said the musician, ‘Odillot’s vision was provoked not by my playing, but by some good-looking young girl he had been ogling; as for yours, they are simply reminiscences of some pictures or ballet’
‘What was your vision, then?’ asked Briancourt.
‘I was just going to put you the same question,’ retorted the pianist.
‘My vision was something like Odillot’s though not exactly the same.’
‘Then it must have been le revers de la medaille — the back side,’ quoth the lawyer, laughing; ‘that is, two snow-clad lovely hillocks and deep in the valley below, a well, a tiny hole with a dark margin, or rather a brown halo around it.’
‘Well, let us have your vision now,’ insisted Briancourt.
‘My visions are so vague and indistinct, they fade away so quickly, that I can hardly remember them,’ he answered evasively.
‘But they are beautiful, are they not?’
‘And horrible withal,’ he said enigmatically.
‘Like the godlike corpse of Antinous, seen by the silvery light of the opaline moon, floating on the lurid waters of the Nile,’ I said.
All the young men looked astonished at me. Briancourt laughed in a jarring way.
‘You are a poet or a painter,’ said Teleny, gazing at me with half-shut eyes. Then, after a pause: ‘Anyhow, you are right to quiz me, but you must not mind my visionary speeches, for there is always so much of the madman in the composition of every artist.’ Then, darting a dim ray from his sad eyes deep into mine, ‘When you are better acquainted with me, you will know that there is so much more of the madman than of the artist in me.’
Thereupon he took out a strongly-scented fine lawn handkerchief, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
‘And now,’ he added, ‘I must not keep you here a minute longer with my idle talk, otherwise the lady patroness will be angry, and I really cannot afford to displease the ladies,’ and with a stealthy glance at Briancourt, ‘Can I?’ he added.
‘No, that would be a crime against the fair sex,’ replied one.
‘Moreover, the other musicians would say I did it out of spite; for no one is gifted with such strong feelings of jealousy as amateurs, be they actors, singers, or instrumentalists, so au revoir.’
Then, with a deeper bow than he had vouchsafed to the public, he was about to leave the room, when he stopped again: ‘But you, M. Des Grieux, you said you were not going to stay, may I request the pleasure of your company?’
‘Most willingly,’ said I, eagerly.
Briancourt again smiled ironically — why, I could not understand. Then he hummed a snatch of ‘Madame Angot,’ which operette was then in fashion, the only words which caught my ears being —Il est, dit-on, le favori, and these were marked purposely.
Teleny, who had heard them as well as I had, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something between his teeth.
‘A carriage is waiting for me at the back door,’ said he, slipping his arm under mine. ‘Still, if you prefer walking — ‘
‘Very much so, for it has been so stiflingly hot in the theatre.’
‘Yes, very hot,’ he added, repeating my words, and evidently thinking of something else. Then all at once, as if struck by a sudden thought, ‘Are you superstitious?’ said he.
‘Superstitious?’ I was struck by the quaint-ness of his question. ‘Well — yes, rather, I believe.’
‘I am very much so. I suppose it is my nature, for you see the gipsy element is strong in me. They say that educated people are not superstitious. Well, first I have had a wretched education; and then I think that if we really knew the mysteries of nature, we could probably explain all those strange coincidences that are ever happening.’ Then, stopping abruptly, ‘Do you believe in the transmission of thought, of sensations?’
‘Well, I really do not know — I — ‘
‘You must believe,’ he added authoritatively. ‘You see we have had the same vision at once. The first thing you saw was the Alhambra, blazing in the fiery light of the sun, was it not?’
‘It was,’ said I, astonished.
‘And you thought you would like to feel that powerful withering love that shatters both the body and the soul? You do not answer. Then afterwards came Egypt, Antinous and Adrian. You were the Emperor, I was the slave.’
Then, musingly, he added, almost to himself: ‘Who knows, perhaps I shall die for you one day!’ And his features assumed that sweet resigned look which is seen on the demi-god’s statues.
I looked at him, bewildered.
‘Oh! you think I am mad, but I am not, I am only stating facts. You did not feel that you were Adrian, simply because you are not accustomed to such visions; doubtless all this will be clearer to you someday; as for me, there is, you must know, Asiatic blood in my veins, and — ‘
But he did not finish his phrase, and we walked on for a while in silence, then:
‘Did you not see me turn round during the gavotte, and look for you? I began to feel you just then, but I could not find you out; you remember, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I did see you look towards my side, and — ‘
‘And you were jealous!’
‘Yes,’ said I, almost inaudibly.
He pressed my arm strongly against his body for all answer, then after a pause, he added hurriedly, and in a whisper: ‘You must know that I do not care for a single girl in this world, I never did, I could never love a woman.’
My heart was beating strongly; I felt a choking feeling as if something was gripping my throat.
‘Why should he be telling me this?’ said I to myself.
‘Did you not smell a scent just then?’
‘A scent — when?’
‘When I was playing the gavotte; you have forgotten perhaps.’
‘Let me see, you are right, what scent was it?’
‘Lavande ambree.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Which you do not care for, and which I dislike; tell me, which is your favorite scent?’
‘Heliotrope blanc.’
Without giving me an answer, he pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to me to smell.
‘All our tastes are exactly the same, are they not?’ And saying this, he looked at me with such a passionate and voluptuous longing, that the carnal hunger depicted in his eyes made me feel faint.
‘You see, I always
