Stranger Things

"Very good, thanks," Grimshaw said.

Beyond the village he quickened his pace, and easing the load on his back by putting his hands under the leather straps, he swung toward Finhaut. Behind him he heard the faint ringing of the church bells in Salvan. Waram had reported the "tragedy." Grimshaw could fancy the excitement--the priest hurrying toward the "wall" with his crucifix in his hands; the barber, a-quiver with morbid excitement; the stolid guide, not at all surprised, rather gratified, preparing to make the descent to recover the body of that "tall monsieur" who had, after all, "arrived." The telegraph wires were already humming with the message. In a few hours Dagmar would know.

He laughed aloud. The white road spun beneath him. His hands, pressed against his body by the weight of the leather straps, were hot and wet; he could feel the loud beating of his heart.

His senses were acute; he had never before felt with such gratification the warmth of the sun or known the ecstasy of motion. He saw every flower in the roadbank, every small glacial brook, every new conformation of the snow clouds hanging above the ragged peaks of the Argentières. He sniffed with delight the pungent wind from off the glaciers, the short, warm puffs of grass-scented air from the fields in the Valley of Trient. He noticed the flight of birds, the lazy swinging of pine boughs, the rainbow spray of waterfalls. Once he shouted and ran, mad with exuberance. Again he flung himself down by the roadside and, lying on his back, sang outrageous songs and laughed and slapped his breast with both hands.

That night he came to Chamonix and got lodging in a small hotel on the skirts of the town. His spirits fell when he entered the room. He put his pedlar's pack on the floor and sat down on the narrow bed, suddenly conscious of an enormous fatigue. His feet burned, his legs ached, his back was raw where the heavy pack had rested. He thought: "What am I doing here? I have nothing but the few hundred pounds Waram gave me. I'm alone. Dead and alive."

He scarcely looked up when the door opened and a young girl came in, carrying a pitcher of water and a coarse towel. She hesitated and said rather prettily: "You'll be tired, perhaps?"

Grimshaw felt within him the tug of the old personality. He stared at her, suddenly conscious that she was a woman and that she was smiling at him. Charming, in her way. Bare arms. A little black bodice laced over a white waist. Straight blonde hair, braided thickly and twisted around her head. A peasant, but pretty.... You see, his desire was to frighten her, as he most certainly would have frightened her had he been true to Cecil Grimshaw. But the impulse passed, leaving him sick and ashamed. He heard her saying: "A sad thing occurred to-day down the valley. A gentleman.... Salvan ... a very famous gentleman.... And they have telegraphed his wife.... I heard it from Simon Ravanel.... It seems that the gentleman was smashed to bits--brise en morceau. Épouvantable, n'est ce pas?"

Grimshaw began to tremble. "Yes, yes," he said irritably. "But I am tired, little one. Go out, and shut the door!"

The girl gave him a startled glance, frightened at last, but for nothing more than the lost look in his eyes. He raised his arms, and she fled with a little scream.

Grimshaw sat for a moment staring at the door. Then with a violent gesture he threw himself back on the bed, buried his face in the dirty pillow and wept as a child weeps, until, just before dawn, he fell asleep....

As far as the public knows, Cecil Grimshaw perished on the "wall"--perished and was buried at Broadenham beneath a pyramid of chrysanthemums. Perished, and became an English immortal--his sins erased by his unconscious sacrifice. Perished, and was forgiven by Dagmar. Yet hers was the victory--he belonged to her at last. She had not buried his body at Broadenham, but she had buried his work there. He could never write again....

During those days of posthumous whitewashing he read the papers with a certain contemptuous eagerness. Some of them he crumpled between his hands and threw away. He hated his own image, staring balefully from the first page of the illustrated reviews. He despised England for honouring him. Once, happening upon a volume of the "Vision of Helen"--the first edition illustrated by Beardsley--in a book-stall at Aix-les-Bains, he read it from cover to cover.

"Poor stuff," he said to the bookseller, tossing it down again. "Give me 'Ars ne Lupin'." And he paid two sous for a paper-covered, dog-eared, much-thumbed copy of the famous detective story, not because he intended to read it, but in payment for his hour of disillusionment. Then he slung his pack over his shoulders and tramped out into the country. He laughed aloud at the thought of Helen and her idolaters. A poetic hoax. Overripe words. Seductive sounds. Nonsense!

"Surely I can do better than that to-day," he thought.

He saw two children working in a field, and called to them.

"If you will give me a cup of cold water," he said, "I'll tell you a story."

"Gladly, monsieur."

The boy put down his spade, went to a brook which threaded the field and came back with an earthenware jug full to the brim. The little girl stared gravely at Grimshaw while he drank. Grimshaw wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"What story shall it be?" he demanded.

The little girl said quickly: "The black king and the white princess and the beast who lived in the wood."

"Not that one," the boy cried. "Tell us about a battle."

"I will sing about life," Grimshaw said.

It was hot in the field. A warm, sweet smell rose from the spaded earth and near by the brook rustled through the grass like a beautiful silver serpent. Grimshaw sat cross-legged on the ground and words spun from his lips--simple words. And he sang of things he had recently learned--the gaiety of birds, the strength of his arms, the scent of dusk, the fine crystal of a young moon, wind in a field of wheat....

At first the children listened. Then, because he talked so long, the little girl leaned slowly over against his shoulder and fell asleep, while the boy fingered the knives, jangled the key-rings, clipped grass stalks with the scissors, and wound the watches one after the other. The sun was low before Grimshaw left them. "When you are grown up," he said, "remember that Pierre Pilleux sang to you of life."

"Oui, monsieur," the boy said politely. "But I should like a watch."

Grimshaw shook his head. "The song is enough."

Thereafter he sang to any one who would listen to him. I say that he sang--I mean, of course, that he spoke his verses; it was a minstrel's simple improvisation. But there are people in the villages of southern France who still recall that ungainly, shambling figure. He had grown a beard; it crinkled thickly, hiding his mouth and chin. He laughed a great deal. He was not altogether clean. And he slept wherever he could find a bed--in farmhouses, cheap hotels, haylofts, stables, open fields. Waram's few hundred pounds were gone. The poet lived by his wits and his gift of song. And for the first time in his remembrance he was happy.

Then one day he read in Le Matin that Ada Rubenstein was to play "The Labyrinth" in Paris. Grimshaw was in Poitiers. He borrowed three hundred francs from the proprietor of a small café in the Rue Carnot, left his pack as security, and went to Paris. Can you imagine him in the theatre--it was the Odéon, I believe--conscious of curious, amused glances--a peasant, bulking conspicuously in that scented auditorium?

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