These are the words of an old stager; and though time is a good
conservative in forest places, much may be untrue to-day. Many of us
have passed Arcadian days there and moved on, but yet left a portion of
our souls behind us buried in the woods. I would not dig for these
reliquiæ; they are incommunicable treasures that will not enrich the
finder; and yet there may lie, interred below great oaks or scattered
along forest paths, stores of youth’s dynamite and dear remembrances.
And as one generation passes on and renovates the field of tillage for
the next, I entertain a fancy that when the young men of to-day go forth
into the forest they shall find the air still vitalised by the spirits of
their predecessors, and, like those “unheard melodies” that are the
sweetest of all, the memory of our laughter shall still haunt the field
of trees. Those merry voices that in woods call the wanderer farther,
those thrilling silences and whispers of the groves, surely in
Fontainebleau they must be vocal of me and my companions? We are not
content to pass away entirely from the scenes of our delight; we would
leave, if but in gratitude, a pillar and a legend.
One generation after another fall like honey-bees upon this memorable
forest, rifle its sweets, pack themselves with vital memories, and when
the theft is consummated depart again into life richer, but poorer also.
The forest, indeed, they have possessed, from that day forward it is
theirs indissolubly, and they will return to walk in it at night in the
fondest of their dreams, and use it for ever in their books and pictures.
Yet when they made their packets, and put up their notes and sketches,
something, it should seem, had been forgotten. A projection of
themselves shall appear to haunt unfriended these scenes of happiness, a
natural child of fancy, begotten and forgotten unawares. Over the whole
field of our wanderings such fetches are still travelling like
indefatigable bagmen; but the imps of Fontainebleau, as of all beloved
spots, are very long of life, and memory is piously unwilling to forget
their orphanage. If anywhere about that wood you meet my airy bantling,
greet him with tenderness. He was a pleasant lad, though now abandoned.
And when it comes to your own turn to quit the forest, may you leave
behind you such another; no Antony or Werther, let us hope, no tearful
whipster, but, as becomes this not uncheerful and most active age in
which we figure, the child of happy hours.
No art, it may be said, was ever perfect, and not many noble, that has
not been mirthfully conceived.
And no man, it may be added, was ever anything but a wet blanket and a
cross to his companions who boasted not a copious spirit of enjoyment.
Whether as man or artist let the youth make haste to Fontainebleau, and
once there let him address himself to the spirit of the place; he will
learn more from exercise than from studies, although both are necessary;
and if he can get into his heart the gaiety and inspiration of the woods
he will have gone far to undo the evil of his sketches. A spirit once
well strung up to the concert-pitch of the primeval out-of-doors will
hardly dare to finish a study and magniloquently ticket it a picture.
The incommunicable thrill of things, that is the tuning-fork by which we
test the flatness of our art. Here it is that Nature teaches and
condemns, and still spurs up to further effort and new failure. Thus it
is that she sets us blushing at our ignorant and tepid works; and the
more we find of these inspiring shocks the less shall we be apt to love
the literal in our productions. In all sciences and senses the letter
kills; and to-day, when cackling human geese express their ignorant
condemnation of all studio pictures, it is a lesson most useful to be
learnt. Let the young painter go to Fontainebleau, and while he
stupefies himself with studies that teach him the mechanical side of his
trade, let him walk in the great air, and be a servant of mirth, and not
pick and botanise, but wait upon the moods of nature. So he will
learn—or learn not to forget—the poetry of life and earth, which, when he
has acquired his track, will save him from joyless reproduction.
[1882.]
IV
EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” {95}
THE country where they journeyed, that green, breezy valley of the Loing,
is one very attractive to cheerful and solitary people. The weather was
superb; all night it thundered and lightened, and the rain fell in
sheets; by day, the heavens were cloudless, the sun fervent, the air
vigorous and pure. They walked separate: the Cigarette plodding behind
with some philosophy, the lean Arethusa posting on ahead. Thus each
enjoyed his own reflections by the way; each had perhaps time to tire of
them before he met his comrade at the designated inn; and the pleasures
of society and solitude combined to fill the day. The Arethusa carried
in his knapsack the works of Charles of Orleans, and employed some of the
hours of travel in the concoction of English roundels. In this path, he
must thus have preceded Mr. Lang, Mr. Dobson, Mr. Henley, and all
contemporary roundeleers; but for good reasons, he will be the last to
publish the result. The Cigarette walked burthened with a volume of
Michelet. And both these books, it will be seen, played a part in the
subsequent adventure.
The Arethusa was unwisely dressed. He is no precisian in attire; but by
all accounts, he was never so ill-inspired as on that tramp; having set
forth indeed, upon a moment’s notice, from the most unfashionable spot in
Europe, Barbizon. On his head he wore a smoking-cap of Indian work, the
gold lace pitifully frayed and tarnished. A flannel shirt of an
agreeable dark hue, which the satirical called black; a light tweed coat
made by a good English tailor; ready-made cheap linen trousers and
leathern gaiters completed his array. In person, he is exceptionally
lean; and his face is not, like those of happier mortals, a certificate.
For years he could not pass a frontier or visit a bank without suspicion;
the police everywhere, but in his native city, looked askance upon him;
and (though I am sure it will not be credited) he is actually denied
admittance to the casino of Monte Carlo. If you will imagine him,
dressed as above, stooping under his knapsack, walking nearly five miles
an hour with the folds of the ready-made trousers fluttering about his
spindle shanks, and still looking eagerly round him as if in terror of
pursuit—the figure, when realised, is far from reassuring. When Villon
journeyed (perhaps by the same pleasant valley) to his exile at
Roussillon, I wonder if he had not something of the same appearance.
Something of the same preoccupation he had beyond a doubt, for he too
must have tinkered verses as he walked, with more success than his
successor. And if he had anything like the same inspiring weather, the
same nights of uproar, men in armour rolling and resounding down the
stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, the wild
bull’s-eye of the storm flashing all night long into the bare
inn-chamber—the same sweet return of day, the same unfathomable blue of
noon, the same high-coloured, halcyon eves—and above all, if he had
anything like as good a comrade, anything like as keen a relish for what
he saw, and what he ate, and the rivers that he bathed in, and the
rubbish that he wrote, I would exchange estates to-day with the poor
exile, and count myself a gainer.
But there was another point of similarity between the two journeys, for
which the Arethusa was to pay dear: both were gone upon in days of
incomplete security. It was not long after the Franco-Prussian war.
Swiftly as men forget, that country-side was still alive with tales of
uhlans, and outlying sentries, and hairbreadth ’scapes from the
ignominious cord, and pleasant momentary friendships between invader and
invaded. A year, at the most two years later, you might have tramped all
that country over and not heard one anecdote. And a year or two later,
you would—if you were a rather ill-looking young man in nondescript
array—have gone your rounds in greater safety; for along with more
interesting matter, the Prussian spy would have somewhat faded from men’s
imaginations.
For all that, our voyager had got beyond Château Renard before he was
conscious of arousing wonder. On the road between that place and
Châtillon-sur-Loing, however, he encountered a rural postman; they fell
together in talk, and spoke of a variety of subjects; but through one and
all, the postman was still visibly preoccupied, and his eyes were
faithful to the Arethusa’s knapsack. At last, with mysterious
roguishness, he inquired what it contained, and on being answered, shook
his head with kindly incredulity. “_Non_,” said he, “_non_, _vous avez
des portraits_.” And then with a languishing appeal, “_Voyons_, show me
the portraits!” It was some little while before the Arethusa, with a
shout of laughter, recognised his drift. By portraits he meant indecent
photographs; and in the Arethusa, an austere and rising author, he
thought to have identified a pornographic colporteur. When countryfolk
in France have made up their minds as to a person’s calling, argument is
fruitless. Along all the rest of the way, the postman piped and fluted
meltingly to get a sight of the collection; now he would upbraid, now he
would reason—“_Voyons_, I will tell nobody”; then he tried corruption,
and insisted on paying for a glass of wine; and, at last when their ways
separated—“_Non_,” said he, “_ce n’est pas bien de votre part_. _O non_,
_ce n’est pas bien_.” And shaking his head with quite a sentimental
sense of injury, he departed unrefreshed.
On certain little difficulties encountered by the Arethusa at
Châtillon-sur-Loing, I have not space to dwell; another Châtillon, of
grislier memory, looms too near at hand. But the next day, in a certain
hamlet called La Jussiére, he stopped to drink a glass of syrup in a very
poor, bare drinking shop. The hostess, a comely woman, suckling a child,
examined the traveller with kindly and pitying eyes. “You are not of
this department?” she asked. The Arethusa told her he was English.
“Ah!” she said, surprised. “We have no English. We have many Italians,
however, and they do very well; they do not complain of the people of
hereabouts. An Englishman may do very well also; it will be something
new.” Here was a dark saying, over which the Arethusa pondered as he
drank his grenadine; but when he rose and asked what was to pay, the
light came upon him in a flash. “_O_, _pour vous_,” replied the
landlady, “a halfpenny!” _Pour vous_? By heaven, she took him for a
beggar! He paid his halfpenny, feeling that it were ungracious to
correct her. But when he was forth again upon the road, he became vexed
in spirit. The conscience is no gentleman, he is a rabbinical fellow;
and his conscience told him he had stolen the syrup.
That night the travellers slept in Gien; the next day they passed the
river and set forth (severally, as their custom was) on a short stage
through the green plain upon the Berry side, to Châtillon-sur-Loire. It
was the first day of the shooting; and the air rang with the report of
firearms and the admiring cries of sportsmen. Overhead the birds were in
consternation, wheeling in clouds, settling and re-arising. And yet with
all this bustle on either hand, the road itself lay solitary. The
Arethusa smoked a pipe beside a milestone, and I remember he laid down
very exactly all he was to do at Châtillon: how he was to enjoy a cold
plunge, to change his shirt, and to await the Cigarette’s arrival, in
sublime inaction, by the margin of the Loire. Fired by these ideas, he
pushed the more rapidly forward, and came, early in the afternoon and in
a breathing heat, to the entering-in of that ill-fated town. Childe
Roland to the dark tower came.
A polite gendarme threw his shadow on the path.
“_Monsieur est voyageur_?” he asked.
And the Arethusa, strong in his innocence, forgetful of his vile attire,
replied—I had almost said with gaiety: “So it would appear.”
“His papers are in order?” said the gendarme. And when the Arethusa,
with a slight change of voice, admitted he had none, he was informed
(politely enough) that he must appear before the Commissary.
The Commissary sat at a table in his bedroom, stripped to the shirt and
trousers, but still copiously perspiring; and when he turned upon the
prisoner a large meaningless countenance, that was (like Bardolph’s) “all
whelks and bubuckles,” the dullest might have been prepared for grief.
Here was a stupid man, sleepy with the heat and fretful at the
interruption, whom neither appeal nor argument could reach.
THE COMMISSARY. You have no papers?
THE ARETHUSA. Not here.
THE COMMISSARY. Why?
THE ARETHUSA. I have left them behind in my valise.
THE COMMISSARY. You know, however, that it is forbidden to circulate
without papers?
THE ARETHUSA. Pardon me: I am convinced of the contrary. I am here on
my rights as an English subject by international treaty.
THE COMMISSARY (_with scorn_). You call yourself an Englishman?
THE ARETHUSA. I do.
THE COMMISSARY. Humph.—What is your trade?
THE ARETHUSA. I am a Scotch advocate.
THE COMMISSARY (_with singular annoyance_). A Scotch advocate! Do you
then pretend to support yourself by that in this department?
The Arethusa modestly disclaimed the pretension. The Commissary had
scored a point.
THE COMMISSARY. Why, then, do you travel?
THE ARETHUSA. I travel for pleasure.
THE COMMISSARY (_pointing to the knapsack_, _and with sublime
incredulity_). _Avec ça_? _Voyez-vous_, _je suis un homme intelligent_!
(With that? Look here, I am a person of intelligence!)
The culprit remaining silent under this home thrust, the Commissary
relished his triumph for a while, and then demanded (like the postman,
but with what different expectations!) to see the contents of the
knapsack. And here the Arethusa, not yet sufficiently awake to his
position, fell into a grave mistake. There was little or no furniture in
the room except the Commissary’s chair and table; and to facilitate
matters, the Arethusa (with all the innocence on earth) leant the
knapsack on a corner of the bed. The Commissary fairly bounded from his
seat; his face and neck flushed past purple, almost into blue; and he
screamed to lay the desecrating object on the floor.
The knapsack proved to contain a change of shirts, of shoes, of socks,
and of linen trousers, a small dressing-case, a piece of soap in one of
the shoes, two volumes of the _Collection Jannet_ lettered _Poésies de
Charles d’Orléans_, a map, and a version book containing divers notes in
prose and the remarkable English roundels of the voyager, still to this
day unpublished: the Commissary of Châtillon is the only living man who
has clapped an eye on these artistic trifles. He turned the assortment
over with a contumelious finger; it was plain from his daintiness that he
regarded the Arethusa and all his belongings as the very temple of
infection. Still there was nothing suspicious about the map, nothing
really criminal except the roundels; as for Charles of Orleans, to the
ignorant mind of the prisoner, he seemed as good as a certificate; and it
was supposed the farce was nearly over.
The inquisitor resumed his seat.
THE COMMISSARY (_after a pause_). _Eh bien_, _je vais vous dire ce que
vous êtes_. _Vous êtes allemand et vous venez chanter à la foire_.
(Well, then, I will tell you what you are. You are a German and have
come to sing at the fair.)
THE ARETHUSA. Would you like to hear me sing? I believe I could
convince you of the contrary.
THE COMMISSARY. _Pas de plaisanterie_, _monsieur_!
THE ARETHUSA. Well, sir, oblige me at least by looking at this book.
Here, I open it with my eyes shut. Read one of these songs—read this
one—and tell me, you who are a man of intelligence, if it would be
possible to sing it at a fair?
THE COMMISSARY (_critically_). _Mais oui_. _Très bien_.
THE ARETHUSA. _Comment_, _monsieur_! What! But do you not observe it
is antique. It is difficult to understand, even for you and me; but for
the audience at a fair, it would be meaningless.
THE COMMISSARY (_taking a pen_). _Enfin_, _il faui en finir_. What is
your name?
THE ARETHUSA (_speaking with the swallowing vivacity of the English_).
Robert-Louis-Stev’ns’n.
THE COMMISSARY (_aghast_). _Hé_! _Quoi_?
THE ARETHUSA (_perceiving and improving his advantage_).
Rob’rt-Lou’s-Stev’ns’n.
THE COMMISSARY (_after several conflicts with his pen_). _Eh bien_, _il
faut se passer du nom_. _Ca ne s’écrit pas_. (Well, we must do without
the name: it is unspellable.)
The above is a rough summary of this momentous conversation, in which I
have been chiefly careful to preserve the plums of the Commissary; but
the remainder of the scene, perhaps because of his rising anger, has left
but little definite in the memory of the Arethusa. The Commissary was
not, I think, a practised literary man; no sooner, at least, had he taken
pen in hand and embarked on the composition of the _procès-verbal_, than
he became distinctly more uncivil and began to show a predilection for
that simplest of all forms of repartee: “You lie!” Several times the
Arethusa let it pass, and then suddenly flared up, refused to accept more
insults or to answer further questions, defied the Commissary to do his
worst, and promised him, if he did, that he should bitterly repent it.
Perhaps if he had worn this proud front from the first, instead of
beginning with a sense of entertainment and then going on to argue, the
thing might have turned otherwise; for even at this eleventh hour the
Commissary was visibly staggered. But it was too late; he had been
challenged the _procès-verbal_ was begun; and he again squared his elbows
over his writing, and the Arethusa was led forth a prisoner.
A step or two down the hot road stood the gendarmerie. Thither was our
unfortunate conducted, and there he was bidden to empty forth the
contents of his pockets. A handkerchief, a pen, a pencil, a pipe and
tobacco, matches, and some ten francs of change: that was all. Not a
file, not a cipher, not a scrap of writing whether to identify or to
condemn. The very gendarme was appalled before such destitution.
“I regret,” he said, “that I arrested you, for I see that you are no
_voyou_.” And he promised him every indulgence.
The Arethusa, thus encouraged, asked for his pipe. That he was told was
impossible, but if he chewed, he might have some tobacco. He did not
chew, however, and asked instead to have his handkerchief.
“_Non_,” said the gendarme. “_Nous avons eu des histoires de gens qui se
sont pendus_.” (No, we have had histories of people who hanged
themselves.)
“What,” cried the Arethusa. “And is it for that you refuse me my
handkerchief? But see how much more easily I could hang myself in my
trousers!”
The man was struck by the novelty of the idea; but he stuck to his
colours, and only continued to repeat vague offers of service.
“At least,” said the Arethusa, “be sure that you arrest my comrade; he
will follow me ere long on the same road, and you can tell him by the
sack upon his shoulders.”
This promised, the prisoner was led round into the back court of the
building, a cellar door was opened, he was motioned down the stair, and
bolts grated and chains clanged behind his descending person.
The philosophic and still more the imaginative mind is apt to suppose
itself prepared for any mortal accident. Prison, among other ills, was
one that had been often faced by the undaunted Arethusa. Even as he went
down the stairs, he was telling himself that here was a famous occasion
for a roundel, and that like the committed linnets of the tuneful
cavalier, he too would make his prison musical. I will tell the truth at
once: the roundel was never written, or it should be printed in this
place, to raise a smile. Two reasons interfered: the first moral, the
second physical.
It is one of the curiosities of human nature, that although all men are
liars, they can none of them bear to be told so of themselves. To get
and take the lie with equanimity is a stretch beyond the stoic; and the
Arethusa, who had been surfeited upon that insult, was blazing inwardly
with a white heat of smothered wrath. But the physical had also its
part. The cellar in which he was confined was some feet underground, and
it was only lighted by an unglazed, narrow aperture high up in the wall
and smothered in the leaves of a green vine. The walls were of naked
masonry, the floor of bare earth; by way of furniture there was an
earthenware basin, a water-jug, and a wooden bedstead with a blue-gray
cloak for bedding. To be taken from the hot air of a summer’s afternoon,
the reverberation of the road and the stir of rapid exercise, and plunged
into the gloom and damp of this receptacle for vagabonds, struck an
instant chill upon the Arethusa’s blood. Now see in how small a matter a
hardship may consist: the floor was exceedingly uneven underfoot, with
the very spade-marks, I suppose, of the labourers who dug the foundations
of the barrack; and what with the poor twilight and the irregular
surface, walking was impossible. The caged author resisted for a good
while; but the chill of the place struck deeper and deeper; and at
length, with such reluctance as you may fancy, he was driven to climb
upon the bed and wrap himself in the public covering. There, then, he
lay upon the verge of shivering, plunged in semi-darkness, wound in a
garment whose touch he dreaded like the plague, and (in a spirit far
removed from resignation) telling the roll of the insults he had just
received. These are not circumstances favourable to the muse.
Meantime (to look at the upper surface where the sun was still shining
and the guns of sportsmen were still noisy through the tufted plain) the
Cigarette was drawing near at his more philosophic pace. In those days
of liberty and health he was the constant partner of the Arethusa, and
had ample opportunity to share in that gentleman’s disfavour with the
police. Many a bitter bowl had he partaken of with that disastrous
comrade. He was himself a man born to float easily through life, his
face and manner artfully recommending him to all. There was but one
suspicious circumstance he could not carry off, and that was his
companion. He will not readily forget the Commissary in what is
ironically called the free town of Frankfort-on-the-Main; nor the
Franco-Belgian frontier; nor the inn at La Fère; last, but not least, he
is pretty certain to remember Châtillon-sur-Loire.
At the town entry, the gendarme culled him like a wayside flower; and a
moment later, two persons, in a high state of surprise, were confronted
in the Commissary’s office. For if the Cigarette was surprised to be
arrested, the Commissary was no less taken aback by the appearance and
appointments of his captive. Here was a man about whom there could be no
mistake: a man of an unquestionable and unassailable manner, in apple-pie
order, dressed not with neatness merely but elegance, ready with his
passport, at a word, and well supplied with money: a man the Commissary
would have doffed his hat to on chance upon the highway; and this _beau
cavalier_ unblushingly claimed the Arethusa for his comrade! The
conclusion of the interview was foregone; of its humours, I remember only
one. “Baronet?” demanded the magistrate, glancing up from the passport.
“_Alors_, _monsieur_, _vous êtes le firs d’un baron_?” And when the
Cigarette (his one mistake throughout the interview) denied the soft
impeachment, “_Alors_,” from the Commissary, “_ce n’est pas votre
passeport_!” But these were ineffectual thunders; he never dreamed of
laying hands upon the Cigarette; presently he fell into a mood of
unrestrained admiration, gloating over the contents of the knapsack,
commanding our friend’s tailor. Ah, what an honoured guest was the
Commissary entertaining! what suitable clothes he wore for the warm
weather! what beautiful maps, what an attractive work of history he
carried in his knapsack! You are to understand there was now but one
point of difference between them: what was to be done with the Arethusa?
the Cigarette demanding his release, the Commissary still claiming him as
the dungeon’s own. Now it chanced that the Cigarette had passed some
years of his life in Egypt, where he had made acquaintance with two very
bad things, cholera morbus and pashas; and in the eye of the Commissary,
as he fingered the volume of Michelet, it seemed to our traveller there
was something Turkish. I pass over this lightly; it is highly possible
there was some misunderstanding, highly possible that the Commissary
(charmed with his visitor) supposed the attraction to be mutual and took
for an act of growing friendship what the Cigarette himself regarded as a
bribe. And at any rate, was there ever a bribe more singular than an odd
volume of Michelet’s history? The work was promised him for the morrow,
before our departure; and presently after, either because he had his
price, or to show that he was not the man to be behind in friendly
offices—“_Eh bien_,” he said, “_je suppose qu’il faut lâher voire
camarade_.” And he tore up that feast of humour, the unfinished
_procès-verbal_. Ah, if he had only torn up instead the Arethusa’s
roundels! There were many works burnt at Alexandria, there are many
treasured in the British Museum, that I could better spare than the
_procès-verbal_ of Châtillon. Poor bubuckled Commissary! I begin to be
sorry that he never had his Michelet: perceiving in him fine human
traits, a broad-based stupidity, a gusto in his magisterial functions, a
taste for letters, a ready admiration for the admirable. And if he did
not admire the Arethusa, he was not alone in that.
To the imprisoned one, shivering under the public covering, there came
suddenly a noise of bolts and chains. He sprang to his feet, ready to
welcome a companion in calamity; and instead of that, the door was flung
wide, the friendly gendarme appeared above in the strong daylight, and
with a magnificent gesture (being probably a student of the drama)—“_Vous
êtes libre_!” he said. None too soon for the Arethusa. I doubt if he
had been half-an-hour imprisoned; but by the watch in a man’s brain
(which was the only watch he carried) he should have been eight times
longer; and he passed forth with ecstasy up the cellar stairs into the
healing warmth of the afternoon sun; and the breath of the earth came as
sweet as a cow’s into his nostril; and he heard again (and could have
laughed for pleasure) the concord of delicate noises that we call the hum
of life.
And here it might be thought that my history ended; but not so, this was
an act-drop and not the curtain. Upon what followed in front of the
barrack, since there was a lady in the case, I scruple to expatiate. The
wife of the Maréchal-des-logis was a handsome woman, and yet the Arethusa
was not sorry to be gone from her society. Something of her image, cool
as a peach on that hot afternoon, still lingers in his memory: yet more
of her conversation. “You have there a very fine parlour,” said the poor
gentleman.—“Ah,” said Madame la Maréchale (des-logis), “you are very well
acquainted with such parlours!” And you should have seen with what a
hard and scornful eye she measured the vagabond before her! I do not
think he ever hated the Commissary; but before that interview was at an
end, he hated Madame la Maréchale. His passion (as I am led to
understand by one who was present) stood confessed in a burning eye, a
pale cheek, and a trembling utterance; Madame meanwhile tasting the joys
of the matador, goading him with barbed words and staring him coldly
down.
It was certainly good to be away from this lady, and better still to sit
down to an excellent dinner in the inn. Here, too, the despised
travellers scraped acquaintance with their next neighbour, a gentleman of
these parts, returned from the day’s sport, who had the good taste to
find pleasure in their society. The dinner at an end, the gentleman
proposed the acquaintance should be ripened in the café.
The café was crowded with sportsmen conclamantly explaining to each other
and the world the smallness of their bags. About the centre of the room,
the Cigarette and the Arethusa sat with their new acquaintance; a trio
very well pleased, for the travellers (after their late experience) were
greedy of consideration, and their sportsman rejoiced in a pair of
patient listeners. Suddenly the glass door flew open with a crash; the
Maréchal-des-logis appeared in the interval, gorgeously belted and
befrogged, entered without salutation, strode up the room with a clang of
spurs and weapons, and disappeared through a door at the far end. Close
at his heels followed the Arethusa’s gendarme of the afternoon,
imitating, with a nice shade of difference, the imperial bearing of his
chief; only, as he passed, he struck lightly with his open hand on the
shoulder of his late captive, and with that ringing, dramatic utterance
of which he had the secret—“_Suivez_!” said he.
The arrest of the members, the oath of the Tennis Court, the signing of
the declaration of independence, Mark Antony’s oration, all the brave
scenes of history, I conceive as having been not unlike that evening in
the café at Châtillon. Terror breathed upon the assembly. A moment
later, when the Arethusa had followed his recaptors into the farther part
of the house, the Cigarette found himself alone with his coffee in a ring
of empty chairs and tables, all the lusty sportsmen huddled into corners,
all their clamorous voices hushed in whispering, all their eyes shooting
at him furtively as at a leper.
And the Arethusa? Well, he had a long, sometimes a trying, interview in
the back kitchen. The Maréchal-des-logis, who was a very handsome man,
and I believe both intelligent and honest, had no clear opinion on the
case. He thought the Commissary had done wrong, but he did not wish to
get his subordinates into trouble; and he proposed this, that, and the
other, to all of which the Arethusa (with a growing sense of his
position) demurred.
“In short,” suggested the Arethusa, “you want to wash your hands of
further responsibility? Well, then, let me go to Paris.”
The Maréchal-des-logis looked at his watch.
“You may leave,” said he, “by the ten o’clock train for Paris.”
And at noon the next day the travellers were telling their misadventure
in the dining-room at Siron’s.
V
RANDOM MEMORIES