Then suddenly he became thoughtful, while his features took on an expression of great seriousness.
"You are right," he said. "I can see him with wings, wings that are too long perhaps. A great thing when it comes to flying, but when one is obliged to live among men, and has to walk along on the ground!... I am afraid he will drag his wings; I am afraid they will be stepped on some day, and that people will find them a great nuisance...."
And they dropped the subject.
The Prince wanted to break the confinement which he had voluntarily imposed upon himself. Why should he stay there at Villa Sirena, near certain people who constantly occupied his thoughts yet whom he did not wish to see? The best thing would be for him to return to Paris as soon as possible. The long range cannon was continuing to fire on the Capital; almost every week squads of German aeroplanes made night excursions about it, dropping explosives. Such a trip offered the inducement of danger and excitement to the lonely man, tormented in his perfect health by an inactive and monotonous life, which offered nothing more stimulating than the irritations to be derived from his recent experiences.
Every morning, when he got up, he formulated the same plan: "I am going to Paris." But the trip kept being put off from week to week. It was a case of abulia, the loss of will power of an invalid, who makes projects of active life, and no sooner attempts to carry them out, than he loses his strength again, and postpones them indefinitely.
The most insignificant details loomed gigantically before his diseased will. He had to go to Nice to make reservations at the Sleeping-car Office. He thought of sending Don Marcos; then refrained, considering it preferable to go himself. And days went by without his taking the short ride preliminary to his Paris trip. Both of them seemed equally long. He, who had thrice circumnavigated the globe, wearily shrunk at the thought of the slowness of travel due to the war. Just imagine sixteen hours on a train!
One afternoon, bored by his splendid gardens,—now so monotonous!—by the silence of his house,—now so deserted!—and by the increasing absent-mindedness of the Colonel, who was always having something to do either in Monte Carlo, or in the gardener's pavilion, Lubimoff started out on foot toward the City. And he met some one.
He had turned quite mechanically and without thinking in the direction of the upper boulevards, near the street in which Villa Rosa was situated. When he realized this, he decided to turn back. Just then he saw Lieutenant Martinez coming along on the opposite sidewalk, in the direction that he himself had been going a few moments before.
The soldier seemed to him taller, stronger, and as it were, surrounded by a halo of glory. His uniform was the same, frayed and old looking after some years of service; but to the Prince it seemed entirely new, even dazzling in its freshness. Everything about the Lieutenant looked magnificent and he seemed to illumine the objects about him by mere contact. His features perhaps were paler and more angular; but Michael imagined that he radiated a certain inner splendor, composed of pride and satisfaction. A sort of ethereal mask, enveloping him in astral light, made him appear handsome and gave him a new physiognomy, Apollo-like and triumphant.
They passed without speaking. The Lieutenant pretended not to see him, as Lubimoff's eyes followed him with a questioning glance. What was there that was new in this man? The Prince doubted that lack of sound health, that perilous condition which worried the doctors so much. It was all a lie made up to impress the ladies! He noticed the proud firmness of the soldier's step, the jaunty, boyish air with which he swung the rattan he used as a cane.