“You had occasion to observe him often?” asked Cosmo, simply because he was reluctant to go back to his writing.
“Our paths seldom crossed,” stated the other simply. “But some time after the abdication I was passing through Valence — it’s a tramp’s business, you know, to keep moving — and I just had a good look at him outside the post-house. You may take it from me, he won’t reach the term of the Psalmist. Well, Mr. Latham, when I take a survey of the past, here we are, the Corsi-can and I, within, say, a hundred miles of each other, at the end of twenty years of tramping, and, frankly, which of us is the better off when all’s said and done?”
“That’s a point of view,” murmured Cosmo wearily. He added, however, that there were various ways of appreciating the careers of the world’s great men.
“There are,” assented the other. “For instance, you would say that nothing short of the whole of Europe was needed to crush that fellow. But Pozzo di Borgo thinks that he has done it all by himself.”
At the name of the Emperor’s Corsican enemy Cosmo raised his head. He had caught sight in Paris of that personage at one or other of those great receptions from which he used to come away disgusted with the world and dissatisfied with himself. The doctor seemed inwardly amused by his recollection of Pozzo di Borgo.
“He said to me,” he continued, “cAh! If Bonaparte had had the sense not to quarrel with me he wouldn’t be in Elba now.’ What do you think of that, Mr. Latham? Is that a point of view?”
“I should call it mad egotism.”
“Yes. But the most amusing thing is that there is some truth in it. The private enmity of one man may be more dangerous and more effective than the hatred of millions on public grounds. Pozzo has the ear of the Russian Emperor. The fate of the Bourbons hung on a hair. Alexander’s word was law — and who knows!”
Cosmo, plunged in abstraction, was repeating to himself mechanically, “The fate of the Bourbons hung on a hair — the fate of the Bourbons.” . . . Those words seemed meaningless. He tried to rouse himself. “Yes, Alexander,” he murmured vaguely. The doctor raised his voice suddenly in a peevish tone.
“I am not talking of Alexander of Macedon, Mr. Latham.” His vanity had been hurt by Cosmo’s attitude. The young man’s faint smile placated him, and the incongruous dimples reappeared on the doctor’s cheeks while he continued: “Here you are. For Pozzo, Napoleon has always been a starveling squireen. For the Prince, he has been principally the born enemy of good taste. . . .”
“The Prince?” repeated Cosmo, struggling to keep his head above the black waters of melancholia which seemed to lap about his very lips. “You have said the Prince, haven’t you? What Prince?”
“Why, ‘lalleyrand, of course. He did once tell him so, too. Pretty audacious! What? . . . Well, I don’t know. Suppose you were master of the world, and somebody were to tell you something of the sort to your face — what could you do? Nothing. You would have to gulp it, feeling pretty small. A private gentleman of good position could resent such a remark from an equal, but a master of the world couldn’t. A master of the world, Mr. Latham, is very small potatoes; and I will tell you why: it’s because he is alone of his kind, stuck up like a thief in the pillory, for dead cats and cabbage stalks to be thrown at him. A devil of a position to be in unless for a moment. But no man born of woman is a monster. There never was such a thing. A man who would really be a monster would arouse nothing but loathing and hatred. But this man has been loved by an army, by a people. For years his soldiers died for him with joy. Now, didn’t they?”
Cosmo perceived that he had managed to forget himself. “Yes,” he said, “that cannot be denied.”
“No,” continued the doctor. “And now, within twenty yards of us, on the other side of the wall there are millions of people who still love him. Hey! Cantelucci!” he called across the now empty length of the room. “Come here.”
The innkeeper, who had been noiselessly busy about a distant sideboard, approached with deference, in his shirt-sleeves, girt with a long apron of which one corner was turned up, and with a white cap on his head. Being asked whether it was true that Italians loved Napoleon, he answered by a bow and “Excellency.”
“You think yourself that he is a great man, don’t you?” pursued the doctor, and obtained another bow and another murmured “Excellency.”
The doctor turned to Cosmo triumphantly. “You see! And Bonaparte has been stealing from them all he could lay his hands on for years. All their works of art. I am surprised he didn’t take away the wall on which The Last Supper is painted. It makes my blood boil. I love Italy, you know.” He addressed again the motionless Cantelucci.
“But what is it that makes you people love this man?”
This time Cantelucci did not bow. He seemed to make an effort: “Signore, it is the idea.”
The doctor directed his eyes again to Cosmo in silence. At last the innkeeper stepped back three paces before turning away from his English clients. The dimples had vanished from the doctor’s full cheeks. There was something contemptuous in the peevishness of his thin lips and the extreme hardness of his eyes. They softened somewhat before he addressed Cosmo.
“Here is another point of view for you. Devil only knows what that idea is, but I suspect it’s vague enough to include every illusion that ever fooled mankind.
There must be some charm in that gray coat and that old three-cornered hat of his, for the man himself has betrayed every hatred and every hope that have helped him on his way.”
“What I am wondering at,” Cosmo said at last, “is whether you have ever talked like this to anybody before.”
The doctor seemed taken aback a little.
“Oh. You mean about Bonaparte,” he said. “If you had gone to that other inn, Pollegrini’s, more suitable to your nationality and social position, you would have heard nothing of that kind. I am not very communicative really, but to sit at meals like two mutes would have been impossible. WTiat could we have conversed about? One must have some subject other than the weather and, frankly, what other subject would we have had here in Genoa, or for that matter in any other spot of the civilized world? I know there are amongst us in England a good many young men who call themselves revolutionists and even republicans. Charming young men, generous and all that. Friends of Boney. You might be one of them.”
As he paused markedly Cosmo murmured that he was hardly prepared to state what he was. That other inn, the Pollegrini, was full when he arrived.
“Well, there had been three departures this morning,” the doctor informed him. “You can have your things packed up this afternoon and carried across the Place. You know, by staying here you make yourself conspicuous to the spies, not to speak of the thieves; they ask themselves: ‘What sort of inferior Englishman is that?’ With me it is different. I am known for a man who has his own work to do. People are curious. And as my work is confidential I prefer to keep out of the way rather than have to be rude. But for you it would be more amusing to live over there. New faces all the time; endless gossip about all sorts of people.”
“I do not think it is worth while to change now,” said Cosmo coldly.
“Of course not, if you are not going to prolong your stay. If you project a visit to Elba, Livorno is the port for that. And if you are anxious to hear about Napoleon you will hear plenty of gossip about him there. Here you have nothing but my talk.”
“I have found it very interesting,” said Cosmo, rising to go away. The doctor smiled without amiability. He was determined never to let Cosmo guess that he knew of his acquaintance with the people occupying the palace guarded by the symbolic griffins. Of that fact he had been made aware by the Count de Montevesso who, once he had got the doctor into Clelia’s room, decided to take him into his confidence — on the ground that one must be frank with a medical man. The real reason was, however, that knowing Doctor Martel to be employed on secret political work by the statesmen of the Alliance, and having a very great idea of his occult influe
nces in all sorts of spheres, he hoped to get from him another sort of assistance. His last words were, “You see yourself the state the child is in. I want that popinjay moved out of Genoa.”
The only answer of the doctor to this, and the last sound during that professional visit that Count de Montevesso heard from him, was a short wooden laugh. That man of political intrigues, confidential missions (often he had more than one at a time on his hands), inordinately vain of his backstairs importance, was not mercenary. He had always preserved a most independent attitude towards his employers. To him the Count de Montevesso was but a common stupid soldier of fortune of no importance and of no position except as the son-in-law of the Marquis d’Armand. He had never seen him before, but his marital life was known to him as it was known to the rest of the world. To be waylaid by a strange priest just as he was leaving the Marquis’s room was annoying enough, but he could not very well refuse the request since it seemed to be a case of sudden illness. He was soon enlightened as to its nature by Clelia, who had treated him and the Count to another of her indescribable performances. Characteristically enough the doctor had never been for a moment irritated with the girl. He behaved by her tempestuous bedside like a man of science, calm, attentive, impenetrable. But it was afterwards, when he had been drawn aside by the Count for a confidential talk, that he had asked himself whether he were dreaming or awake. His scorn for the man helped him to preserve his self-command, and to the end the Count was not intelligent enough to perceive its character.
The doctor left the Palazzo about an hour after Cosmo (but not by the same staircase) and on his way to his inn gave rein to his indignation. Did the stupid brute imagine that he had any sort of claim on his services? Ah, he wanted that popinjay removed from Genoa! Indeed! And what the devil did he care for it? Was he expected to arrange a neat little assassination to please that solemn wooden imbecile? The doctor’s sense of self-importance was grievously hurt. Even in the morning after a good night’s rest he had not shaken off the impression. However, he was reasonable enough not to make Cosmo in any way responsible for what he defined to himself as the most incredibly offensive experience of his life. He only looked at him when he came to lunch with a sort of acid amusement as the being who had had the power to arouse a passion of love in the primitive soul of that curious little savage.
As the meal proceeded, the doctor seemed to notice that his young countryman was somehow changed. He watched him covertly. What had happened to him since last evening? Surely he hadn’t been smitten himself by the little savage that under no circumstances could have been made fit to be a housemaid in an English family.
After he had been left by Cosmo alone in the dining room, the doctor’s body continued to loll in the chair while his thoughts continued to circle around that funny affair, of which you couldn’t say whether it was love at first sight or a manifestation of some inherited lunacy. Quite a good-looking young man. Out of the common too, in a distinguished way. Altogether a specimen of one’s countrymen one could well be proud of, mused further the doctor, whose tastes had been formed by much intercourse with all kinds of people. Characteristically enough, too, he felt for a moment sorry in his grumpy contemptuous way for the little dishevelled savage with a hooked nose and burning cheeks and her thin sticks of bare arms. The doctor was humane. The origin of his reputation sprang from his humanity. But his thought, as soon as it left Clelia, stopped short as it were before another image that replaced it in his mind. He had remembered the Countess de Montevesso. He knew her of old, by sight and reputation. He had seen her no further back than last night by the side of the old Marquis’s chair. Now he had seen the Count de Montevesso himself, he could well believe all the stories of a lifelong jealousy. The doctor’s hard, active eyes stared fixedly at the truth. It was not because of that little savage that that gloomy self-tormenting ass of a drill sergeant to an Indian prince wanted young Latham removed from Genoa.
Oh, dear no. That wasn’t it at all. It was much more serious.
Before he walked out of the empty dining room Doctor Martel concluded that it would be perhaps just as well for young Latham not to linger too long in Genoa.
II
Cosmo, having returned to his room, sat down again at the writing table: for was not this day to be devoted to correspondence? Long after the shade had invaded the greater part of the square below he went on, while the faint shuffle of footsteps and the faint murmur of voices reached him from the pavement like the composite sound of agitated insect life that can be heard in the depths of a forest. It required all his courage to keep on, piling up words which dealt exclusively with towns, roads, rivers, mountains, the colours of the sky. It was like labouring the description of the scenery of a stage after a great play had come to an end. A vain thing. And still he travelled on. Having at last descended into the Italian plain (for the benefit of Henrietta), he dropped his pen and thought: “At this rate I will never arrive in Genoa.” He fell back in his chair like a weary traveller. He was suddenly overcome by that weary distaste a frank nature feels after an effort at concealing an overpowering sentiment.
But had he really anything to conceal? he asked himself.
Suddenly the door flew open and Spire marched in with four lighted candles on a tray. It was only then that Cosmo became aware how late it was. “Had I not better tear all this up?” he thought, looking down at the sheets before him.
Spire put two candlesticks on the table, disposed the two others, one each side of the mantelpiece, and was going out.
“Wait!” cried Cosmo.
It was like a cry of distress. Spire shut the door quietly and turned about, betraying no emotion. Cosmo seized the pen again and concluded hastily:
I have been in Genoa for the last two days. I have seen Adele and the Marquis. They send their love. You shall have lots about them in my next. I have no time now to tell you what a wonderful person she has become. But perhaps you would not think so.
After he had signed it the thought struck him that there was nothing about Napoleon in his letter. He must put in something about Napoleon. He added a P.S.:
You can form no idea of the state of suspense in which all classcs live here from the highest to the lowest, as to what may happen next. All their thoughts are concentrated on Bonaparte. Rumours are flying about of some sort of violence that may be offered to him, assassination, kidnapping. It’s difficult to credit it all, though I do believe that the Congress in Vienna is capable of any atrocity. A person I met here suggested that I should go to Livorno. Perhaps I will. But I have lost, I don’t know why, all desire to travel. Should I find a ship ready to sail for England in Livorno, I may take passage in her and come home at once by sea.
Cosmo collected the pages, and while closing the packet asked himself whether he ought to tell her that. Was it the fact that he had lost all wish to travel? However, he let Spire take the packet to the post and during the man’s absence took a turn or two in the room. He had got through the day. Now there was the evening to get through somehow. But when it occurred to him that the evening would be followed by the hours of an endless night, filled by the conflict of shadowy thoughts that haunt the birth of a passion, the desolation of the prospect was so overpowering that he could only meet it with a bitter laugh. Spire, returning, stood thunderstruck at the door.
“What’s the matter with you? Have you seen a ghost?” asked Cosmo, who ceased laughing suddenly and fixed the valet with distracted eyes.
“No, sir, certainly not. I was wondering whether you hadn’t better dine in your room.”
“What do you mean? Am I not fit to be seen?” asked Cosmo captiously, glancing at himself in the mirror as though the crisis through which he had passed in the last three or four minutes could have distorted his face. Spire made no answer. The sound of that laugh had made him lose his conventional bearing; while Cosmo wondered what had happened to that imbecile and glared at him suspiciously.
“Give me my coat,” he said at last. “I am going d
ownstairs.”
This broke the spell and Spire, getting into motion, regained his composure.
“Noisy company down there, sir. I thought you might not like it.”
Cosmo felt a sudden longing to hear noise, lots of it, senseless, loud, common, absurd noise; noise loud enough to prevent one from thinking, the sort of noise that would cause one to become, as it were, insensible.
“WTiat do you want?” he asked savagely of Spire, who was hovering at his back.
“I am ready to help you with your coat, sir,” said Spire, in an apathetic voice. He had been profoundly shocked. After his master had gone out, slamming the door behind him, he busied himself with a stony face in putting the room to rights, before he blew out the candles and left it to get his supper.
“Didn’t you advise me this morning to go to Livorno?” asked Cosmo, falling heavily into the chair.
Doctor Martel was already at table, and, except that he had changed his boots for silk stockings and shoes, he might not have moved from there all the afternoon.
“Livorno,” repeated that strange man. “Did I? Yes. The road along the Riviera di Levante is delightful for any person sensible to the beauties of Italian landscapes.” He paused with a sour expression in the noise of voices filling the room, and muttered that no doubt Cantelucci found that sort of thing pay but that the place was becoming impossible.
Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) Page 506
