The Enemies of Women Part 51

As a matter of fact, Michael had heard the sound of a piano, deadened by the thick walls.

The woman, convinced that the artist would never hear the blows of the knocker, disappeared around the corner. Shortly afterward, her head and the child she was carrying in her arms appeared above the edge of the wall.

"Maestro!" she shouted. "A gentleman to see you! A visitor!"

And she came back again, smoothing her skirts as though she had just descended a ladder.

The door groaned on its hinges, as it opened, and Spadoni appeared in the opening.

"Oh, your Highness!"

There was no expression of surprise in his smile. He greeted the Prince as though he had seen him the day before.

Then he guided him through corridors and drawing-rooms, which were sunk in deep multi-colored shadow, and smelled of dust and mold. It had been many months since the stained gla.s.s windows had been opened, or the curtains drawn. Spadoni lived his entire life in a single room. Lubimoff collided with furniture and curios, as he advanced, almost upsetting two huge j.a.panese vases, and nearly impaling himself on the numerous projections in the profuse decoration of a "romantic studio," which had been in style twenty-five years before.

They finally returned to the light, a dazzling light that entered by three open doors overlooking a terrace bordering the ravine. It was the "hall" of the villa, decorated with Hindustanee draperies and divans.

The Prince saw that Spadoni had excellent quarters in his "tomb". A large grand-piano was the only piece of furniture kept clean in this dust-invaded room. On the music rack several alb.u.ms of music in ma.n.u.script lay opened.

Seeing that Lubimoff noticed them, the pianist gave a look of despair.

His poverty was very great: he was forced to give concerts in order to live, and found himself obliged to study the new operas.

He spoke of this labor as though it represented the cruelest imposition of inexorable Reality, the greatest degradation in his life.

Various ladies who organized benefits for the soldiers had sought his aid. He played for nothing, "out of patriotism", but the good ladies always found a way of giving him a fair sum. His poverty was tremendous!

He was going to the gambling rooms only at long intervals. He hadn't enough money to play even the roulette wheel, where the stakes were but five francs!

The Prince started to read the t.i.tles of the scores, but Spadoni covered them up in comic haste.

"Awful rot! You mustn't look at those, your Highness. Here on the Riviera, when the ladies are getting on in years, and do not find any one to fall in love with them any more, they devote themselves to writing love songs or dance music for great spectacles; and the Casino accepts their work in order not to offend them. It results that on certain days the Monte Carlo Theater becomes the Temple of Musical Imbecility. No; it would be better for you to see what we are giving this afternoon. It is the work of a millionairess who writes the whole thing, music and words."

And he read aloud the t.i.tles of various "picturesque scenes": _Dialogue between the b.u.t.terfly and the Rose, What the Palm Tree said to the Century Plant, Prayer of the Gra.s.shopper to Our Father the Sun._

"Fortunately, your Highness, this humiliating situation will not last. I have a way out of it--a way out of it!"

And forgetting the piano, the scores, and his musical degradation, Spadoni suddenly launched into the world of dreams. He knew the secret of the great man, the Greek, who was winning millions at the Sporting-Club. He had guessed it, with his own cunning, after worming certain data out of a man who accompanied the lofty personage. It was a simple combination, like all ideas of genius. For example....

And he reached for a pack of cards which was on the table, lying on a number of alb.u.ms bound in red: The nine Symphonies of Beethoven.

"Oh no--if you please!" the Prince brusquely restrained him, to keep him from plunging into that mania for demonstrating.

"I hoped to meet Castro here," he said, in a quiet voice, a moment later.

Spadoni seemed to awaken.

"Castro?... Oh, yes! He lived with me for a few days, but he went away."

Still obsessed by his marvelous combination, he talked in an absent-minded manner without showing the slightest interest in what he was saying. Castro had expressed a desire to live with him; he had told him so, late one afternoon in the Casino, and Spadoni had left Villa Sirena to accompany him. It was the least a friend could do!

"But when did he go? Where is he?"

"He went day before yesterday, and must be in Paris. A fool trip!

Imagine, your Highness, during the last few days he had an extraordinary run of luck, winning as high as twenty thousand francs. If he had only gone on! But he wouldn't! He was in a hurry. He gave me five hundred francs, and I lost them immediately; it was very little money for my combination. I think he was going to be a soldier; he kept talking to me about the Foreign Legion. You can expect almost any foolishness from him. A man who is winning and runs away!..."

Then, as though the disordered workings of his brain were functioning logically for a few seconds, he added, with a smile of cunning:

"Dona Clorinda also went to Paris. She left two days before him.... Oh, your Highness! How I think of what you told us at the lunch once about women! I know them, Prince: They are all enemies to be feared."

And he pointed spitefully to _What the Palm Tree said to the Century Plant_.

In vain the Prince kept questioning him. The pianist did not know anything more, and Castro's fate did not arouse his curiosity. He had gone to Paris, to be a soldier, and Spadoni had so many friends, already, who were soldiers!

The "General" being a woman, aroused more interest in him; she stimulated his love of gossip.

"I think," he said, with a smile that showed his hate for women, "that she went away out of jealousy, out of pique. The d.u.c.h.ess de Delille took that Lieutenant away from her, though the 'General' had been the one to introduce them. It seems even that this Lieutenant has had a duel...."

The pianist grew pale, looking at Lubimoff with an expression of terror.

His look was like that of a person who is talking aloud when he imagines himself alone, and then suddenly notices that some one is listening to him. He sat there embarra.s.sed and stammering:

"I don't know ... people tell so many lies!... Women's gossip!"

Lubimoff felt a like embarra.s.sment on realizing that even Spadoni had taken up his adventure with delight.

He felt there was no use in continuing the conversation with an imbecile like that. He arose, and the pianist, still trembling at his own indiscretion, showed similar signs of haste to end the visit.

"And Novoa?" asked the Prince on reaching the outer door. "Has he also left?"

No; he was still in Monaco, working at the Museum, when he did not have any more urgent business. They met very seldom. How could they see each other if he, Spadoni, on account of his poverty, refrained from entering the gambling rooms?

"He goes on playing, your Highness; but very badly, with the timidity of a novice, and for that reason he loses. He isn't made of the same stuff that we are, we who are true gamblers."

And the pianist drew himself up to his full height as he said this, as though he had never lost and possessed all the secrets of chance.

"I sent him two tickets for this afternoon's concert: one for him and the other for that Senorita Valeria, the d.u.c.h.ess's companion. Poor man!

Always doing something silly, like a young lover!"

But his smile, which was that of a superior person exempt from such humiliations, disappeared, as he realized that once more he was saying something offensive to the Prince.

The latter pa.s.sed close to the tomb again, but without seeing it, or even remembering the unknown General. Castro had gone!... Castro wanted to become a soldier!...

After going down along the Monegetti road as far as the parade ground of La Condamine, he ascended once more the gently sloping avenue that leads up to Monaco. After his long seclusion, this walk aroused a certain pleasant tingling in his muscles.

Finding himself between the two turrets that mark the entrance to the gardens, the memory of Alicia flashed across his brain. There, a little farther on, they had gotten out of their carriage; behind the trees was a bench on which he first had told her of his love; below, at the edge of the rocks, lay the solitary path along which they had pa.s.sed as though treading on air, wrapped in the twilight and with lips joined.

Then, had come the tearing of her dress, the sweet comical difficulties in mending it, and the pearl pin of the Princess.... Only a few weeks had pa.s.sed, and these happenings seemed to belong to another happier race of beings, to have taken place on a different planet, bathed in a light that was different from the light of earth.

He made an effort to forget. At present he was standing on an asphalt square, opposite the steps of the Museum of Oceanography. For the first time he noticed the architectural decorations of the white building.

They had adopted as an ornamental motif the cl.u.s.ter of twisting arms of the octopus, the semi-circular striations of sea-sh.e.l.ls, the trailing filmy umbrella form of the jelly-fish. He observed the sculptural groups symbolizing the powers of the Ocean, or the arts of the navigators, he read the names carved on the frieze of the edifice, and the t.i.tles of s.h.i.+ps famous for scientific explorations.

He stood there motionless for a long time, seeking a pretext to justify his visit. Finally he went up the steps of the building, and found himself in a deep, cool shade like that of a Cathedral, but without the stale, musty odor of shut-in places, and with a whiff of salt air coming from the nearby sea. He knew the stately edifice: on one side was the vast hall for the lectures and scientific a.s.semblies, like that of a parliament building, with lamp shades of frosted crystal affecting the different shapes of animals from the ocean depths; in the middle of the vestibule was the statue of Prince Albert, dressed as a sailor and leaning on the rail of the bridge of his yacht; on the opposite side and on the upper floors, were the collections gathered during the voyages of the famous scientific explorer: thousands of fishes and molluscs, gigantic skeletons of whales, some _kaiaks_ and fis.h.i.+ng implements from the polar seas. On the lower floors, under his feet, in that second palace which, clinging to the cliff, descended to the sea, were the aquaria, where the mysterious creatures of the depths continued their lives in crystal cages amid the silver bubbles of running water.