BOOK II: JULIUS DE BARAGLIOUL

_“Puisqu’il ne faut jamais ôter le retour à personne.”_

--RETZ, VIII, p. 93.

I

On March 30th, at twelve o’clock at night, the Baragliouls got back to Paris and went straight to their apartment in the Rue de Verneuil.

While Marguerite was getting ready for the night, Julius, with a small lamp in his hand and slippers on his feet, went to his study--a room to which he never returned without pleasure; it was soberly decorated and furnished; one or two Lépines and a Boudin hung on the walls; in one corner a marble bust of his wife by Chapu, which stood on a revolving pedestal, made a patch of whiteness that was somewhat glaring; in the middle of the room stood an enormous Renaissance table, littered with books, pamphlets and prospectuses which had been accumulating during his absence; in a salver of cloisonné enamel lay a few visiting-cards with their corners turned down, and well in sight, apart from the others and leaning against a bronze Barye, there was a letter addressed in a handwriting which Julius recognised as his old father’s. He immediately tore open the envelope and read as follows:

“MY DEAR SON,

“I have been growing much weaker lately. It is impossible to misunderstand the nature of the warnings which tell me I must be preparing to depart; and indeed I have not much to gain by delaying longer.

“I know that you are returning to Paris to-night and I count on you for doing me a service without delay. In order to make some arrangements, of which I shall shortly inform you, it is necessary for me to know whether a young man called Lafcadio Wluiki (pronounced _Louki_--the _w_ and _i_ are hardly sounded) is still living at No. 12 Impasse Claude-Bernard.

“I should be much obliged if you would be so good as to call at this address and ask to see the said young man. (A novelist like you will easily be able to invent some excuse for introducing yourself.) I want to know:

“1. What the young man is doing;

“2. What he intends to do--whether he is ambitious, and, if so, in what way?

“3. Lastly, tell me shortly what seem to you to be his means of existence, his abilities, his inclinations and his tastes....

“Don’t try to see me for the present; I am in an unsociable mood. You can give me the information I ask just as well by letter. If I am inclined to talk or if I feel the final departure is at hand, I will let you know.

“Yours affecˡʸ,

“JUSTE-AGÉNOR DE BARAGLIOUL.

“P.S. Don’t let it appear that you come from me. The young man knows nothing of me and must continue to know nothing.

“Lafcadio Wluiki is now nineteen--a Roumanian subject--an orphan.

“I have looked at your last book. If after that you don’t get into the Academy, such rubbish is unpardonable.”

There was no denying it, Julius’s last book had not been well received. In spite of his fatigue, the novelist ran his eye over a bundle of newspaper cuttings, in which he found his name mentioned with scant indulgence. Then he opened a window and breathed for a moment the misty night air. Julius’s study windows looked on to the gardens of an Embassy--pools of lustral shadow, where eyes and mind could cleanse themselves from the squalor of the streets and from the meannesses of the world. The pure and thrilling note of a blackbird held him listening a moment or two.... Then he went back to the bedroom where Marguerite was already asleep.

As he was afraid of insomnia he took from the chest of drawers a bottle of orange-flower water which he frequently used. Ever careful to observe conjugal courtesy, he had taken the precaution of lowering the wick of the lamp, before placing it where it would be least likely to disturb the sleeper; but a slight tinkling of the glass as he put it down after he had finished drinking, reached Marguerite, where she lay plunged in unconsciousness; she gave an animal grunt and turned to the wall. Julius, glad of an excuse for considering her awake, drew near the bed and asked as he began to undress:

“Would you like to hear what my father says about my book?”

“Oh, my dear, your poor father has no feeling for literature. You’ve told me so a hundred times,” murmured Marguerite whose one desire was to go on sleeping. But Julius’s heart was too full.

“He says it’s unpardonable rubbish.”

There was a long silence, during which Marguerite sank once more into the depths of slumber. Julius was already resigning himself to uncompanioned solitude, when, making a desperate effort for his sake, she rose again to the surface:

“I hope you’re not going to be upset about it.”

“I am taking it with perfect calm, as you can see,” answered Julius at once. “But at the same time I really don’t think it’s my father’s place to speak so--especially not my father’s--and especially not about that book, which in reality is nothing from first to last but a monument in his honour.”

Had not Julius, indeed, retraced in this book the old diplomat’s truly representative career? As a companion picture to the turbulent follies of romanticism, had he not glorified the dignified, the ordered, the classic calm of Juste-Agénor’s existence in its twofold aspect, political and domestic?

“Fortunately, you didn’t write it to please him.”

“He insinuates that I wrote _On the Heights_ in order to get into the Academy.”

“Well! and if you did! Even if you did get into the Academy by writing a fine book! What then?” And she added with contemptuous pity: “Let’s hope, at any rate, that the reviews will set him right.”

Julius exploded.

“The reviews! Good God! The reviews!” he exclaimed, and then turning furiously upon Marguerite as if it were her fault, added with a bitter laugh:

“They do nothing but abuse me.”

At last Marguerite was effectually awakened.

“Is there a great deal of criticism?” she asked with solicitude.

“Yes, and a great deal of crocodile praise too.”

“Oh, how right you are to despise all those wretched journalists! Think of what M. de Vogué wrote to you the day before yesterday: ‘A pen like yours defends France like a sword!’”

“‘Threatened as France is with barbarism, a pen like yours defends her better than a sword!’” corrected Julius.

“And when Cardinal André promised you his vote the other day, he declared that you had the whole Church behind you.”

“A precious lot of good _that_’ll do me!”

“Oh, my dear Julius!”

“We’ve just seen in Anthime’s case what the protection of the clergy is worth.”

“Julius, you’re getting bitter. You’ve often told me you didn’t work for the hope of reward--nor for the sake of other people’s approval--that your own was enough. You’ve even written some splendid things to that effect.”

“I know, I know,” said Julius impatiently.

With such a rankling pain at his heart, this soothing syrup was of no avail. He went back to his dressing-room.

Why did he let himself go in this lamentable fashion before his wife? His was not the kind of trouble which could be comforted by the coddling of a wife; pride--shame--should make him hide it in his heart. “Rubbish!” All the time he was brushing his teeth, the word throbbed in his temples and played havoc amongst his noblest thoughts. After all, what did his last book matter? He forgot his father’s phrase--or at any rate he forgot it was his father’s. For the first time in his life awful questionings beset him. He, who up to that time had never met with anything but approval and smiles, felt rising within him a doubt as to the sincerity of those smiles, as to the value of that approval, as to the value of his works, as to the reality of his thought, as to the genuineness of his life. He returned to the bedroom, absent-mindedly holding his tooth-glass in one hand and his tooth-brush in the other; he placed the glass, which was half full of rose-coloured water, on the chest of drawers, and put the brush in the glass; then he sat down at a little satin-wood escritoire, where Marguerite did her writing. He seized his wife’s pen-holder and, taking a sheet of paper, which was tinted mauve and delicately perfumed, began:

“MY DEAR FATHER,

“I found your note awaiting me on my return home this evening. Your errand shall be punctually performed to-morrow morning. I hope to be able to manage the matter to your satisfaction, and by so doing to give you a proof of my devoted attachment.”

For Julius was one of those noble natures whose true greatness flowers amid the thorns of humiliation. Then, leaning back in his chair, he remained a few moments, pen in hand, trying to turn his sentence:

“It is a matter of grief to me that you, of all people in the world, should be the one to suspect my disinterestedness, which ...”

No! Perhaps:

“Do you think that literary honesty is less dear to me than ...”

The sentence wouldn’t come. Julius, who was in his night things, felt that he was catching cold; he crumpled up the paper, took up his tooth-glass and went back with it to his dressing-room, at the same time throwing the crumpled letter into the slop-pail.

Just as he was getting into bed, he touched his wife upon the shoulder:

“And what do _you_ think of my book?” he asked.

Marguerite half opened a glazed and lifeless eye. Julius was obliged to repeat his question. Turning partly round, Marguerite looked at him. His eyebrows raised under a network of wrinkles, his lips contracted, Julius was a pitiable object.

“What’s the matter, dear? Do you really think your last book isn’t as good as the others?”

That was no sort of answer. Marguerite was eluding the point.

“I think the others are no better than this. So there!”

“Oh, well then!...”

And Marguerite, losing heart in the face of these monstrosities, and feeling that all her tender arguments were wasted, turned round towards the dark and once more slept.

II

Notwithstanding a certain amount of professional curiosity and the flattering illusion that nothing human was alien to him, Julius had rarely derogated from the customs of his class and he had very few dealings except with persons of his own _milieu_. This was from lack of opportunity rather than of taste. As he was preparing next morning to start for his visit, Julius realised that his get-up was not exactly what it should have been. His overcoat, his spread tie, even his Cronstadt hat had something or other proper, staid, respectable about them.... But, after all, it was perhaps better that his dress should not encourage the young man to too prompt a familiarity. It would be more suitable to engage his confidence by way of conversation. And as he bent his steps towards the Impasse Claude-Bernard, Julius turned over in his mind the manner in which he should introduce himself and pursue his enquiries, running through all the precautions and pretexts that would be necessary.

What in the world could Count Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul have to do with this young man Lafcadio? The question buzzed importunate in Julius’s mind. He was certainly not going to allow himself any curiosity on the subject of his father’s life just at the very moment he had finished writing it. He did not wish to know any more than his father chose to tell him. During the last few years the Count had grown taciturn, but he had never practised concealment. As Julius was crossing the Luxembourg Gardens he was overtaken by a shower.

In front of the door of No. 12 Impasse Claude-Bernard a _fiacre_ was drawn up, in which Julius as he passed caught sight of a lady whose hat was a trifle large and whose dress was a trifle loud.

His heart beat as he gave his name to the porter of the lodging-house; it seemed to the novelist that he was plunging into an unknown sea of adventure; but as he went upstairs the place looked so common, everything in it was so second-rate, that he was filled with disgust; there was nothing here to kindle his curiosity, which flickered out and was succeeded by repugnance.

On the fourth floor an uncarpeted passage, which was lighted only by the staircase, turned at right angles a few steps from the landing; there were shut doors on each side of this passage; the door at the end was ajar and a small shaft of light came from it. Julius knocked; there was no answer; he timidly pushed the door open a little further; there was no one in the room. Julius went downstairs again.

“If he isn’t there, he won’t be long,” the porter had said.

The rain was falling in torrents. In the hall, opposite the staircase, was a waiting-room, into which Julius made a half-hearted attempt to enter; but its rancid smell and God-forsaken appearance drove him out and made him reflect that he might just as well have opened the door upstairs more decidedly and, without more ado, have waited for the young man in his own room. Julius went up again.

As he turned down the passage for the second time, a woman came out of the room that was next-door to the end one. Julius collided with her and apologised.

“You are looking for ...?”

“Monsieur Wluiki lives here, doesn’t he?”

“He’s gone out.”

“Oh!” said Julius in a tone of such annoyance that the woman asked:

“Is it very urgent?”

Julius had prepared himself solely for an encounter with the unknown Lafcadio and he was taken aback; yet here was a fine opportunity; this woman was perhaps in a position to give him a great deal of information about the young man; if only he could get her to talk....

“There was something I wanted to ask him about.”

“On whose behalf, may I ask?”

“Does she suspect I come from the police?” thought Julius.

“My name is Vicomte Julius de Baraglioul,” said he, rather pompously and slightly raising his hat.

“Oh, Monsieur le Comte, I really must beg you to excuse me for not having.... The passage is so very dark! Please, be so good as to come in.” (She pushed open the door of the end room.) “Lafcadio’s certain to be back in a moment. He was only going as far as the.... Oh! excuse me!”

And as Julius was going in, she brushed in front of him and darted towards a pair of ladies’ drawers, which were very indiscreetly spread out to view on a chair, and which, after an attempt at concealment had proved ineffectual, she endeavoured to make at any rate less conspicuous.

“I’m afraid the place is very untidy....

“Never mind! Never mind!” said Julius indulgently. “I’m quite accustomed to....”

Carola Venitequa was a rather large-sized, not to say plump young person; but her figure was good and she was wholesome-looking; her features were ordinary but not vulgar and not unattractive; she had gentle eyes like an animal’s and a voice that bleated. She was dressed for going out and had on a little soft felt hat, a shirt blouse, a sailor tie and a man’s collar and white cuffs.

“Have you known M. Wluiki long?”

“I might perhaps give him a message,” she remarked without answering.

“Well, I wanted to know whether he was very busy.”

“It depends.”

“Because if he had any free time, I thought of asking him to do a small job for me.”

“What sort of job?”

“Well, that’s just it, you see.... To begin with, I should have liked to know the kind of pursuits he’s engaged in.”

The question lacked subtlety. But Carola’s appearance was not of the sort to invite subtlety. In the meantime the Comte de Baraglioul had recovered his self-possession; he was seated in the chair which Carola had cleared, and Carola was leaning on the table close to him, just beginning to speak, when a loud disturbance was heard in the passage; the door opened noisily and the woman Julius had noticed in the carriage made her appearance.

“I was sure of it,” she said, “when I saw him going upstairs.”

Carola drew away a little from Julius and answered quickly:

“Nothing of the kind, my dear--we were just talking. My friend, Bertha Grand-Marnier--Monsieur le Comte ... there now! I’m so sorry! I’ve forgotten your name.”

“It’s of no consequence,” said Julius, rather stiffly, as he pressed the gloved hand which Bertha offered him.

“Now, introduce _me_,” said Carola....

“Look here, dearie, we’re an hour late already,” went on the other, after having introduced her friend. “If you want to talk to the gentleman, let him come with us; I’ve got a carriage.”

“He hasn’t come to see me.”

“Oh, all right! Come along then! Won’t you dine with us to-night?”

“I’m exceedingly sorry, but....”

Carola blushed. She was anxious now to take her friend off as quickly as possible.

“Will you please excuse me, Sir?” she said. “Lafcadio will be back in a moment.”

* * * * *

The two women as they went out left the door open behind them. Every sound in the uncarpeted passage was audible; a person coming from the stairs would not be seen because of the turning, but he would certainly be heard.

“After all,” thought Julius, “I shall find out even more from the room than from the woman.” He set quietly to work to examine it.

In these commonplace lodgings there was hardly anything, alas! which could offer a clue to curiosity so unskilled as his.

Not a bookshelf! Not a picture on the walls! Standing on the mantelpiece was a vile edition of Defoe’s _Moll Flanders_ in English and only two-thirds cut, and a copy of the _Novelle_ of Anton Francesco Grazzini, styled the Lasca, in Italian. These two books puzzled Julius. Beside them, and behind a bottle of spirits of peppermint, was a photograph which did more than puzzle him. It showed, grouped upon a sandy beach, a woman, who was no longer very young but strangely beautiful, leaning upon the arm of a man of a pronounced English type, slim and elegant and dressed in a sport suit, and at their feet, sitting on an overturned canoe, a well-knit, slender lad of about fifteen, with a mass of fair, tousled hair, with bold laughing eyes and without a stitch of clothes on him.

Julius took up the photograph and, holding it to the light, saw written in the right-hand corner a few words in faded ink: _Duino, July, 1889_. He was not much the wiser for this, though he remembered that Duino was a small town on the Austrian coast of the Adriatic. With tightened lips and a disapproving shake of his head, he put the photograph back. In the empty fire-place were stowed a box of oatmeal, a bag of lentils and a bag of rice; a little further off was a chess-board leaning against the wall. There was nothing which could give Julius any hint of the kind of studies or occupations which filled the young man’s days.

* * * * *

Lafcadio had apparently just finished his breakfast; on the table was a spirit lamp and a small saucepan; in this there was still to be seen one of those little perforated, hollow eggs, which ingenious travellers use for making tea; and there were a few bread crumbs and a dirtied cup. Julius drew near the table; in the table was a drawer and in the drawer a key....

I should be sorry if what follows were to give a wrong impression of Julius’s character. Nothing was further from Julius than indiscretion; he was respectful of the cloak with which each man chooses to cover his inner life; he was highly respectful of the decencies. But upon this occasion he was bound to waive his personal preferences in obedience to his father’s command. He waited and listened for another moment, then, as he heard nothing--against his inclinations and against his principles, but with the delicate feeling of performing a duty--he pulled open the drawer, the key of which had not been turned.

Inside was a Russia-leather pocket-book; which Julius took and opened. On the first page, in the same writing as that on the photograph, were these words:

For my trusty comrade Cadio, This account book from his old uncle, FABY,

and with hardly any space between came the following words, written in a straight, regular and rather childish hand:

Duino. This morning, July 17th, ’89, Lord Fabian joined us here. He brought me a canoe, a rifle and this beautiful pocket-book.

Nothing else on the first page.

On the third page, under the date Aug. 29th, was written:

Swimming match with Faby. Gave him four strokes.

And the next day:

Gave him twelve strokes.

Julius gathered that he had got hold of a mere training book. The list of days soon stopped, however, and after a blank page, he read:

Sept. 20th. Left Algiers for the Aures.

The a few jottings of places and dates and finally this last entry:

Oct. 5th. Return to El Kantara--50 kilometres _on horseback_,[A] without stopping.

Julius turned over a few blank pages, but, a little further on, the entries began again. At the top of a page, the following words were written in larger and more carefully formed characters, arranged so as to look like a fresh title:

CENTER QUI INCOMMINCIA IL LIBRO DELLA NOVA ESIGENZA E DELLA SUPREMA VIRTU.

And below this came the motto:

“_Tanto quanto se ne taglia._” --BOCCACCIO.

Any expression of moral ideas was quick to arouse the hunter’s instinct in Julius; here was game for him. But the very next page was a disappointment; it landed him in another batch of accounts. And yet these accounts were of a different kind. Without any indication of dates or places appeared the following entries:

For having beaten Protos at chess 1 punta. For having shown that I spoke Italian 3 punte. For having answered before Protos 1 p. For having had the last word 1 p. For having cried at hearing of Faby’s death 4 p.

Julius, reading hurriedly, took _punta_ to be some kind of foreign coin and assumed that the figures were nothing but a childish and trifling computation of merits and rewards. Then the accounts came to an end again. Julius turned another page and read:

This 4th April, conversation with Protos:

“Do you understand the meaning of the words, ‘TO PUSH ON’?

There the writing stopped.

Julius shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips, shook his head and put the book back where he had found it. He took out his watch, got up, walked to the window and looked out; it had stopped raining. He went towards the corner of the room where he had put down his umbrella when he first came in; at that moment he saw, leaning back a little in the opening of the doorway, a handsome, fair young man, who was watching him with a smile on his lips.

III

The youth of the photograph had hardly aged. Juste-Agénor had said nineteen; one would not have taken him for more than sixteen. Lafcadio could certainly have only just arrived; when Julius was putting back the pocket-book a moment before, he had raised his eyes to look at the door and had seen no one; but how was it he had not heard him coming? An instinctive glance at the young man’s feet showed Julius that he was wearing goloshes instead of boots.

There was nothing hostile about Lafcadio’s smile; he seemed amused, on the contrary--and ironical; he had kept his travelling-cap on his head, but when he met Julius’s eyes, he took it off and bowed ceremoniously.

“Monsieur Wluiki?” asked Julius.

The young man bowed again without answering.

“Please excuse my sitting down in your room while I was waiting for you. I really shouldn’t have ventured to do so if I hadn’t been shown in.”

Julius spoke faster and louder than usual to convince himself that he was at ease. Lafcadio frowned imperceptibly; he went towards Julius’s umbrella and without a word put it outside to stream in the passage; then coming back into the room again, he motioned Julius to sit down.

“You are no doubt surprised to see me?”

Lafcadio quietly took a cigarette out of a silver cigarette case and lit it.

“I will explain my reason for calling in a few words. Of course you will understand....”

The more he spoke, the more he felt his assurance oozing away.

“Well, then!--But first allow me to introduce myself....” and as though he felt embarrassed at having to pronounce his own name, he drew a visiting-card out of his waistcoat pocket and held it out to Lafcadio, who put it down on the table without looking at it.

“I am ... I have just finished a rather important piece of work; it’s a small piece of work which I have no time to copy out myself. Someone mentioned you to me as having an excellent handwriting and I thought that, perhaps ...” here Julius’s glance travelled eloquently over the bareness of the room--“I thought that perhaps you would have no objection....”

“There is no one in Paris,” interrupted Lafcadio, “no one who could have mentioned my handwriting to you.” As he spoke, he directed his eyes towards the drawer, in opening which Julius had unwittingly destroyed a minute and almost invisible seal of soft wax; then turning the key violently in the lock and putting it in his pocket:

“No one, that is, who has any right to”; and as he spoke he watched Julius’s face redden.

“On the other hand” (he spoke very slowly--almost stolidly, without any expression at all), “I don’t quite grasp so far what reasons Monsieur ...” (he looked at the card) “what reasons Count Julius de Baraglioul can have for taking a special interest in me. Nevertheless” (and his voice suddenly became smooth and mellifluous in imitation of Julius’s), “your proposal deserves to be taken into consideration by a person who, as it has not escaped you, is in need of money.” (He got up.) “Kindly allow me to bring you my answer to-morrow morning.”

The hint to leave was unmistakable. Julius felt too uncomfortable to insist. He took up his hat, hesitated an instant and then:

“I should have liked a little further talk with you,” he said awkwardly. “Let me hope that to-morrow ... I shall expect you any time after ten o’clock.”

Lafcadio bowed.

* * * * *

As soon as Julius had turned the corner of the passage, Lafcadio pushed to the door and bolted it. He ran to the drawer, pulled out the pocket-book, opened it at the last telltale page and just at the place where he had left off several months before, he wrote in pencil in a large hand, sloping defiantly backwards and very unlike the former:

“For having let Olibrius poke his dirty nose into this book ... 1 punta.”

He took a penknife out of his pocket; its blade had been sharpened away until nothing was left of it but a short point like a stiletto, which he passed over the flame of a match and then thrust through his trouser pocket, straight into his thigh. In spite of himself he made a grimace. But he was still not satisfied. Leaning upon the table, without sitting down, he again wrote just below the last sentence:

“And for having shown him that I knew it ... 2 punte.”

This time he hesitated; unfastened his trousers and turned them down on one side. He looked at his thigh in which the little wound he had just made was bleeding; he examined the scars of similar wounds, which were like vaccination marks all round. Then, having once more passed the blade over the flame of a match, he very quickly and twice in succession plunged it into his flesh.

“I usedn’t to take so many precautions in the old days,” he said, going to the bottle of spirits of peppermint and sprinkling a few drops on each of the wounds.

His anger had cooled a little, when, as he was putting back the bottle, he noticed that the photograph of himself and his mother had been slightly disturbed. Then he seized it, gazed at it for the last time with a kind of anguish, and as the blood rushed to his face, tore it furiously to shreds. He tried to burn the pieces, but he could not get them to light; so, clearing the fire-place of the bags which littered it, he took his only two books and set them in the hearth to serve as fire-dogs, pulled his pocket-book apart, hacked it to pieces, crumpled it up, flung his picture on the top and set fire to the whole.

With his face close to the flames he persuaded himself that it was with unspeakable satisfaction that he watched these keepsakes burning, but when he rose to his feet after nothing was left of them but ashes, his head was swimming. The room was full of smoke. He went to his wash-hand-stand and bathed his face.

He was now able to consider the little visiting-card with a steadier eye.

“Count Julius de Baraglioul,” he repeated. “_Dapprima importa sapere chi è._”

He tore off the silk handkerchief which he was wearing instead of a collar and tie, unfastened his shirt and, standing in front of the open window, let the cool air play round his chest and sides. Then suddenly all eagerness to go out, with his boots rapidly drawn on, his cravat swiftly knotted, a respectable grey felt hat on his head--appeased and civilised as far as in him lay--Lafcadio shut the door of his room behind him and made his way to the Place St. Sulpice. There, in the big lending-library opposite the town hall, he would be certain to find all the information he wanted.

IV

As he passed under the arcades of the Odéon, Julius’s novel, which was on sale in the book shops, caught his eye; it was a yellow paper book, the mere sight of which on any other occasion would have made him yawn. He felt in his pocket and flung a five-franc piece on the counter.

“A fine fire for this evening,” thought he, as he carried off the book and the change.

In the lending-library a “Who’s Who” gave a short account of Julius’s invertebrate career, mentioned the titles of his works and praised them in terms so conventional as effectually to quench any desire to read them.

“Ugh!” said Lafcadio.... He was just going to shut up the book when three or four words in the preceding paragraph caught his eye and made him start.

A few lines above _Julius de Baraglioul (Vmte.)_ Lafcadio saw under the heading _Juste-Agénor_: “Minister at Bucharest in 1873.” What was there in these simple words to make his heart beat so fast?

Lafcadio, whose mother had given him five uncles, had never known his father; he was content to regard him as dead and had always refrained from asking questions. As for his uncles (all of them of different nationalities and three of them in the diplomatic service), he had pretty soon perceived that they had no other relationship with him than that which the fair Wanda chose to give them. Now Lafcadio was just nineteen. He had been born in Bucharest in 1874, exactly at the end of the second year which the Comte de Baraglioul had spent there in his official capacity.

Now that he had been put on the alert by Julius’s mysterious visit, how was it possible to look upon this as merely a fortuitous coincidence? He made a great effort to read Juste-Agénor’s biography, but the lines danced before his eyes; he just managed to make out that Julius’s father, the Comte de Baraglioul, was a man of considerable importance.

The explosion of insolent joy in his heart was so riotous that he thought the outside world must hear it. But no! this covering of flesh was unquestionably solid and impervious. He furtively examined his neighbours--old habitués of the reading-room, all engrossed in their dreary occupations.... He began to calculate: “If he was born in 1821, the Count must be seventy-two by now. _Ma chi sa se vive ancora?..._” He put the dictionary back and went out.

The azure sky was clearing itself of a few light clouds which a fresh breeze had sent scudding. “_Importa di domesticare questo nuovo proposito_,” said Lafcadio to himself, who prized above all things the free possession of his soul; and hopeless of reducing so turbulent a thought to order, he resolved to banish it for a moment from his mind. He took Julius’s novel out of his pocket and made a great effort to distract himself with it; but the book had no allurement in it of indirectness or mystery, and nothing could have helped him less to escape from a too urgent self.

“And yet it is to the author of _that_ that I am going to-morrow to play at being secretary!” he couldn’t refrain from repeating.

He bought a newspaper at a kiosk and went into the Luxembourg. The benches were sopping; he opened the book, sat down on it and unfolded the paper to look at the various items of the day. Suddenly, and as though he had been expecting to find it there, his eye fell upon the following announcement:

“It is hoped that Count Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul, whose health has lately given grave cause for anxiety, is now recovering. His condition, however, still remains too precarious to admit of his receiving any but a few intimate friends.”

Lafcadio sprang from the bench. In a moment he had made up his mind. Forgetting his book, he hurried off to a stationer’s shop in the Rue de Médicis, where he remembered having seen in the window a notice that visiting-cards were printed “while you wait at three francs the hundred.” He smiled as he went, amused by the boldness of his idea and possessed by the spirit of adventure.

“How long will it take to print a hundred cards?” he asked the shopkeeper.

“You can have them before nightfall.”

“I’ll pay you double if you let me have them by two o’clock this afternoon.”

The shopkeeper made a pretence of consulting his order-book.

“Very well ... to oblige you. You can call for them at two o’clock. What name?”

Then, without a tremor or a blush, but with a heart that beat a little unsteadily, he signed:

Lafcadio de Baraglioul.

“The rascal doesn’t believe me,” said he to himself as he left, for he was piqued that the shopkeeper’s bow had not been lower. Then, as he looked at his reflection in a shop window, “I must admit I don’t look very like a Baraglioul,” he thought. “We must see whether we can’t improve the resemblance before this afternoon.”

It was not yet twelve o’clock. Lafcadio, who was in a state of madcap exhilaration, had not begun to feel hungry.

“First, let’s take a little walk, or I shall fly into the air,” thought he. “And I must keep in the middle of the road. If I go too near the passers-by, they will notice that I’m a head and shoulders taller than any of them. Another superiority to conceal. One has never done putting the finishing touches to one’s education.”

He went into a post office.

“Place Malesherbes ... this afternoon!” he said to himself, as he copied out Count Juste-Agénor’s address from the directory. “But what’s to prevent me from going this morning to prospect Rue de Verneuil?” (This was the address on Julius’s card.)

Lafcadio knew and loved this part of Paris; leaving the more frequented thoroughfares, he took a roundabout way by Rue Vaneau; in that quiet street the young freshness of his joy would have space to breathe more freely. As he turned into the Rue de Babylone he saw people running; near the Impasse Oudinot a crowd was collecting in front of a two-storied house from which was pouring an evil-looking smoke. He forced himself not to hurry his pace, though he was naturally a quick walker....

Lafcadio, my friend, here you require the pen of a newspaper reporter--mine abandons you! My readers must not expect me to relate the incoherent comments of the onlookers, the broken exclamations, the....

Wriggling through the crowd like an eel, Lafcadio made his way to the front. There a poor woman was sobbing on her knees.

“My children! My little children!” she wept. She was being supported by a young girl, whose simple elegance of dress showed she was no relation; she was very pale and so lovely that Lafcadio was instantly drawn to her. She answered his questions.

“No, I don’t know her. I have just made out that her two little children are in that room on the second floor which the flames are just going to reach--they have caught the staircase already; the fire brigade has been sent for, but by the time they come the children will have been smothered by the smoke. Oh! wouldn’t it be possible to get up to the balcony by climbing that wall--look!--and helping oneself up by that waterpipe? Some of these people say that thieves did it a little while ago--thieves did it to steal money, but no one dares do it to save two children. I’ve offered my purse, but it’s no good. Oh! if only I were a man!”

Lafcadio listened no longer. Dropping his stick and hat at the young lady’s feet, he darted forward. With a bound he caught hold of the top of the wall unaided; a pull of his arms raised him on to it; in a moment he was standing upright and walking along the narrow edge, regardless of the broken pieces of glass with which it bristled.

But the amazement of the crowd redoubled when, seizing hold of the vertical pipe, he swarmed up it, hardly resting his feet here and there for a second on the clamps which fixed it to the wall. There he is--at the balcony now--now he has vaulted the railings; the admiring crowd no longer trembles--it can only admire, for, indeed, he moves with consummate ease. One push of his shoulder shivers the window-pane; he has disappeared into the room. Agonising moment of unspeakable suspense! Here he comes again, holding a crying infant in his arms. Out of a sheet torn in two and knotted together end to end, he hastily contrives a rope--ties the child to it--lowers it gently to the arms of the distracted mother. The second child is saved in the same way.

When Lafcadio came down in his turn, the crowd cheered him as a hero.

“They take me for a clown,” thought he, as he roughly and ungraciously repulsed their greetings, exasperated at feeling himself blush. But when the young lady, whom he again approached, shyly held out to him his hat and stick and with them the purse she had promised, he took it with a smile, emptied it of the sixty francs that it contained, and gave the money to the poor mother, who was smothering her children with kisses.

“May I keep the purse in remembrance of you, Mademoiselle?”

He kissed the little embroidered purse. The two looked at each other for a moment. The young girl was agitated and paler than ever; she seemed desirous of speaking, but Lafcadio abruptly turned on his heel and opened a way through the crowd with his stick. His air was so forbidding that they very soon stopped cheering and following him.

* * * * *

He regained the Luxembourg, made a hasty meal at the restaurant Gambrinus near the Odéon and returned swiftly to his room. There under a board in the floor he kept his store of money; three twenty-franc pieces and one ten-franc piece were extracted from their hiding-place. He reckoned:

Visiting-cards six francs A pair of gloves five francs A tie five francs (how shall I get anything decent at that price?) A pair of shoes thirty-five francs (I shan’t use them long.) Left over nineteen francs for emergencies.

(Lafcadio had a horror of owing anything to anyone and always paid ready money.)

He went to a wardrobe and pulled out a suit made of soft dark tweed, perfectly cut and still fresh.

“Unfortunately,” he said to himself, “I’ve grown since....” His thoughts went back to that dazzling time, not so long ago, when he used to dance gaily off with the Marquis de Gesvres (the last of his uncles) to the tailor’s, the hatter’s, the shirtmaker’s.

Ill-fitting clothes were as shocking to Lafcadio as lying to a Calvinist.

“The most urgent first. My uncle de Gesvres used always to say you could judge a man by his foot-wear.”

And out of respect for the shoes he was going to try on, he began by changing his socks.

V

Comte Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul had not left the luxurious apartment which he occupied in the Place Malesherbes, for the last five years. It was there that he set about preparing for death; this was his care as he wandered pensively among the rare objects with which his great salons were crowded, or oftener still as he sat shut up in his bedroom, seeking to ease the pain of his aching arms and shoulders with hot cloths and soothing compresses. An enormous madeira-coloured silk handkerchief was wrapped round his fine head like a turban, one end of which fell loose and hung down upon his lace collar and upon his thick brown knitted waistcoat, over which his beard flowed like a silvery waterfall. His feet, shod in soft white leather slippers, rested on a hot water bottle. Beside him, and heated by a spirit lamp, was a bath of hot sand into which he plunged first one and then the other of his pale emaciated hands. A grey shawl was spread over his knees. Incontestably he was like Julius; but he was still more like a portrait by Titian; and Julius’s features were only a vapid replica of his father’s, just as Julius’s novel was a bowdlerised and namby-pamby version of his life.

Juste-Agénor was drinking a cup of tisane and listening to a homily from his confessor, Father April, whom he had fallen into the habit of frequently consulting; at this moment there was a knock at the door and the faithful Hector, who for the last twenty years had acted as the Count’s valet and nurse, and on occasion as his confidential adviser, brought in a small envelope on a lacquered salver.

“The gentleman hopes that M. le Comte will be good enough to see him.”

Juste-Agénor put down his cup, tore open the envelope and took out Lafcadio’s card. He crumpled it nervously in his hand.

“Tell him....” Then, controlling himself with an effort: “A gentleman?... a young man, you mean? What kind of person is he, Hector?”

“M. le Comte may very well receive him.”

“My dear Abbé,” said the Count, turning to Father April, “please forgive me if I ask you to put off the rest of our conversation for the present; but mind you come again to-morrow. I shall probably have some news for you; I think you will be pleased.”

With his forehead bowed on his hand, he waited until Father April had left the room by the drawing-room door; then at last, raising his head:

“Show him in,” he said.

Lafcadio, holding his head high, stepped into the room with a manly and self-confident bearing; as soon as he was in front of the old man, he bowed gravely. As he had made up his mind not to speak before he had had time to count twelve, it was the Count who began.

“In the first place, let me tell you there is no such person as Lafcadio de Baraglioul,” said he, tearing up the visiting-card, “and be so good as to inform Monsieur Lafcadio Wluiki, since he is a friend of yours, that if he makes any use of these cards--that if he fails to destroy them all like this” (he tore it up into minute fragments, which he dropped into his empty cup), “I shall give notice to the police and have him arrested for a common swindler. Do you understand?... Now, come to the light and let me look at you.”

“Lafcadio Wluiki will obey you, Sir.” (His voice was very deferential and trembled a little.) “Forgive him for approaching you by such means as these; he had no evil intention. He wishes he could convince you that he is not undeserving of ... your esteem, at any rate.”

“Your figure is good, but your clothes don’t fit,” went on the Count, who was determined not to hear.

“Then I was not mistaken?” said Lafcadio, venturing upon a smile and submitting himself good-humouredly to the scrutiny.

“Thank God! it’s his mother he takes after,” muttered the old Count.

“If I don’t let it be too apparent, mayn’t I be allowed as well to take after....”

“I was speaking of your looks. It is too late now for me to know whether your mother is the only person you are like. God will not grant me time.”

Just then, the grey shawl slipped off his knees on to the floor.

Lafcadio sprang forward and as he bent down he felt the old man’s hand weigh gently on his shoulder.

“Lafcadio Wluiki,” went on Juste-Agénor, when he had raised himself, “my days are numbered. I shall not fence with you--it would be too fatiguing. I am willing to grant that you are not stupid; I am glad that you are not ugly. There is a touch of boldness in this venture of yours which is not unbecoming. I thought at first it was impudence, but your voice, your manner reassure me. As to other things, I asked my son Julius to report to me, but I find that I take no great interest in them--it was more important to see you. Now, Lafcadio, listen. There is not a single document of any sort in existence which testifies to your identity. I have been careful to leave you no possibility of making any claims. No, don’t protest. It’s useless. Don’t interrupt me. Your silence up to now is a sign that your mother kept her word not to speak of me to you. Very good. In accordance with the promise I made her, you shall have material proof of my gratitude. In spite of legal difficulties, you will receive at the hands of my son Julius that share of my inheritance which I told your mother should be reserved for you. That is to say, I shall increase my son Julius’s legacy by the amount by which the law permits me to reduce that of my other child, the Countess Guy de Saint-Prix--which is actually the exact sum I mean him to pass on to you. It will, I think, come to ... let us say about forty thousand francs[B] a year. But I must see my solicitor and go into the exact figures with him.... Sit down, you will listen more comfortably.” (Lafcadio had leant for a breathing-space on the edge of the table.) “Julius may make objections; the law is on his side; but I count on his fairness not to--and I count on yours never to trouble Julius’s family, just as your mother never troubled mine. As far as Julius is concerned, the only person who exists is Lafcadio Wluiki. I don’t wish you to wear mourning for me. My child, the institution of the family is a closed thing. You will never be anything but a bastard.”

Lafcadio, who had been caught by his father’s glance in the act of staggering, had nevertheless refused the invitation to be seated. He had already overcome the swimming of his brain and was now leaning on the table on which were placed the cup and the spirit lamp. His attitude remained highly deferential.

“Now, tell me--you saw my son Julius this morning? Did he tell you ...?”

“He told me nothing. I guessed.”

“Clumsy fellow!... Oh! I don’t mean _you_.... Are you to see him again?”

“He asked me to be his secretary.”

“Have you accepted?”

“Do you object?”

“No. But I think it would be better for you not to recognise each other.”

“I thought so too. But without recognising him exactly, I should like to get to know him a little.”

“I suppose, though, that you don’t mean to fill a subordinate position like that for long?”

“Just long enough to look round.”

“And after that what do you think of doing, now that you are well off?”

“Why, yesterday I hardly had enough to eat, Sir. Give me time to take the measure of my appetite.”

At this moment Hector knocked at the door.

“Monsieur le Vicomte to see you, Sir. Shall I show him in?”

The old man’s forehead grew sombre. He kept silent for a moment, but when Lafcadio discreetly rose to take leave:

“Don’t go!” cried Juste-Agénor, so violently that the young man’s heart went out to him; then turning to Hector:

“It can’t be helped. It’s his own fault. I told him particularly not to try and see me.... Tell him I’m busy, that ... I’ll write to him.”

Hector bowed and went out.

The old man remained for a few moments with his eyes closed. He seemed asleep, except that his lips, half-hidden by his beard, could be seen moving. At last he raised his eyelids, held out his hand to Lafcadio, and in a voice that was changed and softened, a voice that seemed broken with fatigue:

“Give me your hand, child,” he said. “You must leave me now.”

“I must make a confession,” said Lafcadio, hesitating. “In order to make myself presentable to come and see you, I exhausted my supplies. If you don’t help me, I shall have very little dinner to-night and none at all to-morrow ... unless your son, M. le Vicomte....”

“In the meantime you can have this,” said the Count, taking five hundred francs out of a drawer. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I should like to ask you, too ... whether I mayn’t hope to see you again?”

“Upon my word, I’ll admit, it would give me pleasure. But the reverend persons who are in charge of my soul, keep me in a frame of mind in which pleasure passes as a secondary consideration. As for my blessing, I’ll give it to you at once.” And the old man opened his arms to receive him. But Lafcadio, instead of throwing himself into them, knelt down before him and laid his head, sobbing, on the Count’s knees; touched in a moment and all subdued to tenderness by the embrace, he felt his heart and all its fierce resolves melt within him.

“My child, my child,” stammered the old man, “I have delayed too long.”

When Lafcadio got up his face was wet with tears.

At the moment of leaving, as he was putting the note, which he had not immediately taken, into his pocket, Lafcadio came upon his visiting-cards. Holding them out to the Count:

“Here is the whole packet,” said he.

“I trust you. Tear them up yourself. Good-bye.”

“He would have made the best of uncles,” thought Lafcadio, as he was walking back to the Quartier Latin; “and even,” he added, with the faintest touch of melancholy, “a little more into the bargain.--Pooh!”

He took the packet of cards, spread them out fan-wise and with a single easy movement tore them in half.

“I never had any confidence in drains,” murmured he, as he threw “Lafcadio” down a grating in the street; and it was not till two gratings further on that he threw down “de Baraglioul.”

“Never mind! Baraglioul or Wluiki, let’s set to work now to settle up our arrears.”

There was a jeweller’s shop in the Boulevard St. Germain before which Carola used to keep him standing every day. A day or two earlier, she had discovered a curious pair of sleeve-links in the flashy shop window; they were joined together two and two by a little gilt chain and were cut out of a peculiar kind of quartz--a sort of smoky agate, which was not transparent, though it looked as if it were--and made to represent four cats’ heads. Venitequa, as I have already said, was in the habit of wearing a tailormade coat and skirt and a man’s shirt with stiff cuffs, and as she had a taste for oddities, she coveted these sleeve-links.

They were more queer than attractive; Lafcadio thought them hideous; it would have irritated him to see his mistress wearing them; but now that he was going to leave her.... He went into the shop and paid a hundred and twenty francs for the links.

“A piece of writing-paper, please.” And leaning on the counter, he wrote on a sheet of note-paper which the shopman brought him, these words:

NIND “For Carola Venitequa,

With thanks for having shown the stranger into my room, and begging her never to set her foot in it again.”

He folded the paper and slipped it into the box in which the trinkets were packed.

“No precipitation!” he said to himself as he was on the point of handing the box to the porter. “I’ll pass one more night under this roof. For this evening let’s be satisfied with locking Miss Carola out.”

VI

The moral law which Descartes considered provisional, but to which he submitted in the meantime, until he had established the rules that should regulate his life and conduct hereafter, was the same law--its provisional powers indefinitely protracted--which governed Julius de Baraglioul.

But Julius’s temperament was not so intractable nor his intellect so commanding as to have given him hitherto much trouble in conforming to the proprieties. On the whole all that he demanded of life was his comfort--part of which consisted in his being successful as a man of letters. The failure of his last novel was the first experience of his life which had ever really galled him.

He had been not a little mortified at being refused admittance to his father; he would have been much more so if he had known who it was who had forestalled him. On his way back to the Rue de Verneuil, it was with less and less conviction that he repelled the importunate supposition which had assailed him as he went to visit Lafcadio in the morning. He too had juxtaposed facts and dates; he too was obliged to recognise in this strange conjunction something more than a mere coincidence. Lafcadio’s youthful grace, moreover, had captivated him, and though he suspected his father was going to cheat him of a portion of his patrimony for the sake of this bastard brother, he felt no ill will towards him; he was even expecting him this morning with a curiosity that was almost tender in its solicitude.

As for Lafcadio, shy of approach and reticent though he was, this rare opportunity of speaking tempted him--and also the pleasure of making Julius feel a little uncomfortable. For he had never taken even Protos very deeply into his confidence. And how far he had travelled since then! After all he did not dislike Julius--absurd and shadowy though he thought him. It amused him to know that they were brothers.

As he was on his way to Julius’s house, the morning after his visit, a somewhat curious adventure befell him.

Whether it was his liking for the roundabout that prompted him, or the inspiration of his guiding genius, or whether he wanted to quell a certain unruliness of body and mind, so as to be master of himself when he arrived at his brother’s--for whatever reason, Lafcadio took the longest way round; he had followed the Boulevard des Invalides, passed again by the scene of the fire, and was going down the Rue de Bellechasse.

“Thirty-four Rue de Verneuil,” he was saying to himself as he walked along, “four and three, seven--a lucky number.”

He was turning out of the Rue St. Dominique where it intersects the Boulevard St. Germain, when, on the other side of the road, he thought he saw and recognised the young girl, who, it must be confessed, had occupied his thoughts not a little since the day before. He immediately quickened his pace.... Sure enough, it was she! He caught her up at the end of the short Rue de Villersexel, but, reflecting that it would not be very like a Baraglioul to accost her, he contented himself with smiling, raising his hat a little and bowing discreetly; then, after passing her swiftly, he thought it highly expedient to drop into a tobacconist’s shop, while the young lady, who was again in front, turned down the Rue de l’Université.

When Lafcadio came out of the tobacconist’s and entered the same street in his turn, he looked right and left: the young girl had vanished.--Lafcadio, my friend, you are verging on the commonplace. If you are going to fall in love, do not count on my pen to paint the disturbance of your heart.... But no! the idea of beginning a pursuit was distasteful to him; and besides he did not want to be late for his appointment with Julius, and the roundabout way by which he had come allowed no time for further dawdling. Fortunately the Rue de Verneuil was near at hand, and the house in which Julius lived, at the first corner. Lafcadio tossed the Count’s name to the porter and darted upstairs.

In the meantime, Genevieve de Baraglioul, Count Julius’s elder daughter--for it was she, on her way back from the Hospital for Sick Children, where she went every morning--had been far more agitated than Lafcadio by this second meeting, and hurrying home as quickly as she could, she had entered the front door just as Lafcadio had turned into the street, and was already nearing the second floor, when the sound of rapid steps behind her made her look round; someone was coming upstairs more quickly than she; she stood aside to let the person pass, but when she recognized Lafcadio, who stopped, petrified, in front of her:

“Is it worthy of you,” she said in as angry a tone as she could muster, “to follow me like this?”

“Oh! what can you think of me?” cried Lafcadio. “I’m afraid you’ll not believe me when I say that I didn’t see you coming into this house--that I’m extremely astonished to meet you here. Isn’t this where Count Julius de Baraglioul lives?”

“What?” said Genevieve, blushing; “can you be the new secretary my father is expecting? Monsieur Lafcadio Wlou ... you have such a peculiar name, I don’t know how to pronounce it.” And as Lafcadio, blushing in his turn, bowed, she went on:

“Since I’ve met you, may I ask you as a favour not to speak to my parents about yesterday’s adventure, which I don’t think would be at all to their taste; and particularly not to say anything about my purse, which I told them I had lost.”

“I was going to ask you myself to say nothing about the absurd part you saw me play in the business. I’m like your parents; I don’t at all understand it or approve of it. You must have taken me for a Newfoundland. I couldn’t restrain myself. Forgive me. I have much to learn.... But I shall learn in time, I promise you.... Will you give me your hand?”

Genevieve de Baraglioul, who did not own to herself that she thought Lafcadio very handsome, did not own to Lafcadio that, far from thinking him ridiculous, she had set him up as the image of a hero. She held out her hand to him and he raised it impetuously to his lips; then smiling simply, she begged him to go down a few steps and wait till she had gone in and shut the door before ringing in his turn, so that they might not be seen together; and he was to take special care not to show that they had ever met before.

A few minutes later Lafcadio was ushered into the novelist’s study.

Julius’s welcome was kindly and encouraging; Julius, however, was a blunderer; the young man immediately assumed the defensive.

“I must begin by warning you, M. le Comte, that I can’t abide either gratitude or debts; and whatever you may do for me, you will never be able to make me feel that I am under any obligation to you.”

Julius in his turn was nettled.

“I am not trying to buy you, Monsieur Wluiki,” he began loftily.... Then, both realising that to continue in this way would mean burning their boats, they pulled themselves up short. After a moment’s silence Lafcadio began in a more conciliatory manner:

“What work was it that you thought of giving me?”

Julius made an evasive answer, excusing himself that his MS. was not quite ready yet; and besides it would be no bad thing for them to begin by getting better acquainted with each other.

“You must admit, M. de Baraglioul,” said Lafcadio pleasantly, “that you have lost no time in beginning that without me, and that you did me the honour yesterday of examining a certain pocket-book of mine....”

Julius lost countenance and answered in some confusion: “I admit that I did.” And then he went on with dignity: “I apologise. If the thing were to occur again....”

“It will not occur again. I have burnt the pocket-book.”

Julius’s features expressed grief.

“Are you very angry?”

“If I were still angry I shouldn’t mention it. Forgive my manner when I came in just now,” went on Lafcadio, determined to send his thrust home. “All the same I should like very much to know whether you read a scrap of letter as well, that happened to be in the pocket-book?”

Julius had not read any scrap of letter, for the very good reason that he had not found any; but he took the opportunity of protesting his discretion. It amused Lafcadio to show his amusement.

“I partly revenged myself yesterday on your new book.”

“It is not at all likely to interest you,” Julius hastened to say.

“Oh, I didn’t read the whole of it. I must confess I am not very fond of reading. In reality the only book I ever enjoyed was _Robinson Crusoe_.... Oh, yes! _Aladdin_ too.... That must do for me in your opinion.”

Julius raised his hand gently.

“I merely pity you. You deprive yourself of great joys.”

“I have others.”

“Perhaps not of such sterling quality.”

“Oh, you may be sure of that!” and Lafcadio’s laugh was decidedly impertinent.

“You will suffer for it some day,” returned Julius, a little ruffled by this disrespectful gibing.

“When it will be too late,” Lafcadio finished the sentence with affected gravity; then he asked abruptly: “Does it really amuse you very much to write?”

Julius drew himself up.

“I don’t write for the sake of amusement,” he answered nobly. “The joy that I feel in writing is superior to any that I might find in living. Moreover, the one is not incompatible with the other.”

“So they say,” replied Lafcadio. Then abruptly raising his voice, which he had dropped as though inadvertently: “Do you know what it is I dislike about writing?--All the scratchings out and touchings up that are necessary.”

“Do you think there are no corrections in life too?” asked Julius, beginning to prick up his ears.

“You misunderstand me. In life one corrects _oneself_--one improves _oneself_--so people say; but one can’t correct what one _does_. It’s the power of revising that makes writing such a colourless affair--such a....” (He left his sentence unfinished.) “Yes! that’s what seems to me so fine about life. It’s like fresco-painting--erasures aren’t allowed.”

“Would there be much to erase in your life?”

“No ... not much so far.... And as one can’t....”

Lafcadio was silent a moment, and then: “All the same, it was because I wanted to make an erasure that I flung my pocket-book into the fire!... Too late--as you see! You must admit, however, that you didn’t understand what it was all about.”

No! Julius would never admit that.

“Will you allow me a few questions?” he said, by way of answer.

Lafcadio rose to his feet so abruptly that Julius thought he was going to make off on the spot; but he only went up to the window and, raising the muslin curtain:

“Is this garden yours?” he asked.

“No,” said Julius.

“M. de Baraglioul, I have hitherto allowed no one to pry in the smallest degree into my life,” went on Lafcadio without turning round. Then, as he walked back towards Julius, who had begun to take him for nothing more than a schoolboy: “But to-day is a red-letter day; for once in my life I will give myself a holiday. Put your questions--I undertake to answer them all.... Oh! let me tell you first that I have turned away that young baggage who showed you into my room yesterday.”

Julius thought it proper to put on an air of concern.

“Because of me? Really....”

“Pooh! I had been looking for an excuse to get rid of her for some time past.”

“Were you ... m ... m ... living with her?” asked Julius, rather awkwardly.

“Yes; for health’s sake.... But as little as possible, and in memory of a friend of mine whose mistress she had been.”

“Monsieur Protos, perhaps?” ventured Julius, who was now firmly determined to stifle his indignation--his disgust--his reprobation--and to show--on this first occasion--no more of his astonishment than was necessary to make his rejoinders sufficiently lively.

“Yes, Protos,” replied Lafcadio, brimming over with laughter. “Would you like to know about Protos?”

“To know something of your friends would be perhaps a step towards knowing you.”

“He was an Italian of the name of.... My word, I’ve forgotten, and it’s of no consequence. The other boys--even the masters--never called him anything but Protos from the day he unexpectedly carried off a first for Greek composition.”

“I don’t remember ever having been first myself,” said Julius, to encourage confidence, “but, like you, I have always wanted to be friends with those who were. So Protos ...?”

“Oh! it was because of a bet he made. Before that, though he was among the elder boys, he had always been one of the last of the class--whilst I was one of the youngest--not that I worked any the better for that. Protos showed the greatest contempt for everything the masters taught us; but one day, when one of the fellows who was good at book-learning and whom he detested, said to him: ‘It’s all very fine to despise what you can’t do’ (or something to that effect), Protos got his back up, worked hard for a fortnight and to such purpose that at the next Greek composition class he went up over the other fellows’ heads and took the first place to the utter amazement of us all--of _them_ all, I should say. As for me, I had too high an opinion of Protos to be much astonished. When he said to me: ‘I’ll show them it’s not so difficult as all that,’ I believed him.”

“If I understand you rightly, Protos influenced you not a little?”

“Perhaps. At any rate he rather overawed me. As a matter of fact, however, I never had but one single intimate conversation with him--but that seemed to me so cogent that the very next day I ran away from school, where I was beginning to droop like a plant in a cellar, and made my way on foot to Baden, where my mother was living at that time with my uncle, the Marquis de Gesvres.... But we are beginning by the end. You would certainly question me very badly. Just let me tell you my own story as it comes. You will learn more in that way than you would ever dream of asking me--more, very likely, than you will care to learn.... No, thank you, I prefer my own,” said he, taking out his case and throwing away the cigarette which Julius had offered him when he first came in and which he had allowed to go out while he was talking.

VII

“I was born at Bucharest in 1874,” he began slowly, “and, as I think you know, I lost my father a few months after my birth. The first person who stands out in my recollection at my mother’s side, was a German, my uncle, the Baron Heldenbruck. But as I lost him when I was twelve years old, I have only a hazy recollection of him. He was, it seems, a distinguished financier. As well as his own language, he taught me arithmetic, and that by such ingenious devices that I found it prodigiously amusing. He made me what he used laughingly to call his ‘cashier’--that is, he gave into my keeping a whole fortune of petty cash, and wherever we went together, it was I who had to do the paying. Whatever he bought--and he used to buy a great deal--he insisted on my adding up the bill in as short a time as it took me to pull the notes or coins out of my pocket. Sometimes he used to puzzle me with foreign money, so that there were questions of exchange; then of discount, of interest, of brokerage and finally even of speculation. With such a training, I very soon became fairly clever at doing multiplication--and even division--sums of several figures in my head.... Don’t be alarmed” (for he saw Julius’s eyebrows beginning to frown), “it gave me no taste either for money or reckoning. For instance, if you care to know, I never keep accounts. In reality this early education of mine was merely practical and matter-of-fact. It never touched anything vital in me.... Then Heldenbruck was wonderfully understanding about the proper hygiene for children; he persuaded my mother to let me go bare-headed and bare-footed in all weathers, and to keep me out of doors as much as possible; he used even to give me a cold dip himself every day, summer and winter. I enjoyed it immensely.... But you don’t care about these details.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Then he was called away on business to America and I never saw him again.

“My mother’s salon in Bucharest was frequented by the most brilliant, and also, as far as I can judge from recollection, by the most mixed society; but her particular intimates at that time were my uncle, Prince Wladimir Bielkowski and Ardengo Baldi, whom for some reason I never called my uncle. They spent three or four years at Bucharest in the service of Russia (I was going to say Poland) and of Italy. I learnt from each of them his own language--Polish, that is, and Italian--as for Russian, I read and understand it pretty well, but I have never spoken it fluently. In the society of the kind of people who frequented my mother’s house and who made a great deal of me, not a day passed without my having occasion to practise three or four languages; and at the age of thirteen I could speak them all without any accent and with almost equal ease--and yet French preferably, because it was my father’s tongue and my mother had made a point of my learning it first.

“Bielkowski, like everyone else who wanted to please my mother, took considerable notice of me; it always seemed as though _I_ were the person to be courted; but in his case I think it was disinterested, for he always followed his bent, however rapidly it led him and in whatever direction. He paid a great deal of attention to me even outside of anything my mother could have knowledge of, and I couldn’t help being flattered by the particular attachment he had for me. Our rather humdrum existence was transformed by this singular person, from one day to the next, into a kind of riotous holiday. No! to talk of his _yielding_ to his bent is not enough; his bent was a wild and precipitous rush; he flung himself upon his pleasure with a kind of frenzy.

“For three summers he carried us off to a villa, or rather to a castle, on the Hungarian slope of the Carpathians, near Eperjes; we often used to drive there, but we preferred riding and my mother enjoyed nothing better than scouring the country and the forests--which were very beautiful--on horseback and in any direction our fancy led us. The pony which Wladimir gave me was the thing I loved best on earth for a whole year.

“During the second summer, Ardengo Baldi joined us; it was then that he taught me chess. Heldenbruck had broken me in to doing sums in my head and I was pretty soon able to play without looking at the chess-board.

“Baldi got on very well with Bielkowski. Of an evening, in our solitary tower, plunged in the silence of the park and the forest, we all four used to sit up till late into the night, playing game after game of cards; for though I was only a child--thirteen years old--Baldi, who hated dummy, had taught me how to play whist--and how to cheat.

“Juggler, conjurer, mountebank, acrobat, he began to frequent us just at the time when my imagination was emerging from the long fast to which it had been subjected by Heldenbruck. I was hungry for marvels--credulous--of a green and eager curiosity. Later on, Baldi explained his tricks to me, but no familiarity could abolish that first sensation of mystery when, the first evening, I saw him light his cigarette at his little finger-nail, and then, as he had been losing at cards, draw out of my ears and my nose as many roubles as he wanted--which absolutely terrified me, but greatly entertained the company, for he kept saying, still with the same perfect coolness: ‘Fortunately this boy here is an inexhaustible mine!’

“On the evenings when he was alone with my mother and me, he was for ever inventing some new game, some surprise, some absurd joke or other; he mimicked all our acquaintance, pulled faces, made himself unrecognisable, imitated all sorts of voices, the cries of animals, the sounds of instruments, produced extraordinary noises from Heaven knows where, sang to the accompaniment of the guzla, danced, pranced, walked on his hands, jumped over the tables and chairs, juggled with his bare feet like a Japanese, twirling the drawing-room screen or the small tea-table on the tip of his big toe; he juggled with his hands still better; at his bidding, a torn and crumpled piece of paper would burst forth into a swarm of white butterflies, which I would blow this way and that, and which the fluttering of his fan would keep hovering in the air. In his neighbourhood, objects lost their weight and reality--their presence even--or else took on some fresh, queer, unexpected significance, totally remote from all utility. ‘There are very few things it isn’t amusing to juggle with,’ he used to say. And with it all he was so funny that I used to grow faint with laughing, and my mother would cry out: ‘Stop, Baldi! Cadio will never be able to sleep.’ And, indeed, my nerves must have been pretty solid to hold out against such excitements.

“I benefited greatly by this teaching; at the end of a few months I could have given points to Baldi himself in more than one of his tricks, and even....”

“It is clear, my dear boy, that you were given a most careful education,” interrupted Julius at this moment.

Lafcadio burst out laughing at the novelist’s horrified countenance. “Oh! none of it sank very deep; don’t be alarmed. But it was high time Uncle Faby appeared on the scene, wasn’t it? It was he who became intimate with my mother when Bielkowski and Baldi were called away to other posts.”

“Faby? Was it his writing I saw on the first page of your pocket-book?”

“Yes. Fabian Taylor, Lord Gravensdale. He took my mother and me to a villa he had rented near Duino on the Adriatic, where my health and strength greatly improved. The coast at that place forms a rocky peninsula which was entirely occupied by the grounds of the villa. There I ran wild, spending the whole day long under the pines, among the rocks and creeks, or swimming or canoeing in the sea. The photograph you saw belongs to that time. I burnt that too.”

“It seems to me,” said Julius, “that you might have made yourself a little more respectable for the occasion.”

“That’s exactly what I couldn’t have done,” answered Lafcadio, laughing. “Faby, under pretence of wanting me to get bronzed, kept all my wardrobe under lock and key--even my linen....”

“And what did your mother say?”

“She was very much entertained; she said if her guests were shocked they might go; but as a matter of fact it didn’t prevent any single one of our visitors from remaining.”

“And during all this time, my poor boy, your education ...!”

“Yes, I was so quick at learning that my mother rather neglected it; it was not till I was sixteen that she seemed suddenly to become aware of the fact, and after a marvellous journey in Algeria, which I took with Uncle Faby (I think it was the best time of my life), I was sent to Paris and put in charge of a thick-skinned brute of a jailer, who looked after my schooling.”

“After such excessive liberty, I readily understand that constraint of that kind must have seemed rather hard to you.”

“I should never have borne it without Protos. He was a boarder at the same school as I--in order to learn French, it was said; but he spoke it to perfection and I could never make out the point of his being there--nor of my being there either. I was sick of the whole thing--pining away. I hadn’t exactly any feeling of friendship for Protos, but I turned towards him as though I expected him to save me. He was a good deal older than I was and looked even older than he was, without a trace of childhood left in his bearing or tastes. His features were extraordinarily illuminating when he chose, and could express anything and everything; but when he was at rest he used to look like an idiot. One day when I chaffed him about it, he replied that the important thing in this world was never to look like what one was. He was not content merely with being thought humble--he wanted to be thought stupid. It amused him to say that what is fatal to most people is that they prefer parade to drill and won’t hide their talents; but he didn’t say it to anybody but me. He kept himself aloof from everyone--even from me, though I was the only person in the school he didn’t despise. When once I succeeded in getting him to talk he became extraordinarily eloquent, but most of the time he was taciturn and seemed to be brooding over some dark design, which I should have liked to know about. When I asked him--politely, for no one ever treated him with familiarity--what he was doing in such a place, he answered: ‘I am getting under way.’ He had a theory that in life one could get out of the worst holes by saying to oneself: ‘What’s the odds!’ That’s what I repeated to myself so often that I ran away.

“I started with eighteen francs in my pocket and reached Baden by short stages, eating anything, sleeping anywhere. I was rather done up when I arrived, but, on the whole, pleased with myself, for I still had three francs left; it is true that I picked up five or six by the way. I found my mother there with my uncle de Gesvres, who was delighted with my escapade, and made up his mind to take me back to Paris; he was inconsolable, he said, that I should have unpleasant recollections of Paris. And it’s a fact that when I went back there with him, Paris made a much more favourable impression on me.

“The Marquis de Gesvres took a positively frenzied pleasure in spending money; it was a perpetual need--a craving; it seemed as though he were grateful to me for helping him to satisfy it--for increasing his appetite by the addition of my own. It was he who taught me (the contrary of Faby) to like dress. I think I wore my clothes well; he was a good master; his elegance was perfectly natural--like a second sincerity. I got on with him very well. We spent whole mornings together at the shirtmaker’s, the shoemaker’s, the tailor’s; he paid particular attention to shoes, saying that you could tell a man as certainly by his shoes as by the rest of his dress and by his features--and more secretly.... He taught me to spend money without keeping accounts and without taking thought beforehand as to whether I should have enough to satisfy my fancy, my desire or my hunger. He laid it down as a principle that of these three it was always hunger that should be satisfied last, for (I remember his words) the appeal of fancy or desire is fugitive, while hunger is certain to return and only becomes more imperative the longer it has to wait. He taught me, too, not to enjoy a thing more because it had cost a great deal, nor less if, by chance, it cost nothing at all.

“It was at this point that I lost my mother. A telegram called me suddenly back to Bucharest; I arrived in time only to see her dead. There I learnt that after the Marquis’s departure she had run so deeply into debt that she had left no more than just enough to clear her estate, so that there was no expectation for me of a single copeck, or a single pfennig or a single groschen. Directly after the funeral I returned to Paris, where I thought I should find my uncle de Gesvres; but he had unexpectedly left for Russia without leaving an address.

“There is no need to tell you my reflections. True, I had certain accomplishments in my outfit by means of which one can always manage to pull through; but the more I was in need of them, the more repugnant I felt to making use of them. Fortunately one night as I was walking the pavement rather at a loose end, I came across Proto’s ex-mistress--the Carola Venitequa you saw yesterday--who gave me a decent house-room. A few days later I received a rather mysterious communication to say that a scanty allowance would be paid me on the first of every month at a certain solicitor’s; I have a horror of getting to the bottom of things and I drew it without further enquiries. Then you came along ... and now you know more or less everything I felt inclined to tell you.”

“It is fortunate,” said Julius solemnly, “it is fortunate, Lafcadio, that a little money is coming your way; with no profession, with no education, condemned to live by expedients ... now that I know you, and such as I take you for, you were ready for anything.”

“On the contrary, ready for nothing,” replied Lafcadio, looking at Julius gravely. “In spite of all I have told you, I see that you _don’t_ know me. Nothing hinders me so effectually as want. I have never yet been tempted but by the things that could be of no service to me.”

“Paradoxes, for instance. And is that what you call nourishing?”

“It depends on the stomach. You choose to give the name of paradox to what yours refuses. As for me, I should let myself die of hunger if I had nothing before me but such a hash of bare bones as the logic you feed your characters on.”

“Allow me....”

“The hero of your last book, at any rate. Is it true that it’s a portrait of your father? The pains you take to keep him always and everywhere consistent with you and with himself--faithful to his duties and his principles--to your theories, that is--you can imagine how it strikes a person like me!... Monsieur de Baraglioul, you may take my word for it--I am a creature of inconsequence. And look, how much I have been talking! when only yesterday I considered myself the most silent, the most secretive, the most retired of beings. But it was a good thing that we should become acquainted without delay--there will be no need to go over the ground again. To-morrow--this evening I shall withdraw again into my privacy.”

The novelist, completely thrown off his centre by these remarks, made an effort to recover himself.

“In the first place you may rest assured that there is no such thing as inconsequence--in psychology any more than in physics,” he began. “You are a being in process of formation and....”

Repeated knocks at the door interrupted him. But as no one appeared, it was Julius who left the room. A confused noise of voices reached Lafcadio through the open door. Then there was a long silence. Lafcadio, after waiting for ten minutes, was preparing to go, when a servant in livery came in to him:

“Monsieur le Comte says that he won’t ask you to wait any longer, Sir. He has just had bad news of his father and hopes you will kindly excuse him.”

From the tone in which this was said, Lafcadio guessed that the old Count was dead. He mastered his emotion.

“Courage!” said he to himself as he returned homewards. “The moment has come. _It is time to launch the ship._[C] From whatever quarter the wind blows now it will be the right one. Since I cannot live really near the old man, I might as well prepare to leave him altogether.”

As he passed by the hotel porter’s lodge, he gave him the small box which he had been carrying about with him ever since the day before.

“Please give this parcel to Mlle. Venitequa when she comes in this evening, and kindly prepare my bill.”

An hour later his box was packed and he sent for a cab. He went off without leaving an address. His solicitor’s was enough.