CHAPTER V
DE PROFUNDIS
"Just now he is quieter. I have a hope that he sleeps. But, _per Bacco_, Monsieur, what a month, what a six weeks since I had the honor of speaking with you last! My poor master all the while going from bad to worse, becoming more exacting, more eccentric in his habits, showing tendencies toward cruelty quite foreign to his nature. And to-day, what a scene after you left! I had been on the alert all the afternoon, since he displayed signs of febrile excitement. I remained here, in the passage, not far from the door, prepared, notwithstanding his violent prohibition, to enter the studio should any sound of a disturbing character reach me. But his voice appeared calm. I trusted the visit of the Signora--ah, _Dio mio!_ what charm, what divine grace!--was producing a beneficial effect, soothing and pacifying my poor master. Upon my honor, I declare to you it was only at the actual moment of my admitting you those heartrending cries for help arose. Then, afterward, pouring forth words which made even my ears tingle, hardened old reprobate--the saints forgive me!--though I am, he rushed upon the drawing of the Signora, which has been a glorious adornment of our studio for so long, tore it from the easel and reduced it to a thousand fragments, which--since I have not yet dared to remove them--Monsieur will still find scattered upon the carpet. This work of destruction had the effect of appeasing his fury. He flung himself among the pillows of the divan, and has remained there ever since in a silence which justifies the hope that he sleeps."
The spare, bright-eyed, velvet-spoken Giovanni folded his hands as in prayer.
"Monsieur will take command, he will intervene to help us? Otherwise a catastrophe may ensue, and the unrivaled genius of my poor master may be lost to the world."
As Adrian crossed the dusky studio in the now fading light René Dax moved among the cushions and raised himself on his elbow.
"_Mon vieux_, is that you?" he asked feebly. "They told me--they--it does not matter who--some one told me you had come back. I am glad, for I need attention. I apprehend some lesion of the brain. My memory plays me false. This causes inconveniences. Something here, at the base of my skull, seems to have given way, to have snapped. I think it would be well that I should leave Paris for a time, and take a cure of some description. It is not pretty"--he looked up at Adrian with a child-like candor wholly disarming--"no, very certainly it is a far from pretty request, but I shall be indebted to you if you will make it your business to discover a private hospital for the insane--a civilized one, mind you--where I can be accommodated with a comfortable suite of rooms. I have money enough. My illustrations to the _Contes Drolatiques_ will pay for this agreeable little jaunt. But civilized, I repeat, where no objection will be made to receiving well-conducted domestic animals, since I shall require to take both Giovanni with me and Aristides the Just."
Adrian sat down upon the divan. His speech was somewhat thick and broken as he answered.
"Yes, _mon petit_. Rest content that I will do my very best to find you such a place as you want."
"And you will come often to visit me?"
"Indeed, I will come very constantly to visit you," Adrian said.
René Dax raised himself higher and looked long and searchingly at his friend from head to foot. The red lamp began to glow behind his somber eyes again.
"You do not possess one-tenth of my talent," he declared; "but you possess ten times my physique. Therefore you will obtain. You will prosper. You will lie soft. From the most fastidious to the vilest all women are the same. The Moslems are right. Women have neither soul nor intellect, only bodies, bodies, bodies. All they want in a man is physique."
His tone changed to a wheedling one. He crawled over the soft, black silk cushions and put his arm coaxingly about Adrian's neck.
"See, _mon vieux_, see, be amiable! Do not loiter. Come at once. Let us search together diligently every corner, every nook. To recover it would fill me with rapture; and there is still time before the school-bell rings for class. Come. Help me to find my lost laughter," he said.
And at that moment, with a startling emotion of hope and of relief, Adrian observed, for the first time, that the infamous drawings upon the walls had been painted out, leaving the whole, from floor to ceiling, white.
V
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
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