ASHES
To the Inexorable, what need of incense-burning, when from the ashes of human life is ever rising a measured stream of smoke?
...........
I, Paul Marylski, outcast and rolling stone, am sitting in my old arm-chair on this accursed English day of yours, the year of little grace 189-. Forty years have I rolled, and have gathered no moss. Body and soul am I like unto the battered old friend I sit in. In sooth, I think as I crouch here over my fire, that I am but as the dead, man without hope, without desire, without a future, without a present—can he live? Yes; for he is sitting here to-night like an old dog, with the same folds in the cheeks, and the same yearning in the eyes. A thousand curses on the Congo and its deathly fever!—but for that might I still be man with future before me, but who can stand against this devil's gnawing that never ceases?—not I, for one. I have some friends, a sweet country family, such as you have in England; they interest themselves in me, in me. I am grateful. The 'mother' tells me—'Cheer up; this life is but a stage; it will soon pass—then, think of the future, the glorious after-life.' She believes in this firmly—why not? Temperament, dear lady, all temperament! I can no more believe it than I can still this clawing at my vitals. Why do I live? Pardieu, I know not, having had my day—and what a day! Do they not say, 'Every dog must have his day'? Tiens, this dog has had his, and it is that, and that alone, which keeps him alive. Even now, as I sit watching the dying embers, what pictures can I not see through the smoke that wreathes from my cigarette.
Hark! What's that? 'Carmen!' as I live, a battered hulk; 'Carmen,' and on a barrel-organ! Ah, ha! Good, for your dingy London streets—they help the picture for once.
••••••
I see a room, warm and light; the green blinds are drawn, the polished floor reflects the softly-shaded lights; in the centre a table loaded with things loved of the soul, and—is it the same thing, perhaps?—the palate; empty bottles—ay, even an empty bottle was lovely then—betoken the end of a feast. Round the table, men, only men; but look well—ay, and look again, ye callow youths, and livers of the life of every day—not one but has his future or his past—most have both. Look at him well who rises, glass in hand, to address the company. Did ye ever see such a born leader of men, a giant, slim and tall, with eye that flashes, and drooping black moustache? He waves his hand to the waiters to leave the room, and speaks:—'Messieurs,' he says—in French, for is he not Christophe de Barsac, first smuggler in Marseille (or out of it, for that matter)?—'Messieurs, le jeu est fait,' and he drains his glass to the dregs, everyone following suit. 'It now only remains, Messieurs, to reckon the cost,' and he sits down. A groan goes up from around the table. There rises a tall, fat—ah! fat—man, with the invincible smile of a Russian of the Russians. As such, I, the Pole, sitting opposite, hate him—but also, you know, I love him as a brother.
'Monsieur le President, and gentlemen,' he goes on in English, which his soul loves as only does the soul of the man who speaks it as badly. 'We 'ave 'ad ze good time, ze time of ze own devil, as says our good friend Kerr—r;' he rolls the r's indefinitely, and indicates with his cigar a lean, sunburnt man on his left. 'I ver' moch regret 'zat I 'ave no more money to 'ave anoyzer time of ze own devil, and zat also you 'ave none to lend me, mais, que voulez vous, vive Monte Carlo!' and he, too, sits down, with a supremely fatalistic shrug of those vast shoulders, and the still invincible smile. Only three men out of those nine understand English, yet a murmur of applause shows the appreciation felt for the speaker, and the sentiments conveyed in that vast and comprehensive shrug. When the applause has subsided, his neighbour, the sunburnt southerner and knight-errant, rises abruptly and says:
'That's all very well, but I guess this dinner's got to be toted up and paid for. Le'ssee how this pans out,' and he turns the contents of his pockets on to the table,—one franc twenty-five centimes. He drops them into a wine-glass, and passes it to his neighbour. Then follows a scene curious—nine men of good presence in evening dress, turning out the innermost recesses of their apparel into a wine-glass—and see, the result is handed to the President, who counts it anxiously, after adding his own mite of two sous—'Six francs seventy-five centimes.'
At the least the dinner has cost fifteen louis. Another groan from the table.
'Tenez,' says the President, 'J'ai une idée: le petit n'a jamais joué; eh bien! Je donnerai les cinq francs au petit, et il jouera.' Evidently bonne idée, for the room resounds as le petit is surrounded and forced forward with many an encouraging pat.
Bon Dieu! That was I! That beardless youth with the bright eyes and black hair, enjoying life as none but a Pole can enjoy, before his country has laid her curse of melancholy upon him. Twenty years is a good span of time, but it seems more than twenty hundred since De Barsac pressed those five francs into my indifferent hand, and bade me go forth and seek the price of that feast, eaten not wisely but too well. Yet even now is Gortchakow's pat heavy upon my back.
Ah, well, there he goes! passing dreamily out of the busy café, with its garish lights and constant hum, into the 'Place'—the immortal 'Place.' How well I remember it! Did not her windows look on it? Every feature, graven on my brain, rises now before me. The living stream ever flowing from its four sides into those inexorable doors, the sweet scents wafted from the gardens on the left, the fantastic shadows of the palms, the strains of 'Carmen' from the band playing in the verandah, the feverish throb of humanity under those quiet and starry heavens. Who does not know the 'Place'? and, once knowing, who forgets?
There he goes, dreamily threading his solitary way across to the rooms; yet are his thoughts not with those five poor francs; they are, with his eyes, fixed on a certain window in the hotel opposite, and wondering what is the earliest hour she can be 'de retour.'
But, heigh-ho! the portals are reached, and lo! one must think of that dinner. What is one five-franc piece? Truly not much, yet something in maiden hands. The rooms are full; it is the gambler's noon. Le petit finds himself wedged in between a swarthy Roumanian Jew, who is sowing louis broadcast 'en plein' and 'à cheval,' and an English lady, of undetermined age but determined spirit, who is shedding her weekly bill in five-franc pieces. The Roumanian soweth, but he reapeth not, and he rises with a scowl and a shrug, and le petit slips into his seat.
He is sitting down with one five-franc piece. Mon petit! truly thou art—what one calls—very green. Yet he has watched the game before, this young bantling.
'Quatre premier,' he cries, and manfully throws down the fateful piece. The little white ball is already spinning with its merry rattle of life and death—it stops. 'Deux, noir, paire et manque.' The ever-busy rake pushes over to him two louis. And now
'Trente-quatre, trente-six, deux louis, sil vous plait.'
The obliging croupier places them—once again the merry rattle.
'Trente-six,' says the sing-song voice.
'Bravo, mon petit, here is the price of the dinner with interest.' Prudence personified, he places fifteen louis out of the twenty-four in an inner pocket and prepares to do or die with the rest. Yes, yes, how well I remember the tall Englishman behind saying to his friend, 'Sportsman, that young beggar! I shall follow him.'
Le petit's English has been picked up on a Straits Settlements trader, but the tall Englishman he understands and appreciates. He is playing on rouge now. A run of four; already by his side are piled the louis mountains high.
'Messieurs, faites le jeu.'
'Cent louis, rouge.'
'Le jeu est fait—rouge;' again and again, and yet again comes red, and each time le petit wins.
Now he is staking the limit, and winning still, the multitude wondering, with that rising murmur of praise and plaint that ever attends a big winner's fortunes. Suddenly he looks up. Standing opposite to him is a tall woman with dark eyes, lovely to behold, and she is watching him with a curious look, not of pity, not of contempt, not of passion, yet with something of all three. He starts, half rising, and makes a motion to leave the table.
'Messieurs, faites le jeu,'—the murmur grows.
'Follow the run up; play your luck out, sir,' says the big Englishman. Le petit hurriedly counts out the limit and pushes it on to rouge—the ball stops. 'Noir,' drawls the croupier, in a triumphant sing-song; the run is broken, but le petit, sweeping the remains of his winnings into his pocket, is no longer in his seat.
Between two goddesses can no man stand, not even the maiden wooer of the great goddess Chance, when a greater than she has claimed him.
The woman with the dark eyes moved away, but le petit is beside her.
'’Léna, how long the day has been! But the night comes, ah, the night comes—at twelve?' She gives him one look from unfathomable eyes, that provoke, yet answer, and passes on to a seat at the next table. Le petit, with bowed head and unsteady step, but with a flame in his eyes, passes out into the air to render an account of his stewardship.
••••••
Once more the softly-lighted room. The ghost of the feast has his clutches now upon the band of revellers; yea, a gloom is upon them; even wanes the smile of Gortchakow, prince of Russian philosophers.
'Enfin!' says the President, and at his voice all turn, to see le petit come in at a side door, and stand silent in the shadow. All eyes are upon him—surely he looks depressed.
'Zey 'ave plucked 'im, my children, zey 'ave plucked 'is one leetle feazer,' is Gortchakow's sorrowful but smiling comment.
'What luck, my son?' says the President, gravely. For answer, le petit opens his coat, and before nine pairs of hungry eyes he pours forth what seems a never-ending stream of gold and notes on to the table. A howl of amaze and delight bursts forth, and le petit is enveloped in several pairs of arms, until he wriggles out, and dives under the table, where he sits in comparative security, while the President pays the bill, divides the spoil, and delivers a homily upon 'le chance,' rendered palatable by bumpers of champagne.
Great God! And is it only twenty years since I sat under that table?—only twenty!!
••••••
Once more the 'Place,' but now the hum and throb has given place to the passion-fraught stillness of the Southern night. Closed are the rooms and the cafés; the last strains of the band have died away; the croak of belated frogs, an occasional laugh, and the snatch of a song from belated humans, are the only sounds that come to the ears of le petit as he wends his cautious way to the longed-for meeting. A French window opening on to a balcony, ten feet from the ground,—what is this to a sailor, under cover of the night? Now he is up, and gazing with all his eyes through the half-open windov/ into a dimly-lighted room.
Sights fair and horrible, many, have I seen in my tempest-driven life, ay, many, but never, by the gods, have I seen sight fairer, and yet more horrible, than that which met le petit's fascinated gaze through those half-drawn blinds.
The figure of the loved one is stretched on the couch, dreaming, with look of expectation and delight in the half-closed eyes.
Dark with all the passions, scowling malignant, a face glares from a shrouded corner of the room upon that white-robed form. Passionate love, passionate hate, passionate jealousy—who shall say what is in that face? Enough surely to bind le petit with the spell of a nameless terror.
The figure moves forward noiselessly out of the shadow. Ah! One knows him now! This is he whom most she dreads; he who, not husband, nor lover accepted, pursues her with vows, with threats, with all that there is of jealous passion; to whom, despite of fear, repulsion, dread, some mysterious tie binds her. Le petit gazes—so he is there, that ogre, ah! And certainly he knows, that monster, of the expected visitor—he has read it in the passion of her eyes, upon her dumb but parted lips.
It is destiny—so much the better; once for all we will end all this.
The figure creeps forward, with raised hand clenched.
Le petit steps in from the balcony.
"Léna,' he says, and with his finger points.
She rises at the sound of his voice, and turning sees; then with a little cry of terror she comes to his arms for protection. That was like her. Afterwards, when le petit wanted those white arms that hung around his neck—wanted them sorely in his sick estate, nigh unto death,—did she bring them then? Bah! All women are alike! and yet not all—not all.
Is that a devil that rages before one, foaming at the mouth?—Ah! no, only Juan Costello, a very evil-looking person!
'My compliments to you, Monsieur, but this lady and myself wish to talk affaires; will Monsieur have the kindness to withdraw?'
Truly he is canaille, with his villainous tongue and his villainous eyes—also he makes a great noise, until they come and take him away; altogether it is a very stupid and common affair, pah!—Well, well, it is a long time ago, and a little noise more or less doesn't matter to me now.
Also le petit goes forth; and there is rage—a bitter, black rage—in his heart.
How slowly wing the hours away till the morning light—those hours of disappointment and burning hate. That dog! One will kill him with the first light.—The little bay near Cabbé Roquebrune—that little bay that recalls so greatly the far-away lagoons of the blessed South Seas.
Too good a resting-place for such a hound—far too good—yet it will serve.
Up and down, up and down, never still through the long night hours, head awhirl, eyes aflame. Bad training, my child, for the morning's meeting.
Who cares? It is fate—his death at my hands is written in those stars that shine so steadily, so inexorably, above, in that dome of destiny.
Ah! There it is at last, that streak of light—omen of wrath and blood, dull, and red, and angry streak. 'Tant mieux!' Certainly there will be sport.
At last the little bay—and at the water's edge the little tideless waves are whispering joyfully, and they are as glad as le petit, for this is a scene they love.
There he comes! he is glad, too—good—everything goes well.
'You know these things, my friend; tell me where shall I hit him to kill?'
'I reckon you're a kind of a spitfire. Take the cuss under the arm, as he stands sideways, and keep your own elbow low.'
Ah! My friend, thou art an artist, and valued as such, but, when the blood surges and sings in the head, words count for little.
So I can see his hated face glaring at me above his pistol, the flames from our eyes are meeting. Ah, me! goodness and strength are gone out of me with that glance—pity to spend so much good hatred on a cur like that.
Yet 'tis not for long! and now ... 'tis all over, and they are carrying le petit back from the regretful waters. And some time—when was it? who knows?—he drags himself to sea again, and the page is closed. And what of the other, that hound? And of her? Again, who knows?—Ah, yes, I have still the pain of that wound, but not greatly.
Well! well! a long time ago,—and it was but a page. Come, turn over.
Nay, not even the strength for that; thou hast had thy dose of life for the day, and the barrel-organ is gone, and thou art tired, and the fire is low, and the cigarette—pouf—it is but ashes.