"Be it so. You did well, I admit, to remain, but now you will be doing equally well to go away, because in that lies your only means of assuaging your grief. As a matter of fact, the idea was your own— did you not entreat me to take you away, far away?"
"Yes, that is true; and, possibly, with you, and giving myself up entirely to your guidance, I might carry out the idea, but I have not the courage, at all events now, to tear myself away from the spots hallowed by her memory, and the tomb in which we have but just laid her."
"Who said anything about your going alone?" asked M. de Pommerelle,
"What makes you think that I intend to give you up?"
"Do you mean to say," said the Doctor, in astonishment, "that you would go to Africa—you?"
"Yes, I—I will go to Africa. When one has been as far as Monaco, as I have been, one is capable of anything. Besides, did we not make up our minds to go, only our plans were nipped in the bud?"
"We certainly did map out a journey one evening, in a fit of passing excitement, but on the following morning we came to our senses, and released each other from the engagement."
"Say rather, my dear fellow, that you released yourself."
"That is true. But, tell me frankly—if I had started would you have come with me?"
"No, I would not, because for certain reasons, less weighty than yours, but serious enough from my point of view, I was compelled to remain where I was. These reasons have disappeared, and with them have vanished all my man-about-town proclivities, as well as that dislike to travelling which I have so often assumed for the simple purpose of deceiving myself, and endeavouring to hide the heavy clogs and chains which held me fast, like a convict, in Paris. I will not do your sorrow the injustice of comparing it to the annoyance I have just undergone, but you have already experienced your severest shock; if you are destined still to suffer much, you will, at least, admit that you are not in any danger; neither your future nor your honour are menaced. My annoyance, on the contrary, is mingled with serious fears; I dread giving way to a ridiculous temptation, and committing an act of downright folly—in short, for I have no secrets from you, I am afraid of committing matrimony with a charming, but decidedly ineligible woman. Let us be off, then, as soon as ever we can; you, to distract your mind from its sorrow, and I, to run away from my own cowardice, and escape from what would almost amount to dishonour. Let us be off, I say again, in both our interests. I will take you to the woman you love, and who is worthy of your love; you will take me from the one I hate, and love, and, above all, fear. It is not one bit too much to put France, the Mediterranean, and the greater portion of Africa between her and me, for by so doing I shall be putting away from myself all possibility of return or cowardice. I know that I shall, perhaps, lose my life where we are going, but that is very little in comparison with what I should certainly lose here. Africa, however cruel she may be, will have some consideration for me, and that is precisely what the fair lady in question has not. I prefer being physically eaten by the Niam-Niam to being morally devoured by that she-cannibal of the Boulevard Haussman. In a word, my dear fellow, just as a reformed rake, they say, makes a model husband, so a sedentary being like myself becomes, the very moment he turns wanderer, capable of any eccentricity, gives himself up to every extravagance, thinks no journey formidable enough, and would scale the moon, if she had not been for a considerable period placed out of reach of dilatory, and, for that, very reason, over bold travellers like your humble servant."
M. de Pommerelle stopped at last, and waited to see the effect of his long harangue.