"Play? No.It must be very interesting; most exciting, but as a matter of fact, I can't afford it.If one has very little, one is too nervous."He had stopped in front of a small hairdresser's shop."I live here," he said, raising his hat again."Au revoir!--unless I can offer you a glass of tea.It's all ready.Come! I've brought you out of your way; give me the pleasure!"I have never met a man so free from all self-consciousness, and yet so delicate and diffident the combination is a rare one.We went up a steep staircase to a room on the second floor.My companion threw the shutters open, setting all the flies buzzing.The top of a plane-tree was on a level with the window, and all its little brown balls were dancing, quite close, in the wind.As he had promised, an urn was hissing on a table; there was also a small brown teapot, some sugar, slices of lemon, and glasses.A bed, washstand, cupboard, tin trunk, two chairs, and a small rug were all the furniture.Above the bed a sword in a leather sheath was suspended from two nails.The photograph of a girl stood on the closed stove.My host went to the cupboard and produced a bottle, a glass, and a second spoon.When the cork was drawn, the scent of rum escaped into the air.He sniffed at it and dropped a teaspoonful into both glasses.
"This is a trick I learned from the Russians after Plevna; they had my little finger, so I deserved something in exchange." He looked round; his eyes, his whole face, seemed to twinkle."I assure you it was worth it--makes all the difference.Try!" He poured off the tea.
"Had you a sympathy with the Turks?"
"The weaker side--" He paused abruptly, then added: "But it was not that." Over his face innumerable crow's-feet had suddenly appeared, his eyes twitched; he went on hurriedly, "I had to find something to do just then--it was necessary." He stared into his glass; and it was some time before I ventured to ask if he had seen much fighting.
"Yes," he replied gravely, "nearly twenty years altogether; I was one of Garibaldi's Mille in '60.""Surely you are not Italian?"
He leaned forward with his hands on his knees."I was in Genoa at that time learning banking; Garibaldi was a wonderful man! One could not help it." He spoke quite simply."You might say it was like seeing a little man stand up to a ring of great hulking fellows; Iwent, just as you would have gone, if you'd been there.I was not long with them--our war began; I had to go back home." He said this as if there had been but one war since the world began."In '60," he mused, "till '65.Just think of it! The poor country.Why, in my State, South Carolina--I was through it all--nobody could be spared there--we were one to three.""I suppose you have a love of fighting?"
"H'm!" he said, as if considering the idea for the first time.
"Sometimes I fought for a living, and sometimes--because I was obliged; one must try to be a gentleman.But won't you have some more?"I refused more tea and took my leave, carrying away with me a picture of the old fellow looking down from the top of the steep staircase, one hand pressed to his back, the other twisting up those little white moustaches, and murmuring, "Take care, my dear sir, there's a step there at the corner.""To be a gentleman!" I repeated in the street, causing an old French lady to drop her parasol, so that for about two minutes we stood bowing and smiling to each other, then separated full of the best feeling.
II
A week later I found myself again seated next him at a concert.In the meantime I had seen him now and then, but only in passing.He seemed depressed.The corners of his lips were tightened, his tanned cheeks had a greyish tinge, his eyes were restless; and, between two numbers of the programme, he murmured, tapping his fingers on his hat, "Do you ever have bad days? Yes? Not pleasant, are they?"Then something occurred from which all that I have to tell you followed.There came into the concert-hall the heroine of one of those romances, crimes, follies, or irregularities, call it what you will, which had just attracted the "world's" stare.She passed us with her partner, and sat down in a chair a few rows to our right.
She kept turning her head round, and at every turn I caught the gleam of her uneasy eyes.Some one behind us said: "The brazen baggage!"My companion turned full round, and glared at whoever it was who had spoken.The change in him was quite remarkable.His lips were drawn back from his teeth; he frowned; the scar on his temple had reddened.
"Ah!" he said to me."The hue and cry! Contemptible! How I hate it! But you wouldn't understand--! "he broke off, and slowly regained his usual air of self-obliteration; he even seemed ashamed, and began trying to brush his moustaches higher than ever, as if aware that his heat had robbed them of neatness.
"I'm not myself, when I speak of such matters," he said suddenly; and began reading his programme, holding it upside down.A minute later, however, he said in a peculiar voice: "There are people to be found who object to vivisecting animals; but the vivisection of a woman, who minds that? Will you tell me it's right, that because of some tragedy like this--believe me, it is always a tragedy--we should hunt down a woman? That her fellow-women should make an outcast of her?
That we, who are men, should make a prey of her? If I thought that...." Again he broke off, staring very hard in front of him.
"It is we who make them what they are; and even if that is not so--why! if I thought there was a woman in the world I could not take my hat off to--I--I--couldn't sleep at night." He got up from his seat, put on his old straw hat with trembling fingers, and, without a glance back, went out, stumbling over the chair-legs.