In the next compartment, Lafcadio’s youthful grace, on the contrary, attracted him.
“Dear me! What a charming boy!” thought he; “hardly more than a child! On his holidays, no doubt. How beautifully dressed he is! His eyes look so candid! Oh, what a relief it will be to be quit of my suspicions for once! If only he knew French, I should like to talk to him.”
He sat down opposite to him in the corner next the door. Lafcadio turned up the brim of his hat and began to consider him with a lifeless and apparently indifferent eye.
“What is there in common between me and that squalid little rat?” reflected he. “He seems to fancy himself too. What is he smiling at me like that for? Does he imagine I’m going to embrace him? Is it possible that there exist women who fondle old men? No doubt he’d be exceedingly astonished to know that I can read writing or print with perfect fluency, upside down, or in transparency, or in a looking-glass, or on blotting-paper—a matter of three months’ training and two years’ practice—all for the love of art. Cadio, my dear boy, the problem is this: to impinge on that fellow’s fate ... but how?... Oh! I’ll offer him a cachou. Whether he accepts or not, I shall at any rate hear in what language.”
“Grazio! Grazio!” said Fleurissoire as he refused.
“Nothing doing with the old dromedary. Let’s go to sleep,” went on Lafcadio to himself, and pulling the brim of his hat down over his eyes, he tried to spin a dream out of one of his youthful memories.
He saw himself back at the time when he used to be called Cadio, in that remote castle in the Carpathians where his mother and he spent two summers in company with Baldi, the Italian, and Prince Wladimir Bielkowski. His room is at the end of a passage. This is the first year he has not slept near his mother.... The bronze door-handle is shaped like a lion’s head and is held in place by a big nail.... Ah! how clearly he remembers his sensations!... One night he is aroused from a deep sleep to see Uncle Wladimir—or is it a dream?—standing by his bedside, looking more gigantic even than usual—a very nightmare, draped in the fold of a huge rust-coloured caftan, with his drooping moustache, and an outrageous night-cap stuck on his head like a Persian bonnet, so that there seems no end to the length of him. He is holding in his hand a dark lantern, which he sets down on the table near the bed, beside Cadio’s watch, pushing aside a bag of marbles to make room for it. Cadio’s first thought is that his mother is dead or ill. He is on the point of asking, when Bielkowski puts his finger on his lips and signs to him to get up. The boy hastily slips on his bathing-wrap, which his uncle takes from the back of a chair and hands to him—all this with knitted brows and the look of a person who is not to be trifled with. But Cadio has such immense faith in Wladi that he hasn’t a moment’s fear. He pops on his slippers and follows him, full of curiosity at these goings-on and, as usual, all athrill for amusement.
They step into the passage; Wladimir advances gravely—mysteriously, carrying the lantern well in front of him; they look as if they are accomplishing a rite or walking in a procession; Cadio is a little unsteady on his feet, for he is still dazed with dreaming; but curiosity soon clears his brains. As they pass his mother’s room, they both stop for a moment and listen—not a sound! The whole house is fast asleep. When they reach the landing they hear the snoring of a footman whose room is in the attics. They go downstairs. Wladi’s stockinged feet drop on the steps as softly as cotton-wool; at the slightest creak he turns round, looking so furious that Cadio can hardly keep from laughing. He points out one particular step and signs to him not to tread on it, with as much seriousness as if they were really in danger. Cadio takes care not to spoil his pleasure by asking himself whether these precautions are necessary, nor what can be the meaning of it all; he enters into the spirit of the game and slides down the banister, past the step.... He is so tremendously entertained by Wladi that he would go through fire and water to follow him.
When they reach the ground floor, they both sit down on the bottom step for a moment’s breathing-space; Wladi nods his head and gives vent to a little sigh through his nose, as much as to say: ‘My word! we’ve had a narrow squeak!’ They start off again. At the drawing-room door, what redoubled precautions! The lantern, which it is now Cadio’s turn to hold, lights up the room so queerly that the boy hardly recognises it; it seems to him fantastically big; a ray of light steals through a chink in the shutters; everything is plunged in a supernatural calm; he is reminded of a pond the moment before the stealthy casting of a net; and he recognises all the familiar objects, each one there in its place—but for the first time he realises their strangeness.
Wladi goes up to the piano, half opens it and lightly touches two or three notes with his finger-tips, so as to draw from them the lightest of sounds. Suddenly the lid slips from his hand and falls with a terrific din. (The mere recollection of it made Lafcadio jump again.) Wladi makes a dash at the lantern, muffles it and then crumples up into an arm-chair; Cadio slips under the table; they stay endless minutes, waiting motionless, listening in the dark ... but no—nothing stirs in the house; in the distance a dog bays the moon. Then gently, slowly, Wladi uncovers the lantern.