V
As Fleurissoire complained of great fatigue, Carola had allowed him to sleep that night notwithstanding the interest she took in him and the tender compassion she was thrown into when he confessed his ignorance in the matter of love ... sleep, that is, as much as he was able for the intolerable itching of the bites—fleas’ as well as mosquitoes’—which covered his whole body.
“You oughtn’t to scratch like that, dearie,” she said to him the next morning, “you only irritate it. Oh, how inflamed this one is!” and she touched the spot on his chin. Then as he was getting ready to go out: “Here! wear these in remembrance of me.” And she fastened the grotesque trinkets which Protos had objected to her wearing, into the pilgrim’s cuffs. Amédée promised to come back the same evening, or at latest the next morning.
“You’ll swear that you’ll not hurt him?” repeated Carola a moment later to Protos, who had come through the secret door already disguised; and as he was late because he had waited for Fleurissoire to leave before showing himself, he was obliged to take a carriage to the station.
In his new aspect, with his open shirt, his brown breeches, his sandals, laced over his blue stockings, his short pipe and his tan-coloured hat with its small flat brim, it must be admitted that he looked far more like a regular Abruzzi brigand than like a curé. Fleurissoire, who was walking up and down the platform waiting for him, hesitated to recognise the individual who, like St. Peter Martyr, with a finger on his lips, passed by him without seeming to see him and disappeared into a carriage at the head of the train. But after a moment he reappeared at the door of the carriage, and looking in Amédée’s direction with one eye half shut, he made him a surreptitious sign with his hand to come up; and as Amédée was about to get in:
“Please see whether there’s anyone next door,” whispered Protos.
No one; and their compartment was the last in the carriage.
“I was following you in the street,” went on Protos; “but I wouldn’t speak to you for fear that we might be seen together.”
“How is it that I didn’t see you?” asked Fleurissoire. “I turned round a dozen times to make sure that I wasn’t being followed. Your conversation yesterday filled me with such terror that I see nothing but spies everywhere.”
“Yes, you show that you do only too clearly. Do you think it’s natural to turn round every twenty paces?”
“What? Really? Do I look ...?”
“Suspicious. Alas! That’s the word—suspicious. It’s the most compromising look you can have.”
“And yet I didn’t even discover that you were following me! On the other hand, I see something disquieting in the appearance of everyone I pass in the street. It alarms me if they look at me, and if they don’t look at me they seem as if they were pretending not to see me. I didn’t realise till to-day how rarely people’s presence in the street is justifiable. There aren’t more than four out of twelve whose occupation is obvious. Ah! You have given me food for thought, and no mistake! For a naturally credulous soul like mine suspicion is not easy; it’s an apprenticeship....”
“Pooh! You’ll get accustomed to it—quickly too; you’ll see; in a short time it’ll become a habit—a habit, alas! Which I’ve been obliged to adopt myself.... The main thing is to look cheerful all the time. Ah! A word to the wise! When you’re afraid you’re being followed, don’t turn round; just merely drop your stick or your umbrella (according to the weather) or your handkerchief, and as you pick it up—whatever it may be—while your head is down, look between your legs behind you, in a natural kind of way. I advise you to practise. But tell me. What do you think of me in this costume? I’m afraid the curé may show through in places.”
“Don’t worry,” said Fleurissoire candidly; “no one but I, I’m sure, could see what you are.” Then, looking him up and down benevolently, with his head a little on one side: “Evidently, when I examine you carefully, I can see a slight touch of the ecclesiastic behind your disguise—I can distinguish beneath the joviality of your voice the sickening anxiety which is tormenting us both. But what self-control you must have to let it show so little! As for me, I have still a great deal to learn, it’s clear. Your advice....”
“What curious sleeve-links you have!” interrupted Protos, amused at seeing Carola’s links on Fleurissoire.
“They’re a present,” he said, blushing.
The heat was sweltering. Protos was looking out of the window; “Monte Cassino,” he said; “can you see the celebrated convent up there?”
“Yes, I see it,” said Fleurissoire absently.
“You don’t care much for scenery, then?”
“Yes, yes, I do care for it! But how can I take an interest in anything as long as I’m so uneasy? It’s the same at Rome with the sights. I’ve seen nothing; I’ve not tried to see anything.”
“How well I understand you!” said Protos. “I’m like that too; I told you that ever since I’ve been in Rome I’ve spent the whole of my time between the Vatican and the Castle of St. Angelo.”
“It’s a pity, but you know Rome already.”
In this way our travellers chatted.
At Caserta they got down, and went each on his own account to the buffet, to get a sandwich or two and a drink.
“At Naples too,” said Protos, “when we get near his villa we will part company, if you please. You must follow me at a distance; I shall want a little time first, especially if he isn’t alone, to explain who you are and the object of your visit, so you mustn’t come in till a quarter of an hour after me.”
“I’ll take the opportunity of getting shaved. I hadn’t time this morning.”
A tram took them as far as the Piazza Dante.
“Let’s part here,” said Protos. “It’s still rather a long way off, but it’s better so. Walk about fifty paces behind me; and don’t look at me the whole time as if you were afraid of losing me; and don’t turn round either; you would get yourself followed. Look cheerful.”
He started off in front. Fleurissoire followed with downcast eyes. The street was narrow and steep; the sun blazed; sweating, hustling, effervescing, the crowd clamoured and gesticulated and sang, while Fleurissoire panted bewildered through their midst. A number of half-naked children were dancing in front of a barrel organ; a kind of mountebank was getting up an impromptu lottery at two-sous the ticket, for a fat plucked turkey, which he was holding up at the end of a stick; Protos, to seem more natural, took a ticket as he passed, and disappeared into the crowd; Fleurissoire, unable to advance, thought he had lost him for good; then, after he had managed to get through the obstruction, he caught sight of him again, walking briskly up the hill, with the turkey under his arm.
At last the houses became smaller and further apart, fewer people were to be seen, and Protos slackened his pace. He stopped in front of a barber’s shop and, turning to Fleurissoire, winked his eye; then, twenty paces further on, stopped again in front of a little low door and rang the bell.
The barber’s window was not particularly attractive but Father Cave doubtless had his reasons for pointing it out; moreover, Fleurissoire would have had to go a long way back before finding another, which would no doubt have been equally uninviting. The door was left open on account of the excessive heat; a wide-meshed curtain kept the flies out and let the air in; one had to raise it to go in; he entered.
Truly, a skilful fellow, this barber! After soaping Amédée’s chin, he cautiously pushed aside the lather with a corner of his towel and brought to light the fiery pimple, which his nervous client pointed out to him. Oh, somnolence! Oh, warmth and drowsiness of the quiet little shop! Amédée, half lying in the leather arm-chair, with his head leaning comfortably back, let himself drift. Ah! just for one short moment to forget! To think no more of the Pope and the mosquitoes and Carola! To imagine himself back to Pau with Arnica; to imagine himself somewhere—anywhere else—no longer to know where he was!... He shut his eyes, then half opening them, saw as in a dream on the wall opposite him, a woman with streaming hair issuing out of the Bay of Naples, and bringing up from the watery depths, together with a voluptuous sensation of coolness, a glittering bottle of hair-restorer. Above this advertisement were arranged, on a marble slab, more bottles, a stick of cosmetic and a powder puff, a pair of tweezers, a comb, a lancet, a pot of ointment, a glass jar in which a few leeches were indolently floating, a second glass jar which contained the long ribbon of a tapeworm and lately a third jar which was without a lid, half full of some gelatinous substance, and had pasted on its crystalline surface a label, inscribed by hand, in large fancy capitals, with the word ANTISEPTIC.
The barber now, in order to bring his work to perfection, spread afresh an unctuous lather over the already shaven chin, and with the gleaming edge of a second rasor, which he sharpened on the palm of his damp hand, he set about his final polishing. Amédée thought no more of his appointment, thought no more of leaving, began to doze off.... It was just at this moment that there came into the shop a loud-voiced Sicilian, rending the peacefulness with his clatter; it was then that the barber, plunging at once into talk, began to shave with a less attentive hand, and with a sudden sweep of his blade—pop! the pimple was beheaded!
Amédée gave a cry and was putting his hand to the cut, from which a drop of blood came oozing:
“Niente! Niente!” said the barber, holding back his arm; then, taking a piece of discoloured cotton-wool from the back of the drawer, he lavishly dipped it into the ANTISEPTIC and applied it to the place.
Without caring now whether the passers-by turned to look at him, Amédée fled down the hill towards the town—where else but to the first druggist’s he could find?
He showed his hurt to the man of healing—a mouldy, greenish, unhealthy-looking old fellow, who smiled and, taking a little round of sticking-plaster out of a box, passed his broad tongue over it and....
Flinging out of the shop, Fleurissoire spat with disgust, tore off the slimy plaster and, pressing his pimple between two fingers, made it bleed as much as he could. Then, having wetted his handkerchief with saliva—his own this time—he rubbed the place. Then, looking at his watch, he was seized with panic, rushed up the street at a run, and arrived in front of the Cardinal’s door, perspiring, panting, bleeding, red in the face, and a quarter of an hour late.