CHAPTER XV
Of what happened immediately afterwards I have but a confused memory.
I remember that Lola and I both fell on our knees beside the stabbed
man, and I remember his horrible staring eyes and open mouth. I
remember that, though she was white and shaky, she neither shrieked,
went into hysterics, nor fainted. I remember rushing down to the
manager; I remember running with him breathlessly through obscure
passages of the hotel in search of a doctor who was attending a sick
member of the staff. I remember the rush back, the doctor bending over
the body, which Lola had partially unclothed, and saying:
"He is dead. The blade has gone straight through his heart."
And I have in my mind the unforgettable and awful picture of
Anastasius Papadopoulos disregarded in a corner of the room, with his
absurd silk hat on--some reflex impulse had caused him to pick it up
and put it on his head--sitting on the floor amid a welter of
documents relating to the death of the horse Sultan, one of which he
was eagerly perusing.
After this my memory is clear. It was only the first awful shock and
horror of the thing that dazed me.
The man was dead, said the doctor. He must lie until the police
arrived and drew up the /proces-verbal/. The manager went to telephone
to the police, and while he was gone I told the doctor what had
occurred. Anastasius took no notice of us. Lola, holding her nerves
under iron control, stood bolt upright looking alternately at the
doctor and myself as we spoke. But she did not utter a word. Presently
the manager returned. The alarm had not been given in the hotel. No
one knew anything about the occurrence. Lola went into her bedroom and
came back with a sheet. The manager took it from her and threw it over
the dead man. The doctor stood by Anastasius. The end of a strip of
sunlight by the window just caught the dwarf in his corner.
"Get up," said the doctor.
Anastasius, without raising his eyes from his papers, waved him away.
"I am busy. I am engaged on important papers of identification. He had
a white star on his forehead, and his tail was over a metre long."
Lola approached him.
"Anastasius," she said gently. He looked up with a radiant smile. "Put
away those papers." Like a child he obeyed and scrambled to his feet.
Then, seeing the unfamiliar face of the doctor for the first time, he
executed one of his politest and most elaborate bows. The doctor after
looking at him intently for a while, turned to me.
"Mad. Utterly mad. Apparently he has no consciousness of what he has
done."
He lured him to the sofa and sat beside him and began to talk in a low
tone of the contents of the papers. Anastasius replied cheerfully,
proud at being noticed by the stranger. The papers referred to a
precious secret, a gigantic combination, which he had spent years in
maturing. I shivered at the sound of his voice, and turned to Lola.
"This is no place for you. Go into your bedroom till you are wanted."
I held the door open for her. She put her hands up to her face and
reeled, and I thought she would have fallen; but she roused herself.
"I don't want to break down--not yet. I shall if I'm left alone--come
and sit with me, for God's sake."
"Very well," said I.
She passed me and I followed; but at the door I turned and glanced
round the cheerful, sunny room. There, against the background of blue
sky and tree tops framed by the window, sat Anastasius Papadopoulos,
swinging his little legs and talking bombastically to the tanned and
grizzled doctor, and opposite stood the correctly attired hotel
manager in the attitude in which he habitually surveyed the lay-out of
the table d'hote, keeping watch beside the white-covered shape on the
floor. I was glad to shut the sight from my eyes. We waited silently
in the bedroom, Lola sitting on the bed and hiding her face in the
pillows, and I standing by the window and looking out at the smiling
mockery of the fair earth. An agonising spasm of pain--a /momento
mori/--shot through me and passed away. I thanked God that a few weeks
would see the end of me. I had always enjoyed the comedy of life. It
had been to me a thing of infinite jest. But this stupid, meaningless
tragedy was carrying the joke too far. My fastidiousness revolted at
its vulgarity. I no longer wished to inhabit a world where such jests
were possible. . . . I had never seen a man die before. I was
surprised at the swiftness and the ugliness of it. . . . I suddenly
realised that I was smoking a cigarette, which I was quite unconscious
of having lit. I threw it away. A minute afterwards I felt that if I
did not smoke I should go crazy. So I lit another. . . . The ghastly
silliness of the murder! . . . Colonel Bunnion's loud laugh rose from
the terrace below, jarring horribly on my ears. A long green praying
mantis that had apparently mounted on the bougainvillea against the
hotel wall appeared in meditative stateliness on the window-sill. I
picked the insect up absent-mindedly, and began to play with it.
Lola's voice from the bed startled me and caused me to drop the
mantis. She spoke hoarsely.
"Tell me--what are they going to do with him?"
I turned round. She had raised a crushed face from the pillows, and
looked at me haggardly. I noticed a carafe of brandy and a siphon by
the bedside. I mixed her a strong dose, and, before replying, made her
drink it.
"They'll place him under restraint, that's all. He's not responsible
for his actions."
"He did that once before--I told you--but without the knife--I wish I
could cry--I can't--You don't think it heartless of me--but my brain
is on fire--I shall always see it--I wish to God I had never asked him
to come--Why did I? My God, why did I?--It was my fault--I wanted to
see him--to judge for myself how much of the old Andre was left--there
was good in him once--I thought I might possibly help him--There was
nothing for me to do in the world--Without you any kind of old hell
was good enough--That's why I sent for him--When he came, after a bit,
I was afraid, and sent for you----"
"Afraid of what?" I asked.
"He asked me at once what money I had--Then there seemed to be no
doubt in his mind that I would join him--We spoke of you--the friend
who could advise me--He never said--what he said afterwards--I thought
it kind of him to consent to see you--I rang the bell and sent the
chasseur for you. I supposed Anastasius had gone home--I never thought
of him. The poor little man was sweet to me, just like a dog--a
silent, sympathetic dog--I spoke to him as I would to something that
wouldn't understand--all sorts of foolish things--Now and then a woman
has to empty her heart"--she shivered--her hands before her face.
"It's my fault, it's my fault."
"These things are no one's fault," I said gently. But just as I was
beginning to console her with what thumb-marked scraps of platitude I
could collect--the only philosophy after all, such is the futility of
systems, adequate to the deep issues of life--the door opened and the
manager announced that the police had arrived.
We went through the ordeal of the /proces-verbal/. Anastasius,
confronted with his victim, had no memory of what had occurred. He
shrieked and shrank and hid his face in Lola's dress. When he was
forced to speak he declared that the dead man was not Captain
Vauvenarde. Captain Vauvenarde was at the Cercle Africain. He,
himself, was seeking him. He would take the gendarmes there, and they
could arrest the Captain for the murder of Sultan of which his papers
contained indubitable proofs. Eventually the poor little wretch was
led away in custody, proud and smiling, entirely convinced that he was
leading his captors to the arrest of Captain Vauvenarde. On the
threshold he turned and bowed to us so low that the brim of his silk
hat touched the floor. Then Lola's nerve gave way and she broke into a
passion of awful weeping.
The /commissaire de police/ secured the long thin knife (how the dwarf
had managed to conceal it on his small person was a mystery) and the
bundle of documents, and accompanied me to my room to see whether he
had left anything there to serve as a /piece de conviction/. We found
only the crumpled picture of the horse Sultan neatly pinned against my
bedroom wall, and on the floor a ribbon tied like a garter with a
little bell opposite the bow. On it was written "Santa Bianca," and I
knew it was the collar of the beloved cat which he must have been
carrying about him for a talisman. The /commissaire/ took this also.
If you desire to know the details of the judicial proceedings
connected with the murder of Andre Marie-Joseph Vauvenarde, ex-Captain
in the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and the trial of Anastasius Papadopoulos,
I must refer you to the Algerian, Parisian, and London Press. There
you will find an eagerly picturesque account of the whole miserable
affair. Now, not only am I unable to compete with descriptive verbatim
reporters on their own ground, but also a consecutive statement,
either bald or graphic, of the tedious horrors Lola Brandt and I had
to undergo, would be foreign to the purpose of these notes, however
far from their original purpose an ironical destiny has caused them to
wander. You know nearly all that is necessary for you to know, so that
when I am dead you may not judge me too harshly. The remainder I can
summarise in a few words. At any rate, I have told the truth, often
more naively than one would have thought possible for a man who prided
himself as much as I did on his epicurean sophistication.
These have been days, as I say, of tedious horror. There have been
endless examinations, reconstructions of the crime, exposures in
daring publicity of the private lives of the protagonists of the
lunatic drama. The French judges and advocates have accepted the
account given by Lola and myself of our mutual relations with a
certain mocking credulity. The Press hasn't accepted it at all. It
took as a matter of course the view held by the none too noble victim.
At first, seeing Lola shrug her shoulders with supreme indifference as
to her own reputation, I cared but little for these insinuations. I
wrote such letters to my sisters and to Dale as I felt sure would be
believed, and let the long-eared, gaping world go hang. Besides, I had
other things to think of. Physical pain is insistent, and I have
suffered damnable torture. The pettiness of the legal inquiry has been
also a maddening irritation. Nothing has been too minute for the
attention of the French judiciary. It seemed as though the whole of
the evil gang of the Cercle Africain were called as witnesses. They
testified as to Captain Vauvenarde's part proprietorship of the hell--
as to wrong practices that occurred there--as to the crazy conduct of
both Anastasius and myself on the occasion of my insane visit.
Officers of the Chasseurs d'Afrique were compelled further to blacken
the character of the dead man--he had been a notorious plucker of
pigeons during most of his military career, and when at last he was
caught red-handed palming the king at /ecarte/, he was forced to
resign his commission. Arabs came from the slums with appalling
stories. Even the stolid Saupiquet, dragged from Toulon, gave evidence
as to the five-franc bribe and the debt of fifteen sous, and
identified the horse Sultan by the crumpled photograph. Lola and I
have been racked day after day with questions--some, indeed, prompted
by the suspicion that Vauvenarde might have met his death directly by
our hand instead of that of Anastasius. It was the Procureur-general
who said: "It can be argued that you would benefit by the decease of
the defunct." I replied that we could not benefit in any way. My sole
object was to effect a reconciliation between husband and wife. "Will
you explain why you gave yourself that trouble?" I never have smiled
so grimly as I did then. How could I explain my precious pursuit of
the eumoirous to a French Procureur-general? How could I put before
him the point of view of a semi-disembodied spirit? I replied with
lame lack of originality that my actions proceeded from disinterested
friendship. "You are a pure altruist then?" said he. "Very pure," said
I. . . . It was only the facts of the scabbard of the knife having
been found attached to the dwarf's person beneath his clothes, and of
certain rambling menaces occurring in his Sultan papers that saved us
from the indignity of being arrested and put into the dock. . . .
During all this time I remained at the hotel at Mustapha Superieur.
Lola moved to a suite of rooms in another hotel a little way down the
hill. I saw her daily. At first she shrank from publicity and refused
to go out, save in a closed carriage to the town when her presence was
necessary at the inquiries. But after a time I persuaded her to brave
the stare of the curious and stroll with me among the eucalyptus woods
above. We cut ourselves off from other human companionship and felt
like two lost souls wandering alone through mist. She conducted
herself with grave and simple dignity. . . . Once or twice she visited
Anastasius in prison. She found him humanely treated and not
despondent. He thought they had arrested him for the poisoning of the
horse, and laughed at their foolishness. As they refused to return him
his dossier, he occupied himself in reconstructing it, and wrote pages
and pages of incoherence to prove the guilt of Captain Vauvenarde. He
was hopelessly mad. . . . The bond of pain bound me very close to
Lola.
"What are you going to do with your life?" I asked her one day.
"So long as I have you as a friend, it doesn't greatly matter."
"You forget," I said, "that you can't have me much longer."
"Are you going to leave me? It's not because I have dragged you
through all this dirt and horror. Another woman might say that of
another man--but not I of you. Why are you going to leave me? I want
so little--only to see you now and then--to keep the heart in me."
"Can't you realise, that what I said in London is true?"
"No. I can't. It's unbelievable. You can't believe it yourself. If you
did, how could you go on behaving like anybody else--like me for
instance?"
"What would you do if you were condemned to die?"
She shuddered. "I should go mad with fear--I----" She broke off and
remained for some moments reflective, with knitted brow. Then she
lifted her head proudly. "No, I shouldn't. I should face it like you.
Only cowards are afraid. It's best to show things that you don't care
a hang for them."
"Keep that sublime /je m'en fich'isme/ up when I'm dead and buried,"
said I, "and you'll pull through your life all right. The only thing
you must avoid is the pursuit of eumoiriety."
"What on earth is that?" she asked.
"The last devastating vanity," said I.
And so it is.
"When you are gone," she said bravely, "I shall remember how strong
and true you were. It will make me strong too."
I acquiesced silently in her proposition. In this age of flippancy and
scepticism, if a human soul proclaims sincerely its faith in the
divinity of a rabbit, in God's name don't disturb it. It is
/something/ whereto to refer his aspirations, his resolves; it is a
court of arbitration, at the lowest, for his spiritual disputes; and
the rabbit will be as effective an oracle as any other. For are not
all religions but the strivings of the spirit towards crystallisation
at some point outside the environment of passions and appetites which
is the flesh, so that it can work untrammelled: and are not all gods
but the accidental forms, conditioned by circumstance, which this
crystallisation takes? All gods in their anthropo-, helio-, thero-, or
what-not-morphic forms are false; but, on the other hand, all gods in
their spiritual essence are true. So I do not deprecate my prospective
unique position in Lola Brandt's hagiology. It was better for her soul
that I should occupy it. Even if I were about to live my normal life
out, like any other hearty human, marry and beget children, I doubt
whether I should attempt to shake my wife's faith in my heroical
qualities.
This was but a fragment of one among countless talks. Some were
lighter in tone, others darker, the mood of man being much like a
child's balloon which rises or falls as the strata of air are more
rarefied or more dense. Perhaps during the time of strain, the
atmosphere was more often rarefied, and our conversation had the day's
depressing incidents for its topics. We rarely spoke of the dead man.
He was scarcely a subject for panegyric, and it was useless to dwell
on the memory of his degradation. I think we only once talked of him
deeply and at any length, and that was on the day of the funeral. His
brother, a manufacturer at Clermont-Ferrand, and a widowed aunt,
apparently his only two surviving relatives, arrived in Algiers just
in time to attend the ceremony. They had seen the report of the murder
in the newspapers and had started forthwith. The brother, during an
interview with Lola, said bitter things to her, reproaching her with
the man's downfall, and cast on her the responsibility of his death.
"He spoke," she said, "as if I had suggested the murder and
practically put the knife into the poor crazy little fellow's hand."
The Vauvenardes must have been an amiable family.
"Before I came," she said a little while later, "I still had some
tenderness for him--a woman has for the only man that has been--really
--in her life. I wish I could feel it now. I wish I could feel some
respect even. But I can't. If I could, it would lessen the horror that
has got hold of me to my bones."
It was a torture to her generous soul that she could not grieve for
him. She could only shudder at the tragedy. In her heart she grieved
more for Anastasius Papadopoulos, and in so doing she was, in her
feminine way, self-accusative of callous lack of human feeling. It was
my attempt to bring her to a more rational state of mind that caused
us to review the dead man's career, and recapitulate the unpleasing
incidents of the last interview.
Of Captain Vauvenarde, no more. He has gone whither I am going. That
his soul may rest in peace is my earnest prayer. But I do not wish to
meet him.
Lola went tearless and strong through the horrible ordeal of the
judicial proceedings. She said I gave her courage. Perhaps,
unconsciously, I did. It was only when the end came that she broke
down, although she knew exactly what the end would be. And I, too,
felt a lump in my throat when they sentenced Anastasius Papadopoulos
to the asylum, and I saw him for the last time, the living parody of
Napoleon III, frock-coated and yellow-gloved, the precious, newly
written dossier in his hand, as he disappeared with a mournful smile
from the court, after bowing low to the judge and to us, without
having understood the significance of anything that had happened.
In the carriage that took us home she wept and sobbed bitterly.
"I loved him so. He was the only creature on earth that loved me. He
loved me as only a dog can love--or an angel."
I let her cry. What could I say or do?
These have been weeks of tedious horror and pain. With the exception
of Colonel Bunnion, I have kept myself aloof from my fellow creatures
in the hotel, even taking my meals in my own rooms, not wishing to be
stared at as the hero of the scandal that convulsed the place. And
with regard to Colonel Bunnion shall I be accused of cynicism if I say
that I admitted him--not to my confidence--but to my company, because
I know that it delighted the honest but boring fellow to prove to
himself that he could rise above British prejudice and exhibit tact in
dealing with a man in a delicate position? For, mark you, all the
world--even those nearest and dearest to me as I soon discovered--
believed that the wife of the man who was murdered before my eyes was
my mistress. Colonel Bunnion was kind, and he meant to be kind. He was
a gentleman for all his wearisomeness, and his kindness was such as I
could accept. But I know what I say about him is true. Ye gods!
Haven't I felt myself the same swelling pride in my broadmindedness?
When a man is going on my journey he does not palter with truth.
Though I held myself aloof, as I say, from practically all my fellow
creatures here, I have not been cut off from the outside world. My
sisters, like this French court in Algiers, have accepted my statement
with polite incredulity. Their letters have been full of love, half-
veiled reproach, anxiety as to their social position, and an insane
desire to come and take care of me. This I have forbidden them to do.
The pain they would have inflicted on themselves, dear souls, would
have far outweighed the comfort I might have gained from their
ministrations. Then I have had piteous letters from Dale.
". . . Your telegram reassured me, though I was puzzled. Now I get a
letter from Lola, telling me it's all off--that she never loved me--
that she valued my youth and my friendship, but that it is best for us
not to meet again. What is the meaning of it, Simon? For Heaven's sake
tell me. I can't think of anything else. I can't sleep. I am going off
my head. . . ."
Again. ". . . This awful newspaper report and your letter of
explanation--I have them side by side. Forgive me, Simon. I don't know
what to believe, where to turn. . . . I have looked up to you as the
best and straightest man I know. You must be. Yet why have you done
this? Why didn't you tell me she was married? Why didn't she tell me?
I can't write properly, my head is all on a buzz. The beastly papers
say you were living with her in Algiers--but you weren't, were you? It
would be too horrible. In fact, you say you weren't. But, all the
same, you have stolen her from me. It wasn't like you. . . . And this
awful murder. My God! you don't know what it all means to me. It's
breaking my heart. . . ."
And Lady Kynnersley wrote--with what object I scarcely know. The
situation was far beyond the poor lady's by-laws and regulations for
the upbringing of families and the conduct of life. The elemental
mother in her battled on the side of her only son--foolishly,
irrationally, unkindly. Her exordium was as correct as could be. The
tragedy shocked her, the scandal grieved her, the innuendoes of the
Press she refused to believe; she sympathised with me deeply. But then
she turned from me to Dale, and feminine unreason took possession of
her pen. She bitterly reproached herself for having spoken to me of
Madame Brandt. Had she known how passionate and real was this
attachment, she would never have interfered. The boy was broken-
hearted. He accused me of having stolen her from him--his own words.
He took little interest in his electioneering campaign, spoke badly,
unconvincingly; spent hours in alternate fits of listlessness and
anger. She feared for her darling's health and reason. She made an
appeal to me who professed to love him--if it were honourably
possible, would I bring Madame Brandt back to him? She was willing now
to accept Dale's estimate of her worth. Could I, at the least, prevail
on Madame Brandt to give him some hope--of what she did not know--but
some hope that would save him from ruining his career and "doing
something desperate"?
And another letter from Dale:
". . . I can't work at this election. For God's sake, give her back to
me. Then I won't care. What is Parliament to me without her? And the
election is as good as lost already. The other side has made as much
as possible of the scandal. . . ."
The only letters that have not been misery to read have come from
Eleanor Faversham. There was one passage which made me thank God that
He had created such women as Eleanor--
"Don't fret over the newspaper lies, dear. Those who love you--and why
shouldn't I love you still?--know the honourable gentleman that you
are. Write to me if it would ease your heart and tell me just what you
feel you can. Now and always you have my utter sympathy and
understanding."
And this is the woman of whose thousand virtues I dared to speak in
flippant jest.
Heaven forgive me.
After receiving Lady Kynnersley's appeal, I went to Lola. It was just
before the case came on at the Cour d'Assises. She had finished
luncheon in her private room and was sitting over her coffee. I joined
her. She wore the black blouse and skirt with which I have not yet
been able to grow familiar, as it robbed her of the peculiar
fascinating quality which I have tried to suggest by the word
pantherine. Coffee over, we moved to the window which opened on a
little back garden--the room was on the ground floor--in which grew
prickly pear and mimosa, and newly flowering heliotrope. I don't know
why I should mention this, except that some scenes impress themselves,
for no particular reason, on the memory, while others associated with
more important incidents fade into vagueness. I picked a bunch of
heliotrope which she pinned at her bosom.
"Lola," I said, "I want to speak to you seriously."
She smiled wanly: "Do we ever speak otherwise these dreadful days?"
"It's about Dale. Read this," said I, and I handed her Lady
Kynnersley's letter. She read it through and returned it to me.
"Well?"
"I asked you a week or two ago what you were going to do with your
life," I said. "Does that letter offer you any suggestion?"
"I'm to give him some hope--what hope can I give him?"
"You're a free woman--free to marry. For the boy's sake the mother
will consent. When she knows you as well as we know you she will--"
"She will--what? Love me?"
"She's a woman not given to loving--except, in unexpected bursts, her
offspring. But she will respect you."
She stood for a few moments silent, her arm resting against the window
jamb and her head on her arm. She remained there so long that at last
I rose and, looking at her face, saw that her eyes were full of tears.
She dashed them away with the back of her hand, gave me a swift look,
and went and sat in the shadow of the room. An action of this kind on
the part of a woman signifies a desire for solitude. I lit a cigarette
and went into the garden.
It was a sorry business. I saw as clearly as Lola that Lady Kynnersley
desired to purchase Dale's immediate happiness at any price, and that
the future might bring bitter repentance. But I offered no advice. I
have finished playing at Deputy Providence. A madman letting off
fireworks in a gunpowder factory plays a less dangerous game.
Presently she joined me and ran her arm through mine.
"I'll write to Dale this afternoon," she said. "Don't let us talk of
it any more now. You are tired out. It's time for you to go and lie
down. I'll walk with you up the hill."
It has come to this, that I must lie down for some hours during the
day lest I should fall to pieces.
"I suppose I'll have to," I laughed. "What a thing it is to have the
wits of a man and the strength of a baby."
She pressed my arm and said in her low caressing voice which I had not
heard for many weeks: "I shouldn't be so proud of those man's wits, if
I were you."
I knew she said it playfully with reference to masculine non-
perception of the feminine; but I chose to take it broadly.
"My dear Lola," said I, "it has been borne in upon me that I am the
most witless fool that the unwisdom of generations of English country
squires has ever succeeded in producing."
"Don't talk rot," she said, with foolishness in her eyes.
She accompanied me bareheaded in the sunshine to the gate of my hotel.
"Come and dine with me, if you're well enough," she said as we parted.
I assented, and when the evening came I went. Did I not say that we
were like two lost souls wandering alone in the mist?
It was only when I rose to bid her good-night that she referred to
Dale.
"I wrote to him this afternoon," she announced curtly.
"You said you would do so."
"Would you like to know what I told him?"
She put her hands behind her back and stood facing me, somewhat
defiantly, in all her magnificence. I smiled. Women, much as they
scoff at the blindness of our sex, are often transparent.
"It's your firm determination to tell me," said I. "Well?"
She advanced a step nearer to me, and looked me straight in the eyes
defiantly.
"I told him that I loved you with all my heart and all my soul. I told
him that you didn't know it; that you didn't care a brass curse for
me; that you had acted as you thought best for the happiness of
himself and me. I told him that while you lived I could not think of
another man. I told him that if you could face Death with a smile on
your face, he might very well show the same courage and not chuck
things right and left just because a common woman wouldn't marry him
or live with him and spoil his career. There! That's what I told him.
What do you think?"
"Heaven knows what effect it will have," said I, wearily, for I was
very, very tired. "But why, my poor Lola, have you wasted your love on
a shadow like me?"
She answered after the foolish way of women.
I have not heard from either Dale or Lady Kynnersley. A day or two
ago, in reply to a telegram to Raggles, I learned that Dale had lost
the election.
This, then, is the end of my /apologia pro vita mea/, which I began
with so resonant a flourish of vainglory. I have said all that there
is to be said. Nothing more has happened or is likely to happen until
they put me under the earth. Oh, yes, I was forgetting. In spite of my
Monte Cristo munificence, poor Latimer has been hammered on the Stock
Exchange. Poor Lucy and the kids!
I shall have, I think, just enough strength left to reach Mentone--
this place is intolerable now--and there I shall put myself under the
care of a capable physician who, with his abominable drugs, will
doubtless begin the cheerful work of inducing the mental decay which I
suppose must precede physical dissolution.
I must confess that I am disappointed with the manner of my exit. I
had imagined it quite different. I had beheld myself turning with a
smile and a jest for one last view of the faces over which I, in my
eumoirous career, had cast the largesse of happiness, and the
vanishing with a gallant carelessness through the dusky portals.
Instead of that, here am I sneaking out of life by the back door,
covering my eyes for very shame. And glad? Oh, God, how glad I am to
slink out of it!
I have indeed accomplished the thing which I set out to do. I have
severed a boy from the object of his passion. What an achievement for
the crowning glory of a lifetime! And at what a cost: one fellow-
creature's life and another's reason. On me lies the responsibility.
Vauvenarde, it is true, did not adorn this grey world, but he drew the
breath of life, and, through my jesting agency, it was cut off.
Anastasius Papadopoulos, had he not come under my malign influence
would have lived out his industrious, happy and dream-filled days.
Lesser, but still great price, too, has been paid. Jealous hatred,
misery and failure for the being I care most for in the world, the
shame of a sordid scandal to those that hold me dear, the hopeless
love and speedy mourning of a woman not without greatness.
I have tried to make a Tom Fool of Destiny--and Destiny has proved
itself to be the superior jester of the two, and has made a grim and
bedraggled Tom Fool of me.
. . . I must end this. I have just fallen in a faint on the floor,
and Rogers has revived me with some drops Hunnington had given me in
view of such a contingency.
These are the last words I shall write. Life is too transcendentally
humorous for a man not to take it seriously. Compared with it, Death
is but a shallow jest.
