He sat down in a corner, from which he could survey the room. A paper lay upon the table; he picked it up abstractedly. It was a copy of The Post Meridian. Somebody had rested butter upon the upper part of it. He glanced at it for an instant, just long enough to see a leading article below the grease mark. "Drama and Decency," ran the scarehead. It went on to say that the London public had once again shown its unerring sense of the fitness of things over Mr. Naldrett's play. He dropped the paper to one side, and wiped the hand which had touched it. He felt beaten to bay. He stared forward at the house so fiercely that a timid lady, of middle age and ill-health, possibly as beaten as himself, turned from the chair opposite before she sat down. There were no friends of his there, except a red-haired, fierce little poet, who sat close by, reading and eating cake. The yellow back of Les Fleurs du Mal was propped against his teapot. He bit so fiercely that his beard wagged at each bite. Something of the fierceness and passion of the Femmes Damnées, or of le vin de l'Assassin, was wreaked upon the cake. There came a muttering among the bites. The man was almost reading aloud. A memory of Baudelaire came to Roger, a few grand melancholy lines:—
"La servante au grand coeur dont vous étiez jalouse,
Et qui dort sans sommeil sous une humble pelouse,
Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs.
Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs,
Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres,
Son vent mélancolique à l'entour de leurs marbres,
Certe, ils doivent trouver les vivants bien ingrats."
He wondered if it would be like that. A waitress brought him tea and toast. He poured a little tea into his cup, thinking of a man now dead, who had drunk tea there with him a year ago. One was very callous about the dead. He wondered if the dead were callous about the living, or whether they had of grandes douleurs, as the poet thought. He felt that he would not mind being dead, but for Ottalie. He wondered whether Ottalie had read the papers. He buttered some toast and laid it to one side of his plate, a sort of burnt offering to the dead. A line on the bill of fare caught his eye. "Pan-Bos. Our new Health Bread. Per Portion, 2d." His tired mind turned it backwards, ".d2 ,noitroP reP daerB." "I am going mad," he said to himself. "Shall I go to Ireland to-night?"
Something warned him that if he went to Ireland, Ottalie would not be there. With Ottalie away, it would be intolerable. There would be her house, up on the hills, and all those sycamores, like ghosts in the twilight, ghosts of old men brooding on her beauty, like the old men in Troy when Helen passed. No. He could not bear Ireland with her away. He thought of the boat train with regret for the old jolly jaunts. The guard with a Scotch accent, the carriage in front which went on to Dundee, the sound of the beautiful Irish voice ("voce assai più che la nostra viva"), and then the hiring of rug and pillow, knowing that one would wake in Scotland, among hills, running water, a "stately speech," and pure air. It would not be wise to go to Ireland. If he went now, with Ottalie away, he might not be able to go later, when she would be there. It would be nothing without her. Nothing but lonely reading, writing, walking, and swimming. It would be better not to go. Here the poet gulped his cake, rose, and advanced on Roger.
"How d'you do?" he said, speaking rapidly, as though his words were playing tag. "I've just been talking to Collins about you. He's been telling me about your play. I hear you had a row, or something."
"Yes. There was a row."
"Collins has been going for you in The Daystar. He says you haven't read Aristotle, or something. Have you seen his article?"
"No. I haven't seen it."
"Oh, you ought to read it. Parts of it are very witty. It would cheer you up."
"What does he say?"