Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  Such was the man who now stood before me like a gaunt spectre in the rain, his dull peering eyes brightening into a faint interest as he fixed them on mine. His face betokened the liveliest surprise and curiosity at meeting me out there at night and in such weather, and I could not at once master my voice sufficiently to answer him. He waited one or two minutes, and then clapped me again on the shoulder.

  “Have you lost your speech, Beauvais, or your strength, or your courage, or what? You look alarmingly ill! — will you take my arm?”

  There was a friendly solicitude about him that touched me, — another time I might have hesitated to be seen with such an incongruous figure as he was, — he, whose mock-tragic manner and jaunty style of walk had been mimicked and hooted at by all the little gamins of Paris, — but the hour was late, and I felt so utterly wretched, so thrown out, as it were, from all sympathy, so destitute of all hope, that I was glad of even this forlorn starveling’s company, and I, therefore, took his proffered arm, — an arm the very bone of which I could feel sharply protruding through the thin worn sleeve.

  “I am rather out of my usual line!” I then said, striving to make light of my condition. “Sitting out in the rain on a dreary night like this is certainly not amusing. But — when one is in trouble—”

  “Trouble! — Ah!” exclaimed Gessonex, lifting his disengaged hand, clenching it, and shaking it at the frowning sky with a defiant air. “Trouble is the fishing-net of the amiable Deity up yonder, whom none of us can see, and whom few of us want to know! Down it drops, that big black net, out of the clouds, quite unexpectedly, and we are all dragged into it, struggling and sprawling for dear life, just like the helpless fish we ourselves delight to catch and kill and cook and devour! We are all little gods down here, each in our own way, — and the great One above (if there is one!) can only be an enlarged pattern of our personalities, — for according to the Bible, ‘He made us in His own image!’ And so you are caught, mon ami? That is bad! — but let me not forget to mention, that there are a few large holes in the net through which those that have gold about them, can easily slip and escape scot free!”

  Poor Gessonex! He, like all hungry folk, imagined money to be a cure for every evil.

  “My good fellow,” I said gently, “there are some griefs that can follow and persecute to the very death even Croesus among his bags of bullion. I begin to think poverty is one of the least of human misfortunes.”

  “Absolutely you are right!” declared Gessonex, with an air of triumph. “It is a sort of thing you so soon get accustomed to! It sits upon one easily, like an old coat! You cease to desire a dinner if you never have it! — it is quite extraordinary how the appetite suits itself to circumstances, and puts up with a cigar at twenty centimes instead of a filet for one franc! — the filet is actually not missed! And what a number of remarkable cases we have had shown to us lately in the field of science, of men existing for a long period of time, without any nourishment save water! I have been deeply interested in that subject, — I believe in the system thoroughly, — I have tried it (for my own amusement of course!) Yes! — I have tried it for several days together! I find it answers very well! — it is apt to make one feel quite light upon one’s feet, — almost aerial in fact, and ready to fly, as if one were disembodied! — most curious and charming!”

  My heart smote me, — the man was starving and my purse was full. I pressed his meagre arm more closely, and for the time forgot my own sorrows in consideration for his needs.

  “Let us go and sup somewhere,” I said hastily. “Any place near at hand will do. A basin of hot soup will take off the chill of this downpour, — I am positively wet through!”

  “You are, mon ami, — that is a lamentable fact!” rejoined Gessonex affably— “and, — apart from the condition of those excellent clothes of yours, which are ruined, I regret to observe, — you will most likely wake up to-morrow with a violent cold. And a cold is not becoming — it spoils the face of even a pretty woman. So that if you really believe the hot soup will be beneficial to you, — (as far as I am concerned, I find the cold water nourishment singularly agreeable!) why, I will escort you to a very decent restaurant, where you can procure a really superb bouillon — superb, I assure you! — I have often inhaled the odour of it en passant!” And, quickening his steps unconsciously, out of the mere natural impulse of the hungry craving he could not quite repress, he walked with me out of the Champs Elysées and across the Place de la Concorde, — thence over one of the bridges spanning the Seine, and so on, till we reached a dingy little building in a side street, over which, in faded paint, was inscribed “GRAND CAFE BONHOMME. RESTAURANT POUR TOUT LE MONDE.” The glass doors were shut, and draped with red curtains, through which the interior lights flung a comfortable glow on the sloppy roadway, and Gessonex pointed to this with the most fervent admiration.

  “What a charm there is about the colour red!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “It is so suggestive of warmth and brilliancy! It is positively fascinating! — and in my great picture of Apollo chasing Daphne, I should be almost tempted to use folds of red drapery were it not for the strict necessity of keeping the figures nude. But the idea of a garmented god fills me with horror! — as well paint Adam and Eve decorously adorned with fig-leaves before the fall! — that is what a contemporary of mine has just done, — ha ha! Fig-leaves before the fall! Excellent! — ah, very amusing!” Opening the café doors he beckoned me to follow. I did so half mechanically, my only idea for the moment being that he, Gessonex, should get a good meal for once, — I knew that I myself would not be able to taste anything. There were only two or three people in the place; — a solitary waiter, whom I had perceived combing his hair carefully in the background, came forward to receive instructions, and cleared a table for us in a rather retired corner where we at once sat down. I then ordered soup, and whatever else was ready to be had hot and savoury, while André gingerly lifted his brigand hat and placed it on a convenient nail above him, using so much precaution in this action, that I suppose he feared it might come to pieces in his hands. Then, running his fingers through his matted locks, he rested his elbows comfortably on the table, and surveyed me smilingly.

  “Mon cher Beauvais,” he said, “I feel as if there were a mystical new bond between us! I always liked you, as you know, — but you were removed from me by an immense gulf of difference, — this difference being that you were never in trouble, and I, as you must be aware, always was and always am! But do not imagine that it is pleasant to me to see you wriggling fish-like on the bon Dieu’s disagreeably sharp hook of calamity — au contraire, it infinitely distresses me, — but still, if anything can make men brothers, it is surely a joint partnership in woe! All the same, Beauvais” — and he lowered his voice a little— “I am sincerely sorry to find you so cast down!”

  I made a mute sign of gratitude, — he was looking at me intently, stroking his peaked beard the while.

  “Nothing financially wrong?” he hinted delicately, after a pause.

  “My good André! — Nothing!”

  “I am glad of that!” he rejoined sedately, “for naturally I could be no sort of service to you in any question of cash. A money difficulty always appeals to me in vain! But for any private vexation of a purely emotional and yet excessively irritating nature, I think I know a cure!”

  I forced a smile. “Indeed!”

  He nodded gravely, and his eyes dilated with a certain peculiar bright limpidness that I and others had often noticed in them whenever the “mad painter,” as he was sometimes called, was about to be more than usually eloquent.

  “For the heart’s wide wounds which bleed internally; — for the grief of a lost love which can never be regained,” he said slowly and dreamily; “for the sting of remorse, and the teazing persecutions of conscience, — for all these, and more than these, I can find a remedy! For the poison of memory I can provide an antidote, — a blessed balm that soothes the wronged spirit into total forgetfulness of its inju
ry, and opens before the mind a fresh and wondrous field of vision, where are found glories that the world knows nothing of, and for the enjoyment of which a man might be well content to starve and suffer, and sacrifice everything — even love!”

  His harsh voice had grown musical, — a faint smile rested on his thin pale lips, — and I gazed at him in vague surprise and curiosity.

  “What are you poetizing about now, Gessonex?” I asked half banteringly. “What magic Elixir Vitæ thus excites your enthusiasm?”

  He made no answer, as just then the supper arrived, and, rousing himself quickly as from a reverie, his eyes lost their preternatural light, and all his interest became centered in the food before him. Poor fellow! — how daintily he ate, feigning reluctance, yet lingering over every morsel! How he rated the waiter for not bringing him a damask serviette, — how haughtily he complained of the wine being corked, — and how thoroughly he enjoyed playing the part of a fastidious epicure and fine gentleman! My share in the repast was a mere pretence, and he perceived this, though he refrained from any comment upon my behaviour while the meal was yet in progress. But as soon as it was ended, and he was smoking the cigarette I had offered him, he leaned across the table and addressed me once more in a low confidential tone.

  “Beauvais, you have eaten nothing!”

  I sighed impatiently. “Mon cher, I have no appetite.”

  “Yet you are wet through, — you shiver?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Soit!”

  “You will not even smoke?”

  “To oblige you, I will” — and I opened my case of cigarettes and lit one forthwith, hoping by this complaisance to satisfy his anxiety on my behalf. But he rose suddenly, saying no word to me, and crossing over to where the waiter stood, talked with him very earnestly and emphatically for a minute or two. Then he returned leisurely to his seat opposite me, and I looked at him inquiringly.

  “What have you been ordering? A cognac?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “Oh, nothing! only — absinthe.”

  “Absinthe!” I echoed. “Do you like that stuff?” His eyes opened wide, and flashed a strangely piercing glance at me.

  “Like it? I love it! And you?”

  “I have never tasted it.”

  “Never tasted it!” exclaimed Gessonex amazedly. “Mon Dieu! You, a born and bred Parisian, have never tasted absinthe?”

  I smiled at his excitement.

  “Never! I have seen others draining it often, — but I have not liked the look of it somehow. A repulsive colour to me, — that medicinal green!”

  He laughed a trifle nervously, and his hand trembled. But he gave no immediate reply, for at that moment the waiter placed a flacon of the drink in question on the table together with the usual supply of water and tumblers. Carefully preparing and stirring the opaline mixture, Gessonex filled the glasses to the brim, and pushed one across to me. I made a faint sign of rejection. He laughed again, in apparent amusement at my hesitation.

  “By Venus and Cupid, and all the dear old heathen deities who are such remarkably convenient myths to take one’s oath upon,” he said, “I hope you will not compel me to consider you a fool, Beauvais! What an idea that is of yours, ‘medicinal green’! Think of melted emeralds instead! There, beside you, you have the most marvellous cordial in all the world, — drink and you will find your sorrows transmuted — yourself transformed! Even if no better result be obtained than escaping from the chill you have incurred in this night’s heavy drenching, that is surely something! Life without absinthe! — I cannot imagine it! For me it would be impossible! I should hang, drown, or shoot myself into infinitude, out of sheer rage at the continued cruelty and injustice of the world, — but with this divine nectar of Olympus I can defy misfortune and laugh at poverty, as though these were the merest bagatelles! Come! — to your health, mon brave! Drink with me!”

  He raised his glass glimmering pallidly in the light, — his words, his manner, fascinated me, and a curious thrill ran through my veins. There was something spectral in his expression too, as though the skeleton of the man had become suddenly visible beneath its fleshly covering, — as though Death had for a moment peered through the veil of Life. I fixed my eyes doubtingly on the pale-green liquid whose praises he thus sang — had it indeed such a potent charm? Would it still the dull aching at my heart, — the throbbing in my temples, — the sick weariness and contempt of living, that had laid hold upon me like a fever since I knew Pauline was no longer my own? Would it give me a brief respite from the inner fret of tormenting thought? It might! — and, slowly lifting the glass to my lips, I tasted it. It was very bitter and nauseous, — and I made a wry face of disgust as I set it down. The watchful Gessonex touched my arm.

  “Again!” he whispered eagerly, with a strange smile. “Once again! It is like vengeance, — bitter at first, but sweet at last! Mon cher, if you were not, — as I see you are, — a prey to affliction, I would not offer you the knowledge of this sure consolation, — for he that is not sad needs no comfort. But supposing — I only guess, of course! — supposing your mind to be chafed by the ever present memory of some wrong — some injury — some treachery — even some love-betrayal, — why then, I fail to see why you should continue to suffer when the remedy for all such suffering is here!” And he sipped the contents of his own glass with an air of almost inspired ecstasy.

  I looked at him fixedly. An odd tingling sensation was in my blood, as though it had been suddenly touched by an inward fire.

  “You mean to tell me,” I said incredulously, “that Absinthe, — which I have heard spoken of as the curse of Paris, — is a cure for all human ills? That it will not only ward off physical cold from the body, but keep out haunting trouble from the mind? Mon ami, you rave! — such a thing is not possible! If it could quench mad passion, — if it could kill love! — if it could make of my heart a stone, instead of a tortured, palpitating sentient substance — there! — forgive me! I am talking at random of I know not what, — I have been cruelly betrayed, Gessonex! and I wish to God I could forget my betrayal!”

  My words had broken from me involuntarily, and he heard them with an attentive expression of amiable half-melancholy solicitude. But in reply he pointed to the glass beside me.

  “Drink!” he said.

  Drink! — Well, why not? I could see no earthly reason for hesitating over such a trifle, — I would taste the nauseous fluid again, I thought, if only to satisfy my companion, — and I at once did so. Heavens! — it was now delicious to my palate — exquisitely fine and delicate as balm, — and in my pleasurable amazement I swallowed half the tumblerfull readily, conscious of a new and indescribably delightful sense of restorative warmth and comfort pervading my whole system. I felt that Gessonex observed me intently, and, meeting his gaze, I smiled.

  “You are quite right, André!” I told him. “The second trial is the test of flavour. It is excellent!”

  And without taking any more thought as to what I was doing, I finished the entire draught, re-lit my cigarette which had gone out, and began to smoke contentedly, while Gessonex re-filled my glass.

  “Now you will soon be a man again!” he exclaimed joyously. “To the devil with all the botherations of life, say I! You are too well off in this world’s goods, mon cher, to allow yourself to be seriously worried about anything, — and I am truly glad I have persuaded you to try my favourite remedy for the kicks of fortune, because I like you! Moreover, to speak frankly, I owe you several excellent dinners, — the one of tonight being particularly welcome, in spite of what I said in favour of the cold water nourishment, — and the only good I can possibly do you in return for your many acts of friendship is to introduce you to the ‘Fairy with the Green Eyes, — as this exquisite nectar has been poetically termed. It is a charming fairy! — one wave of the opal wand, and sorrow is conveniently guillotined!”

  I let him run on uninterruptedly, — I myself was too drowsily comfortable to spea
k. I watched the smoke of my cigarette curling up to the ceiling in little dusky wreaths, — they seemed to take phosphorescent gleams of colour as they twisted round and round and melted away. A magical period of sudden and complete repose had been granted to me, — I had ceased to think of Pauline, — of Silvion Guidèl — or of any one incident of my life or surroundings, — all my interest was centred in those rising and disappearing smoky rings! I drank more absinthe, with increasing satisfaction and avidity, — previous to tasting it I had been faint and cold and shivering, — now I was thoroughly warm, agreeably languid, and a trifle sleepy. I heard Gessonex talking to me now and then, — there were moments when he seemed to become eloquently energetic in his denunciations of something or somebody, — but his voice sounded far off, like a voice in a dream, and I paid very little heed to him, only nodding occasionally whenever he appeared to expect an answer. I was in that hazy condition of mind common to certain phases of intoxication, when the drunkard is apt to think he is thinking, — though really no distinctly comprehensible thought is possible to his befogged and stupefied brain. Yet I understood well enough what Gessonex said about love; he got on that subject, heaven knows how, and launched against it an arrowy shower of cynicism.

  “What a fool a man is,” he exclaimed, “to let himself be made a slave for life, all for the sake of a pretty face that in time is bound to grow old and ugly! Love is only a hot impulse of the blood, and like any other fever can be cooled and kept down easily if one tries.

  It is a starving sort of ailment too, — one does not get fat on it. Love emaciates both soul and body — but hate, on the contrary, feeds! I must confess that, for my own part, I have no sympathy with a lover, — but I adore a good hater! To hate well is the most manly of attributes, — for there is so much in the world that merits hatred — so little that is worthy of love! As for women — bah! We begin our lives by believing them to be angels, — but we soon find out what painted, bedizened, falsely-smiling courtesans they all are at heart, — at least all I have ever met. Pardieu! I swear to you, Beauvais, I have never known a good woman!”