She engulfed the corpse methodically,
beginning at the head, working her way through breast and entrails while
her chops dripped with gore, and ending with the tail, which gave some
little trouble to masticate, on account of its length and tenuity.
Altogether, decidedly good sport....
Then O - - disappeared from my ken. Years went by. Improving health, in
the course of time, tempted him back into his former habits; he built
himself a shooting lodge in the Alps. We were neighbours again, having
no ridge worth mentioning save the Schadona pass between us. I joined
him once or twice - chamois, instead of rats. This place was constructed
on a pretentious scale, and he must have paid fantastic sums for the
transport of material to that remote region (you could watch the chamois
from the very windows) and for the rights over all the country round
about. [5] O - - told me that the superstitious Catholic peasants raised
every kind of difficulty and objection to his life there; it was a
regular conspiracy. I suggested a more friendly demeanour, especially
towards their priests. That was not his way. He merely said: "I'll be
even with them. Mark my words."....
There followed another long interval, during which he vanished
completely. Then, one April afternoon on the Posilipo, a sailor climbed
up with a note from him. The Consul-General said I lived here. If so,
would I come to Bertolini's hotel at once? He was seriously ill.
Neighbours once more!
I left then and there, and was appalled at the change in him. His skin
was drawn tight as parchment over a face the colour of earth, there was
no flesh on his hands, the voice was gone, though fire still gleamed
viciously in the hollows of his eyes. That raven-black hair was streaked
with grey and longer than ever, which gave him an incongruously devout
appearance. He had taken pitiful pains to look fresh and appetizing.
So we sat down to dinner on Bertolini's terrace, in the light of a full
moon. O - - ate nothing whatever.
He arrived from Egypt some time ago, on his way to England. The doctor
had forbidden further travelling or any other exertion on account of
various internal complications; among other things, his heart, he told
me, was as large as a child's head.
"I hope you can stand this food," he whispered, or rather croaked. "For
God's sake, order anything you fancy. As for me, I can't even eat like
you people. Asses' milk is what I get, and slops. Done for, this time.
I'm a dying man; anybody can see that. A dying man - - "
"Something," I said, "is happening to that moon."
It was in eclipse. Half the bright surface had been ominously obscured
since we took our seats. O - - scowled at the satellite, and went on:
"But I won't be carried out of this dirty hole (Bertolini's) - not feet
first. Would you mind my gasping another day or two at your place? Rolfe
has told me about it."
We moved him, with infinite trouble. The journey woke his dormant
capacities for invective. He cursed at the way they jolted him about; he
cursed himself into a collapse that day, and we thought it was all over.
Then he rallied, and became more abusive than before. Nothing was right.
Stairs being forbidden, the whole lower floor of the house was placed at
his disposal; the establishment was dislocated, convulsed; and still he
swore. He swore at me for the better part of a week; at the servants,
and even at the good doctor Malbranc, who came every morning in a
specially hired steam-launch to make that examination which always ended
in his saying to me: "You must humour him. Heart-patients are apt to be
irritable." Irritable was a mild term for this particular patient. His
appetite, meanwhile, began to improve.
It was soon evident that my cook had not the common sense to prepare his
invalid dishes; a second one was engaged. Then, my gardener and
sailor-boy being manifest idiots, it became necessary to procure an
extra porter to fetch the numberless odd things he needed from town
every day, and every hour of the day. I wrote to the messenger people to
send the most capable lad on their books; we would engage him by the
week, at twice his ordinary pay. He arrived; a limp and lean nonentity,
with a face like a boiled codfish.
This miserable youth promptly became the object of O - - 's bitterest
execration. I soon learnt to dread those conferences, those terrific
scenes which I was forced to witness in my capacity of interpreter.
O - - revelled in them with exceeding gusto. He used to gird his loins
for the effort of vituperation; I think he regarded the performance as a
legitimate kind of exercise - his last remaining one. As soon as the boy
returned from town and presented himself with his purchases, O - - would
glare at him for two or three minutes with such virulence, such
concentration of hatred and loathing, such a blaze of malignity in his
black eyes, that one fully expected to see the victim wither away; all
this in dead silence. Then he would address me in his usual whisper,
quite calmly, as though referring to the weather:
"Would you mind telling that double-distilled abortion that if he goes
on making such a face I shall have to shoot him. Tell him, will you;
there's a good fellow."
And I had to "humour" him.
"The gentleman" - I would say - "begs you will try to assume another
expression of countenance," or words to that effect; whereto he would
tearfully reply something about the will of God and the workmanship of
his father and mother, honest folks, both of them. I was then obliged to
add gravely:
"You had better try, all the same, or he may shoot you.
