SCHAUNARD
The young man turned down the Avenue Malakoff, after he had left
Berselius's house, in the direction of the Avenue des Champs Elysées.
In twenty-four hours a complete change had taken place in his life. His
line of travel had taken a new and most unexpected course; it was as
though a train on the North German had, suddenly, by some mysterious
arrangement of points and tracks, found itself on the Paris-Lyons and
Mediterranean Railway.
Yesterday afternoon the prospect before him, though vague enough, was
American. A practice in some big central American town. It would be a hard
fight, for money was scanty, and in medicine, especially in the States,
advertisement counts for very much.
All that was changed now, and the hard, definite prospect that had elbowed
itself out of vagueness stood before him: Africa, its palms and poisonous
forests, the Congo--Berselius.
Something else besides these things also stood before him very definitely
and almost casting them into shade. Maxine.
Up to this, a woman had never stood before him as a possible part of his
future, if we except Mary Eliza Summers, the eleven-year-old daughter of
old Abe Summers, who kept the store in Dodgeville, Vermont, years
ago--that is to say, when Paul Quincy Adams was twelve, an orchard-robbing
hooligan, whose chief worry in life was that, though he could thrash his
eldest brother left-handed, he was condemned by the law of entail to wear
his old pants.
When a man falls in love with a woman--really in love--though the
attainment of his desire be all but impossible, he has reached the goal of
life; no tide can take him higher toward the Absolute. He has reached
life's zenith, and never will he rise higher, even though he live to wield
a sceptre or rule armies.
Adams reached the Place de la Concorde on foot, walking and taking his way
mechanically, and utterly unconscious of the passers-by.
He was studying in minute detail Maxine Berselius, the pose of her head
outlined against the tapestry, the curves of her lips that could speak so
well without speaking, the little shell-like ears, the brown-gold coils of
her hair, her hands, her dress.
He was standing undetermined as to his route, and whether he would cross
over to the Rue St. Honoré or turn toward the Seine, when someone gripped
his arm from behind, and, turning, he found himself face to face with Dr.
Stenhouse, an English physician who had set up in Paris, practising in the
Boulevard Haussmann and flourishing exceedingly.
"Well, this is luck," said Stenhouse. "I lost your address, or I would
have written, asking you to come and see us. I remembered it was over on
the other side of the water somewhere, but where exactly I could not
remember. What are you doing with yourself?"
"Nothing, just at present."
"Well, see here. I'm going to the Rue du Mont Thabor to see a patient;
walk along with me--it's quite close, just behind the Rue St. Honoré."
They crossed the Place de la Concorde.
"You have finished your post-graduate work, I expect," said Stenhouse.
"Are you going to practise in the States?"
"Ultimately, I may," replied Adams. "I have always intended doing so; but
I have to feel my way very cautiously, for the money market is not in a
particularly flourishing state with me."
"Good heavens!" said Stenhouse, "when is it with a medical man, especially
when he is just starting? I've been through that. See here, why don't you
start in Paris?"
"Paris?"
"Yes, this is the place to make money. You say you are thinking of
starting in some American city; well, let me tell you, there are very few
American cities so full of rich Americans as Paris."
"Well," said Adams, "the idea is not a bad one, but just for the present I
am fixed. I am going on a big-game shooting expedition to the Congo."
"As doctor?"
"Yes, and the salary is not bad--two thousand francs a month and
everything found, to say nothing of the fun."
"And the malaria?"
"Oh, one has to run risks."
"Whom are you going with?"
"A man called Berselius."
"Not Captain Berselius?" asked Stenhouse, stopping dead.
"Yes, Captain Berselius, of No. 14 Avenue Malakoff. I have just returned
from having _déjeuner_ with him."
Stenhouse whistled. They were in the Rue du Mont Thabor by this, in front
of a small _café_.
"Well," said Adams, "what's wrong?"
"Everything," replied the other. "This is the house where my patient
lives. Wait for me, for a moment, like a good fellow. I shan't detain you
long, and then we can finish our talk, for I have something to tell you."
He darted into the _café_ and Adams waited, watching the passers-by and
somewhat perturbed in mind. Stenhouse's manner impressed him
uncomfortably, for, if Captain Berselius had been the devil, the
Englishman could not have put more disfavour into his tone. And he (Adams)
had made a compact with Captain Berselius.
The Rue du Mont Thabor is a somewhat gloomy little street, and it fitted
Adams's mood as he waited, watching the passers-by and the small affairs
of the little shops.
At the end of five minutes Stenhouse returned.
"Well?" said Adams.
"I have had no luncheon yet," replied Stenhouse. "I have been so rushed.
Come with me to a little place I know in the Rue St. Honoré, where I can
get a cup of tea and a bun. We will talk then."
"Now," said Stenhouse, when he was seated at a little marble-topped table
with the cup of tea and the bun before him. "You say you have engaged
yourself to go to the Congo with Captain Berselius."
"Yes. What do you know about him?"
"That's just the difficulty. I can only say this, and it's between
ourselves, the man's name is a byword for a brute and a devil."
"That's cheerful," said Adams.
"Mind you," said Stenhouse, "he is in the very best society. I have met
him at a reception at the Elysée. He goes everywhere. He belongs to the
best clubs; he's a _persona grata_ at more courts than one, and an
intimate friend of King Leopold of Belgium. His immense wealth, or part of
it, comes from the rubber industry--motor tires and so forth. And he's mad
after big game. That's his pleasure--killing. He's a killer. That is the
best description of the man. The lust of blood is in him, and the
astounding thing, to my mind, is that he is not a murderer. He has killed
two men in duels, and they say that it is a sight to see him fighting.
Mind you, when I say 'murderer,' I do not mean to imply that he is a man
who would murder for money. Give the devil his due. I mean that he is
quite beyond reason when aroused, and if you were to hit Captain Berselius
in the face he would kill you as certain as I'll get indigestion from that
bun I have just swallowed. The last doctor he took with him to Africa died
at Marseilles from the hardships he went through--not at the hands of
Berselius, for that would have aroused inquiry, but simply from the
hardships of the expedition; but he gave frightful accounts to the
hospital authorities of the way this Berselius had treated the natives. He
drove that expedition right away from Libreville, in the French Congo, to
God knows where. He had it under martial law the whole time, clubbing and
thrashing the niggers at the least offence, and shooting with his own hand
two of them who tried to desert."
"You must remember," said Adams, taking up the cudgels for Berselius and
almost surprised himself at so doing, "that an expedition like that, if it
is not held together by a firm hand, goes to pieces, and the result is
disaster for everyone. And you know what niggers are."
"There you are," laughed Stenhouse. "The man has obsessed you already, and
you'll come back, if you go, like Bauchardy, the man who died in the
hospital at Marseilles, cursing Berselius, yet so magnetized by the power
of the chap that you would be ready to follow him again if he said 'Come,'
and you had the legs to stand on. That is how Bauchardy was."
"The man, undoubtedly, has a great individuality," said Adams. "Passing
him in the street one might take him for a very ordinary person. Meeting
him for the first time, he looks all good nature; that smile----"
"Always," said Stenhouse. "Beware of a man with a perpetual smile on his
face."
"Yes, I know that, but this smile of Berselius's is not worn as a cloak.
It seems quite natural to the man, yet somehow bad, as if it came from a
profound and natural cynicism directed against all things--including all
things good."
"You have put it," said Stenhouse, "in four words."
"But, in spite of everything," said Adams, "I believe the man to have
great good qualities: some instinct tells me so."
"My dear sir," said Stenhouse, "did you ever meet a bad man worth twopence
at his trade who had not good qualities? The bad man who is half good--so
to speak--is a much more dangerous villain than the barrier bully without
heart or soul. When hell makes a super-excellent devil, the devil puts
goodness in just as a baker puts soda in his bread to make it rise. Look
at Verlaine."
"Well," said Adams, "I have promised Berselius, and I will have to go.
Besides, there are other considerations."
He was thinking of Maxine, and a smile lit up his face.
"You seem happy enough about it," said Stenhouse, rising to go. "Well, 'he
who will to Cupar maun to Cupar.' When do you start?"
"I don't know yet, but I shall hear to-night."
They passed out into the Rue St. Honoré, where they parted.
"Good luck," said Stenhouse, getting into a _fiacre_.
"Good-bye," replied Adams, waving his hand.
Being in that quarter of the town, and having nothing especial to do, he
determined to go to Schaunard's in the Rue de la Paix, and see about his
guns.
Schaunard personally superintends his own shop, which is the first
gun-shop on the Continent of Europe. Emperors visit him in person and he
receives them as an equal, though far superior to them in the science of
sport. An old man now, with a long white beard, he remembers the
fowling-pieces and rifles which he supplied to the Emperor Maximilian
before that unfortunate gentleman started on his fatal expedition in
search of a throne. He is a mathematician as well as a maker of guns; his
telescopic sights and wind gauges are second to none in the world, and his
shop front in the Rue de la Paix exposes no wares--it has just a wire
blind, on which are blazoned the arms of Russia, England, and Spain.
But, inside, the place is a joy to a rightly constituted man. Behind glass
cases the long processions of guns and rifles, smooth, sleek, nut-brown
and deadly, are a sight for the eyes of a sportsman.
The duelling pistol is still a factor in Continental life, and the cases
containing them at Schaunard's are worth lingering over, for the modern
duelling pistol is a thing of beauty, very different from the murderous
hair-trigger machines of Count Considine--though just as deadly.
To Schaunard, pottering amongst his wares, appeared Adams.
The swing-door closed, shutting out the sound of the Rue de la Paix, and
the old gun-merchant came forward through the silence of his shop to meet
his visitor.
Adams explained his business. He had come to buy some rifles for a
big-game expedition. Captain Berselius had recommended him.
"Ah! Captain Berselius?" said Schaunard, and an interested look came into
his face. "True, he is a customer of mine. As a matter of fact, his guns
for his new expedition are already boxed and directed for Marseilles. Ah,
yes--you require a complete outfit, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Adams. "I am going with him."
"Going with Captain Berselius as a friend?"
"No, as a doctor."
"True, he generally takes a doctor with him," said Schaunard, running his
fingers through his beard. "Have you had much experience amidst big game,
and can you make out your own list of requirements, or shall I help you
with my advice?"
"I should be very glad of your advice. No, I have not had much experience
in big-game shooting. I have shot bears, that's all----"
"Armand!" cried Schaunard, and a pale-faced young man came forward from
the back part of the shop.
"Open me this case."
Armand opened a case, and the deft hand of the old man took down a
double-barrelled cordite rifle, light-looking and of exquisite
workmanship.
"These are the guns we shoot elephants with nowadays," said Schaunard,
handling the weapon lovingly. "A child could carry it, and there is
nothing living it will not kill." He laughed softly to himself, and then
directed Armand to bring forward an elephant gun of the old pattern. In an
instant the young man returned, staggering under the weight of the immense
rifle, shod with a heel of india-rubber an inch thick.
Adams laughed, took the thing up with one hand, and raised it to his
shoulder as though it had been a featherweight.
"Ah!" said he, "here's a gun worth shooting with."
Schaunard looked on with admiration at the giant handling the gigantic
gun.
"Oh, for you," said he, "it's all very well. _Ma foi_, but you suit one
another, you both are of another day."
"God bless you," said Adams, "you can pick me up by the bushel in the
States. I'm _small_. Say, how much is this thing?"
"_That!_" cried Schaunard. "Why, what on earth could you want with such an
obsolete weapon as that?"
"Tell me--does this thing hit harder, gun for gun--not weight for weight,
mind you--but gun for gun--than that double-barrel you are holding in your
hands?"
"Oh, yes," said Schaunard, "it hits harder, just as a cannon would hit
harder, but----"
"I'll have her," said Adams. "I've taken a fancy to her. See here, Captain
Berselius is paying for my guns; they are his, part of the expedition--I
want this as my own, and I'll pay you for her out of my own pocket. How
much is she?"
Schaunard, whose fifty years of trading had explained to him the fact that
when an American takes a whim into his head it is best for all parties to
let him have his own way, ran his fingers through his beard.
"The thing has no price," said he. "It is a curiosity. But if you must
have it--well, I will let you have it for two hundred francs."
"Done," said Adams. "Have you any cartridges?"
"Oh, yes," replied Schaunard. "Heaps. That is to say, I have the old
cartridges, and I can have a couple of hundred of them emptied and
re-filled and percussioned. Ah, well, monsieur, you must have your own
way. Armand, take the gun; have it attended to and packed. And now that
monsieur has his play-toy," finished the old man, with one of his silent
little laughs, "let us come to business."
They did, and nearly an hour was spent whilst the American chose a double
hammerless-ejector cordite rifle and a .256 sporting Mannlicher, for
Schaunard was a man who, when he took an interest in a customer, could be
very interesting.
When business was concluded Schaunard gave his customer various tips as to
the treatment of guns. "And now," said he, opening the door as Adams was
taking his departure, "I will give you one more piece of advice about this
expedition. It is a piece of private advice, and I will trust you not to
tell the Captain that I gave it to you."
"Yes. What is the advice?"
"Don't go."
Adams laughed as he turned on his heel, and Schaunard laughed as he closed
the door.
A passer-by might have imagined that the two men had just exchanged a good
joke.
Before Adams had taken three steps, the door of the shop re-opened, and
Schaunard's voice called again.
"Monsieur."
"Yes?" said Adams, turning.
"You need not pay me for the gun till you come back."
"Right," said Adams, laughing. "I will call in and pay you for it when I
come back. _Au revoir._"
"_Adieu._"