I
“Ever been to the National Gallery?” asked George Tarlyon.
It was an offensive question to ask a grown man, but I answered it.
“Ah,” said Tarlyon.
“I can’t help thinking,” said Tarlyon, “that you did Madam Tussaud’s the same afternoon....”
“If you want to know, it was the Tower, St. Paul’s, and the National Gallery that I did on the same afternoon. My mother took me.”
“Of course, I can’t compete with your mother,” said Tarlyon; “but I will take you—now. Waiter—the bill, please.”
It was a day in July, and we were sitting over luncheon at the Café Royal. It was very warm for the time of the year. I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but I am something in the City. There was, if you remember, a slump in the City in the summer of 1922. I was in that slump. And so, with one thing and another, I sighed....
“Come on,” said Tarlyon firmly. “One must not neglect art. And two certainly mustn’t.” Poor, silly man!
We walked from the Café Royal to Trafalgar Square, which is an untidy walk on a glaring afternoon in July. And then we walked about the Gallery; we looked at paintings with that rapt look which can see All Round and Into a thing; and we stood before “Musidora Bathing Her Feet.”
“What a masterpiece,” Tarlyon sighed, “if only she hadn’t got three legs!” I could not at first see Musidora’s third leg, but after he had pointed it out to me I could see nothing else but that ghostly third leg dangling over her knee between the other two.
“You see,” he explained, “Gainsborough painted one leg badly, and so he painted it out and fitted another—but Musidora’s third leg came back. Say what you like, there is something displeasing about a woman with an exaggerated number of legs, though some people rather like that kind of thing, saying that a woman can’t have too many....”
It was as we turned away, talking loftily about legs, that we were confronted by a tall and dark young man.
“Sir,” he addressed Tarlyon, “I would be obliged if you would tell me in which gallery hang the pictures by Manet?”
One wondered why he didn’t ask one of the many uniformed men who are strewn about the Gallery for the purpose of being asked that kind of thing.
“You are quite sure,” Tarlyon put frankly to him, “that you do not mean Monet?”
“Manet,” said the dark stranger, and looked as though he meant it.
“Well, then, you’re in luck,” said Tarlyon; “for we, too, were just about to view the Manets. We are partial to Manet. This way.”
We followed him like lambs. Tarlyon’s knowledge as to where the Manets were took the form of trying every gallery in which the Manets were not. We repassed Gainsborough’s three-legged lady, Tarlyon commenting. The dark stranger walked silently but firmly. He was a tall young man of slight but powerful build; his nose, which was of the patrician sort, would have been shapely had it not once been broken in such a way that for ever after it must noticeably incline to one side; and, though his appearance was that of a gentleman, he carried himself with an air of determination and assurance which would, I thought, make any conversation with him rather a business. There was any amount of back-chat in his dark eyes. His hat, which was soft and had the elegance of the well-worn, he wore cavalierly. Shoes by Lobb.
At last a picture rose before our eyes, a large picture, very blue. Now who shall describe that picture which was so blue, blue even to the grass under the soldiers’ feet, the complexion of the soldiers’ faces and the rifles in the soldiers’ hands? Over against a blue tree stood a man, and miserably blue was his face, while the soldiers stood very stiffly with their backs to us, holding their rifles in a position which gave one no room to doubt but that they were about to shoot the solitary man for some misdemeanour. He was the loneliest looking man I have ever seen.
“Manet,” said Tarlyon.
The dark young stranger was absorbed; he pulled his hat a little lower over his left eye, so that the light should not obtrude on his vision....
“Come on,” I whispered to Tarlyon, for we seemed to be intruding—so that I was quite startled when the stranger suddenly turned from the picture to me.
“You see, sir,” he said gravely, “I know all about killing. I have killed many men....”
“Army Service Corps?” inquired Tarlyon.
“No, sir,” snapped the stranger. “I know nothing of your Corps. I am a Zeytounli.”
“Please have patience with me,” I begged the stranger. “What is a Zeytounli?”
He regarded me with those smouldering dark eyes; and I realised vividly that his nose had been broken in some argument which had cost the other man more than a broken nose.
“Zeytoun,” he said, “is a fortress in Armenia. For five hundred years Zeytoun has not laid down her arms, but now she is burnt stones on the ground. The Zeytounlis, sir, are the hill-men of Armenia. I am an Armenian.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Tarlyon murmured.
“Why?” snarled the Armenian.
“Well, you’ve been treated pretty badly, haven’t you?” said Tarlyon. “All these massacres and things....”
The stranger glared at him, and then he laughed at him. I shall remember that laugh. So will Tarlyon. Then the stranger raised a finger and, very gently, he tapped Tarlyon’s shoulder.
“Listen,” said he. “Your manner of speaking bores me. Turks have slain many Armenians. Wherefore Armenians have slain many Turks. You may take it from me that, by sticking to it year in and year out for five hundred years, Armenians have in a tactful way slain more Turks than Turks have slain Armenians. That is why I am proud of being Armenian. And you would oblige me, gentlemen, by informing your countrymen that we have no use for their discarded trousers, which are anyway not so good in quality as they were, but would be grateful for some guns. And you would still further oblige me by trying, in future, not to talk nonsense about Armenians. Adieu, gentlemen. You will probably hear of me again. I am in England on public business.”
He left us.
“I didn’t know,” I murmured, “that Armenians were like that. I have been misled about Armenians. And he speaks English very well....”
“Hum,” said Tarlyon thoughtfully. “But no one would say he was Armenian if he wasn’t, would he?”
“Also,” said I, “he is the most aggressive young man I have ever met. Manet indeed!”
“So would you be aggressive, if you had been massacred and made an atrocity of ever since you were a slip of a boy, and had spent your holidays being chased round Lake Van by roaring Turks and hairy Kurds with scimitars dripping with the blood of Circassian children.”
“Oh, not Circassian!” I pleaded, for I have always been very sentimental about Circassian women; but Tarlyon insisted that they generally died young and that they were a fat race....