OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  "I'm sorry to know you feel that way," he said quietly. "I'll try to see it doesn't happen again--but, after all, Ann--the reason it did happen is because I like you so very much, and have so much respect for you and won't stand for anyone insulting you!"

  "Ah-h! Insulting me!" she said angrily. "Good heavens, Francis, do you think I need protection from a wretched little man like that? When I've been a nurse, and had to go alone to every rotten slum in Boston, and learned to handle people twice his size! Protect me!" she said bitterly. "Thank you for nothing! I didn't come over here to be protected--I don't need it. I can take care of myself. Just try to act and feel like a decent human being--let's try to be friends together and to show some consideration for each other--and don't worry about protecting me!"

  LXXXI

  He slept little that night. The quarrel in the night-club and its consequences seemed fantastic, incredible, like a nightmare. At daybreak he got up and went to the window and stared out at the grey light just breaking on the roofs and chimney-pots of Paris. The old buildings emerged haggard, pale, lemony, with all the wonderful, homely practicality of dawn and morning, and looking at them, Montmartre, the blaze of lights, the music and the drunken voices, and the quarrel with the Frenchman--the whole strange and evil chemistry of night--seemed farther away, more unreal and dream-like than ever. Could it have happened? Had Starwick really been challenged to a duel? Was he going through with it?

  He got up and dressed, and with dry lips and a strange, numb lightness in his limbs, descended to the street and hailed a passing taxi in the Rue Bonaparte. The sounds of morning, shutters being rolled up, scrubwomen and maids down on their knees at entrances, shops being opened--all this made the night before seem more unreal than ever.

  When he got to the studio he found everybody up. Ann was already at work making coffee, scrambling eggs for breakfast. Elinor was just combing up her hair, Starwick was in the balcony and had not yet come down. Elinor kept talking as she arranged her hair, and from the balcony Starwick answered her.

  "But Frank!" she was saying, "you know you wouldn't be fool enough to do such a thing! Surely you don't mean you intend to go through with it?"

  "Ace," he said coldly from above, "I do mean to. Quite!"

  "But--oh! Don't be an ass!" she cried impatiently. Turning to Ann, with a little, frowning smile, she bit her lips, and shaking her head slightly, cried in an astounded tone:

  "Isn't it incredible! Did you ever hear of such an insane thing in all your life?"

  But in the set of her jaw, the faint smile around the corner of her mouth, there was the look of grim decision they had all seen before.

  As Eugene entered, Ann turned from the stove, and, spoon in hand, stood looking at him sullenly for a moment. Suddenly she laughed her short and angry laugh and turned away toward Elinor, saying:

  "God! Here's the second! Don't they make a pair!"

  "But my dear!" cried Elinor with a light, gay malice. "Where is the top-hat? Where are the striped trousers and the morning coat? Where is the duelling case with the revolvers? . . . All right, Monsieur D'Artagnan," she called up towards the balcony ironically. "Your friend Monsieur Porthos has arrived . . . and breakfast is ready, darling! What's that they say about an army?" she innocently inquired, "--that it ought not to fight on an empty stomach? . . . Ahem!" she cleared her throat. "Will Monsieur D'Artagnan condescend to have the company of two frail women for breakfast on the morning of the great affair . . . or does Monsieur prefer to be left alone with his devoted second to discuss--ahem! ahem! . . . the final arrangements?"

  Starwick made no reply, until he had come down the steps.

  "You can stay, if you want to," he said indifferently. "I shall have nothing to say to them, anyway." Turning to Eugene, he said with magnificent, bored weariness: "Find out what they want. Let me know what they want to do."

  "B--but, what do you want me to say to them, Frank? What shall I tell them?"

  "Anything," said Starwick indifferently. "Anything you like. Say that I will meet him anywhere--on any terms--whatever they like. Let them settle it their own way."

  He picked up a spoon and started to eat his orange.

  "Oh, Frank, you idiot!" cried Elinor, seizing him by the hair and shaking his head. "Don't be stupid! You know you're not going on with this farce!"

  He lifted quiet, wearily patient eyes and looked at her.

  "Sorry!" he said. "But I've got to. If that's what he wants, I really must, I owe the man that much--I really do, you know!"

  Breakfast then proceeded in a painful and uneasy silence, broken only by Elinor's malicious thrusts, and maintained by Starwick's weary and impassive calm.

  At ten o'clock there were steps along the alley-way outside, someone mounted the veranda, and the studio bell jangled. The two women exchanged uneasy looks, Starwick got up quietly and turned away, and in a moment Elinor called out sharply: "Entrez."

  The door opened and a man entered the room. He wore striped trousers that were in need of pressing, a frayed and worn-looking frock-coat, and he carried a brief-case under his arm. He was bald, sallow, about forty-five years old, and had a little moustache and furtive eyes. He looked at each person in the room quickly, sharply, and then said inquiringly:

  "Monsieur Star-week?"

  "Ace," said Starwick quietly, and turned.

  "Ah, bon!" the little Frenchman said briskly, and smiled, showing yellow fangs of teeth. He had been bent slightly forward, holding his brief-case with thin, eager fingers, as he waited. Now he came forward swiftly, took a card out of his wallet, and presenting it to Starwick with something of a flourish, said:

  "Monsieur, permettez-moi. Ma carte."

  Starwick glanced at the card indifferently, and was about to put it down upon the table when the little Frenchman interrupted him. Stretching out his thin and rather grimy hand, he said courteously yet eagerly:

  "S'il vous plaît, monsieur!"--took the card again, and put it back into his wallet.

  Starwick indicated a chair and said:

  "Won't you sit down?"

  From that time on, the conversation proceeded in mutilated French and English. The little Frenchman sat down, hitched up his striped trousers carefully and with his arched fingers poised upon his bony knees, bent forward and, with another ingratiating and somewhat repulsive smile, said:

  "Monsieur Star-week ees Américain, n'est-ce pas?"

  "Ace," said Starwick.

  "And was at Le Rat Mort last night?"

  "Ace," said Starwick again.

  "Et Monsieur?" He nodded enquiringly toward Eugene, "vas also zere?"

  "Ace," Starwick answered.

  "Et Mademoiselle . . . et Mademoiselle," he turned with courteous inquiry towards the two young women--"zey vere also zere?"

  "Ace," said Starwick as before.

  "Ah, bon!" the little Frenchman cried, nodding his head vigorously, and with an air of complete satisfaction. Then, rubbing his bony, little hands together dryly and briskly, he took up his thin and battered old brief-case, which he had been holding firmly between his knees, swiftly unfastened the straps and unlatched it, and took out a few sheets of flaming, yellow paper covered with notations in a fine, minute hand:

  "Monsieur--" he began, clearing his throat, and rattling the flimsy sheets impressively--"Monsieur, I s'ink"--he looked up at Starwick ingratiatingly, but with an air of sly insinuation, "--Monsieur, I s'ink, perhaps, vas"--he shrugged his shoulders slightly, with an air of deprecation--"Monsieur vas--drink-ing?"

  Starwick made no answer for a moment: his face reddened, he inclined his head, and said coldly, but unconcedingly:

  "Oui! C'est ça, monsieur!"

  "Ah-h!" the little Frenchman cried again with a dry little cackle of satisfaction--"--an' ven one drink--espeecialee, monsieur, ven ve are yong," he laughed ingratiatingly again, "--he sometime do an' say some t'ings zat he regret--eh?"

  "But of course!" cried Elinor at this point, quickly, impatiently, eagerly. "That's just the
point! Frank was drinking--the whole thing happened like a flash--it's all over now--we're sorry--everyone is sorry:--it was a regrettable mistake--we're sorry for it--we apologize!"

  "But not at all!" cried Starwick, reddening angrily, and looking resentfully towards Elinor. "Not at all! I do not agree with you!"

  "Oh, Frank, you idiot, be quiet! Let me handle this," she cried. Turning to the little Frenchman, she said swiftly, smoothly, with all her coaxing and formidable persuasiveness:

  "Monsieur, what can we do to remedy this regrettable mistake?"

  "Comment?" said the Frenchman, in a puzzled tone.

  "Monsieur Starwick," Elinor went on with coaxing persuasion, "--Monsieur Starwick--comme vous voyez, monsieur--est très jeune. Il a toutes les fautes de la jeunesse. Mais il est aussi un homme de grand esprit; de grand talent. Il a le tempérament d'un artiste: d'un homme de génie. Comme un Français, monsieur, vous," she went on flatteringly "--vous connaissez cette espèce d'hommes. Vous savez qu'ils ne sont pas toujours responsables de leurs actes. C'est comme ça avec Monsieur Starwick. Il est de bonne cœur, de bonne volonté: il est honnête, généreux et sincère, mais il est aussi plein de tempérament--impulsif:--il manque de jugement. Hier soir nous avons tous--comme on dit--fait la noce ensemble. Monsieur Starwick a bu beaucoup--a bu trop--et il a été coupable d'une chose regrettable. Mais aujourd'hui il se repent très sincèrement de sa conduite.

  "Il vous offre ses apologies les plus profondes. Il a déjà souffert assez. Dans ces circonstances, monsieur," she concluded, with an air of charming persuasiveness, "on peut excuser le jeune homme, n'est-ce pas?--on peut pardonner une faute si honnêtement et sincèrement regrettée."

  And she paused, smiling at him with an air of hopeful finality, as if to say: "There! You agree with me, don't you? I knew you would!"

  But the Frenchman was not to be so easily persuaded. Waving thin fingers sideways in the air, and shaking his head without conviction, he laughed a dry, dubious laugh, and said:

  "Ah-h! I don't know--mademoiselle! Zese apologies!--"--again he waved thin dubious fingers--"eet ees all ver-ree well to meck apologies bot ze--vat you say?--ze dom-mage!--ze dom-mage is done. . . . Monsieur," he said gravely, turning to Starwick, "you have been coupable of a ver-ree gret offence. Ze--ze--vat you say?--ze assault, monsieur--ze assault ees 'ere in France--une chose très sérieuse! Vous comprenez?"

  "Ace," said Starwick coldly.

  "Mon client," the little Frenchman cleared his throat portentously--"--mon client, Monsieur Reynal, 'as been terriblement blessé--insulté! monsieur!" he cried sharply. "Eeet ees necessaree zu meck des réparations, n'est-ce pas?"

  "Ace," said Starwick coldly. "Whatever reparation you desire."

  The Frenchman stared at him a moment in an astonished way and then, in an excited and eager tone, cried:

  "Ah, bon! Zen you agree?"

  "Perfectly," said Starwick.

  "Bon! Bon!" the little man said eagerly, rubbing his hands together with greedy satisfaction. "Monsieur est sage--ees, vat you say?--ees ver-ree wise. Monsieur est Américain--n'est-ce pas?--un étranger--comme vous, mademoiselle . . . et vous, monsieur . . . et vous, mademoiselle--you are 'ere zu meck ze tour--zu be libre--free--n'est-ce pas--zu avoid ze complications--"

  "But," said Elinor, in a bewildered tone, "--what is--I don't understand--"

  "Alors," the Frenchman said, "eet ees bettaire to avoid ze complications--oui! Ah," he said, with an arching glance at Starwick, "mais Monsieur est sage . . . est très, très sage! C'est toujours mieux de faire des réparations . . . et éviter les conséquences plus sérieuses."

  "But!" cried Elinor again, her astonishment growing, "I don't understand. What reparations are you talking about?"

  "Zese, madame!" the Frenchman said, and coughing portentously, he rattled the flimsy sheets of paper in his hand, held them up before his eyes, and began to read:

  "Pour l'endommagement d'un veston du soir--trois cents francs!"

  "What? What?" said Elinor in a small, chilled tone. "For--what?"

  "Mais oui, madame!" the Frenchman now cried passionately, for the first time rising to the heights of moral indignation, "--un veston du soir complet--ruiné, madame!--complètement, absolument ruiné! . . . Trois cents francs, monsieur," he said cunningly, turning to Starwick, "--c'est pas cher! . . . Pour moi, oui!--c'est cher--mais pour vous--ah-h!" he waved his dirty fingers and laughed with scornful deprecation, "--c'est rien! Rien du tout." He rattled the flimsy paper in his hands, cleared his throat, and went on:

  "Pour l'endommagement d'une chemise--une chemise, n'est-ce pas, du soir?" he looked up inquiringly, "--cinquante francs"--

  "But this," gasped Elinor, "this is--" She looked at Starwick with an astounded face. Starwick said nothing.

  "Pour l'angoisse mentale," the Frenchman continued.

  "What?" Elinor gasped and looked at Ann. "What did he say?"

  "Mental anguish," Ann answered curtly. "All right," she turned to the Frenchman, "how much is the mental anguish?"

  "C'est cinq cents francs, mademoiselle."

  "But this man?" cried Elinor, turning to Ann with an air of astounded enlightenment--"this man is--"

  "He's a shyster lawyer, yes!" Ann said bitterly. "Couldn't you see it from the first?"

  "Ah, mademoiselle,"--the Frenchman began with a reproachful grimace, and a little, deprecating movement of his fingers, "--you are--"

  "How much?" Ann answered in her level, toneless French. "How much do you want?"

  "Vous comprenez, mademoiselle--"

  "How much?" she said harshly. "How much do you want?"

  His furtive eyes gleamed with a sudden fox-glint of eager greed.

  "Mille francs!" he said eagerly. "Mille francs pour tout ensemble! . . . Pour vous, mademoiselle"--he laughed again with scornful deprecation as he waved his grimy angers--"c'est rien--pour moi--"

  She got up abruptly, went over to the shelf that ran around the wall and got her purse. She opened it, took out a roll of bills, and coming back tossed them on the table before him.

  "But mademoiselle"--he stammered, unable to believe his good luck, his eyes glued upon the roll of bills in a stare of hypnotic fascination.

  "Give me a receipt," she said.

  "Comment?" he looked puzzled for a moment, then cried, "Ah-h! Un reçu! Mais oui, mais oui, mademoiselle! Tout de suite!"

  Trembling with frantic haste he scrawled out a receipt on a sheet of yellow paper, gave it to her, clutched the banknotes with a trembling claw, and stuffed them in his wallet.

  "Now get out," said Ann.

  "Mademoiselle?" he scrambled hastily to his feet, clutched his briefcase and his hat, and looked nervously at her--"vous dites?"

  "Get out of here," she said, and began to move slowly towards him.

  He scrambled for the door like a frightened cat, stammering:

  "Mais oui . . . mais parfaitement . . . mais"--he almost stumbled going down the steps, glancing back with nervous apprehension as he went. She shut the door behind him, came back, sat down in her chair, and stared sullenly at her plate, saying nothing. Starwick was crimson in the face, but did not look at anyone and did not speak. Elinor was busy with her napkin: she had lifted it to her face and was holding it firmly across her mouth. From time to time her breast and stomach and her heavy shoulders trembled in a kind of shuddering convulsion, smothered and explosive snorts and gasps came from her.

  It got too much for her: they heard a faint, choked shriek, she rose and rushed blindly across the room, entered the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. And then they heard peal after peal of laughter, shrieks and whoops and yells of it, and finally a dead silence, broken at times by exhausted gasps. Ann continued to look sullenly and miserably at her plate. As for Starwick, he sat there wearily detached, impassive, magnificent as always, but his face had the hue and colour of boiled lobster.

  LXXXII

  One night, in a small bar or bistro upon the hill of Montmartre, Starwick met a young Frenchman
who was to become the companion of his adventures in many strange and devious ways thereafter. It was about four o'clock in the morning: after the usual nightly circuit of the gilded pleasure resorts, cafés and more unsavoury dives and stews of the district, Starwick had become very drunk and unruly, had quarrelled with Elinor and Ann when they tried to take him home, and since that time had been wandering aimlessly through the district, going from one cheap bar to another.

  The women hung on doggedly; Starwick had refused to let them accompany him, and they had asked Eugene to stay with him and try to keep him out of trouble. Eugene, in fact, was only less drunk than his companion, but fortified by that sense of pride and duty which a trust imposed by two lovely women can give a young man, he hung on, keeping pace with Starwick, drink for drink, until the whole night fused into a drunken blur, a rout of evil faces, the whole to be remembered later as jags of splintered light upon a chain of darkness, as flying images, fixed, instant, and intolerably bright, in the great blank of memory. And out of all these blazing pictures of the night and the wild reel of their debauch, one would remain for ever after to haunt his vision mournfully. It was the memory--or rather the consciousness--of the two women, Ann and Elinor, waiting in the dark, following the blind weave of their drunken path, all through the mad kaleidoscope of night, never approaching them, but always there. He had not seemed to look at them, to notice them, and yet later he had always known that they were there. And the memory fused to one final mournful image that was to return a thousand times to haunt him in the years to come. He and Starwick had come out of one of the bars that broke the darkness of the long steep hill, and were reeling down past shuttered stores and old dark houses towards the invitation of another blaze of light.