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.”
“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:
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.