The front door had been left open, the heavy black crêpe dangling around it. I reached the threshold! I stopped.
There in the hall-way stood a little table covered with a black silk tablecloth. On it was an ink-well, a pen, and a heavy funeral register. Through the open door a draught was coming strong, blowing the black-bordered pages over one by one.
I turned them back, and found the frontispiece.
It was covered with hastily scribbled signatures. There my friends and messmates, along with many strangers, had written their names, as the custom is. Yes, and heading them all, was my name, the name I had formerly had, that is. It was not written, however, but penned in print:
MONSIEUR CHARLES-ANDRÉ NARCY
CAPTAIN OF CAVALRY, D.S.C.
Died the twenty-first of December, 1908, in the
thirty-third year of his age.
I picked up the register and hid it under my clothing—the threadbare rags that had once been my riding suit.
And I went away!
I went away. Why not? This house belonged to Captain Charles-André Narcy—the man who was dead.... My house was somewhere else ... obviously ... somewhere else.