The billiard room and the hall contain many of my trophies; they are
interesting to me, for each has a history. That tiger skin there in front
of the fireplace once covered a thing very much alive. He was a full-sized
brute, and I met him in a rice field near Benares. I had not even time to
raise my gun when he charged. Then I was on my back and he was on top of
me. He had overshot the mark a bit--I was not even scratched. I lay
looking up at his whiskers; they seemed thick as quills, and I counted
them. I was dead to all intents and purposes, so I felt no fear. That was
the lesson this gentleman taught me; it is as natural to be dead as to be
alive. I have never been afraid of death since. Well, something must have
distracted his attention and frightened him, for he lifted himself, passed
over me like a cloud, and was gone. Well, so much for the tiger. And now
for business. Are you prepared to act as medical attendant to my new
expedition?"
"Well," said Adams, "I would like a little time to consider----"
"Certainly," said Captain Berselius, taking out his watch. "I will give
you five minutes, as a matter of form. Thénard, in a note to me this
morning, informs me he has given you all details as to salary."
"Yes, he gave me the details. As you give me so short a time to make my
decision about you, I suppose you have already made your decision about
me?"
"Absolutely," said Berselius. "Two minutes have passed. Why waste the
other three? For you have already made up your mind to come."
Adams sat down in a chair for a moment, and in that moment he did a great
deal of thinking.
He had never met a man before at all like Berselius. He had never before
come across a man with such a tremendous personality. Berselius fascinated
yet repelled him. That there was evil in this man he felt, but he felt
also that there was good. Much evil and much good. And beyond this he
divined an animal ferocity latent--the ferocity of a tiger--a cold and
pitiless and utterly divorced from reason ferociousness, the passion of a
primitive man, who had never known law except the law of the axe wielded
by the strongest. And yet there was something in the man that he liked. He
knew by Berselius's manner that if he did not take the offer now, he would
lose it. He reckoned with lightning swiftness that the expedition would
bring him in solid cash enough to start in a small way in the States. He
was as poor as Job, as hungry for adventure as a schoolboy, and he only
had a moment to decide in.
"How many men are making up your party?" suddenly asked Adams.
"You and I alone," replied Berselius, putting his watch in his pocket to
indicate that the time was almost expired.
"I will come," said Adams, and it seemed to him that he said the words
against his will.
Captain Berselius went to a writing table, took a sheet of paper and wrote
carefully and with consideration for the space of some five minutes. Then
he handed the paper to Adams. "These are the things you want," said he. "I
am an old campaigner in the wilds, so you will excuse me for specifying
them. Go for your outfit where you will, but for your guns to Schaunard,
for he is the best. Order all accounts to be sent in to my secretary, M.
Pinchon. He will settle them. Your salary you can take how you will. If it
is useful to you, I can give you a cheque now on the Crédit Lyonnais, if
you will state the amount."
"Thank you, thank you," said Adams. "I have quite sufficient money for my
needs, and, if it is the same to you, I would rather pay for my outfit
myself."
"As you please," said Captain Berselius, quite indifferently. "But
Schaunard's account and the account for drugs and instruments you will
please send to M. Pinchon; they are part of the expedition. And now,"
looking at his watch, "will you do me the pleasure of staying to
_déjeuner_?"
Adams bowed.
"I will notify you to-night at your address the exact date we start," said
Captain Berselius as he led the way from the room. "It will be within a
fortnight. My yacht is lying at Marseilles, and will take us to Matadi,
which will be our base. She will be faster than the mail-boats and very
much more comfortable."
They crossed the hall, Captain Berselius opened a door, motioned his
companion to enter, and Adams found himself in a room, half morning room,
half boudoir. A bright log fire was burning, and on either side of the
fireplace two women--a girl of about eighteen and a woman of thirty-five
or so--were seated.
The elder woman, Madame Berselius, a Parisienne, pale, stout, yet
well-proportioned, with almond-shaped eyes; full lips exquisitely cut in
the form of the true cupid's bow; and with a face vigorous enough, but
veiled by an expression at once mulish, blindish, and indolent--was a
type.
The type of the poodle woman, the parasite. With the insolent expression
of a Japanese lady of rank, an insult herself to the human race, you will
see her everywhere in the highest social ranks of society. At the
Zoölogical Gardens of Madrid on a Sunday, when the grandees of Spain take
their pleasure amidst the animals at Longchamps, in Rotten Row, Washington
Square, Unter den Linden, wherever money is, growing like an evil fungus,
she flourishes.
Opposite Madame Berselius sat her daughter, Maxine.
Adams, after his first glance at the two women, saw only Maxine.
Maxine had golden-brown hair, worn after the fashion of Cléo de Mérode's,
gray eyes, and a wide mouth, with pomegranate-red lips. Goethe's dictum
that the highest beauty is unobtainable without something of disproportion
was exemplified in the case of Maxine Berselius. "Her mouth is too wide,"
said the women, who, knowing nothing of the philosophy of art, hit upon
the defect that was Maxine's main charm.
Berselius introduced Adams to his wife and daughter, and scarcely had he
done so than a servant, in the blue-and-gold livery of the house, flung
open the door and announced that _déjeuner_ was served.
Adams scarcely noticed the room into which they passed; a room whose
scheme of colour was that watery green which we associate with the scenery
of early spring, the call of the cuckoo, and the river echoes where the
weir foams and the willow droops.
The tapestry hanging upon the walls did not distract from this scheme.
Taken from some château of Provence, and old almost as the story of
Nicolete, it showed ladies listening to shepherds who played on flutes,
capering lambs, daffodils blowing to the winds of early spring under a sky
gray and broken by rifts of blue.
Adams scarcely noticed the room, or the tapestry, or the food placed
before him; he was entirely absorbed by two things, Maxine and Captain
Berselius.
Berselius's presence at the table evidently cast silence and a cloak of
restraint upon the women. You could see that the servants who served him
dreaded him to the very tips of their fingers, and, though he was chatting
easily and in an almost paternal manner, his wife and daughter had almost
the air of children, nervous, and on their very best behaviour. This was
noticeable, especially, in Madame Berselius. The beautiful, indolent,
arrogant face became a very humble face indeed when she turned it on the
man who was evidently, literally, her lord and master. Maxine, though
oppressed by the presence, wore a different air; she seemed abstracted and
utterly unconscious of what a beautiful picture she made against the
old-world tapestry of spring.
Her eyes sometimes met the American's. They scarcely spoke to each other
once during the meal, yet their eyes met almost as frequently as though
they had been conversing. As a matter of fact, Adams was a new type of man
to her, and on that account interesting; very different was this son of
Anak, with the restful, forceful face, to the curled and scented dandies
of the Chaussée d'Antin, the "captains with the little moustaches," the
frequenters of the _foyer de Ballet_, the cigarette-dried mummies of the
Grand Club. It was like the view of a mountain to a person who had only
known hills.
Maxine, in her turn, was a new type of woman to Adams. This perfect flower
from the Parisian hot-house was the rarest and most beautiful thing he had
met in the way of womanhood. She seemed to him a rose only just unfolded,
unconscious of its own freshness and beauty as of the dew upon its petals,
and saying to the world, by the voice of its own loveliness, "Behold me!"
"Well," said Captain Berselius, as he took leave of his guest in the
smoking room, "I will let you know to-night the day and hour of our
departure. All my business in Paris will be settled this afternoon. You
had better come and see me the day before we start, so that we can make
our last arrangements. _Au revoir._"