PROLOGUE.
It was a hill in Sussex during the early spring
of 1907, at dawn. A group of actors stood on the crest
with Hellebore, while the others strolled down to a path
which crossed the valley.
On the right of the hill was
the road leading back to London, and waiting there at this
moment were the four hackney carriages belonging to the
C ompal ny . The coachmen were gathered round the first
carriage polishing wine-glasses and putting them on a
large silver tray.
Hellebore was wearing a black overcoat too big
for him, and at his side, holding onto his trousers, stood
a child of about ten years.
They were both looking down
into the valley, a few feet from the other actors.
Helle-
-bore had thrown part of his overcoat t across the boy's
shoulders.
The first morning wind was beginning to blow.
Hellebore spoke to the child, glancing down at him:
"You were asleep, Edgar. We had to carry y ou
down to the cab."
"Jeanne promised to wake me up, but she didn't,
the bitch.
Did you see her?" the child asked, pouting.
"No, I only saw the Irish girl. Jeanne was still


asleep.
How is she?"
"Oh, all right."
"How are things at Monty Brane's?"
The child became instantly excited and gripped
Hellebore's trousers harder as he spoke, his eyes wide:
"Two of the ponies got something wrong with them, 1
he said. "Thly both went down together, a nd they had to
be shot."
Hellebore hodded, and they wa tc hed the valley below
in silence.
They stood close together, dreaming, while
the actors behind them talked a nd stamped their feet. At
the back of the hill was darkness, and before them was
light, increasing now.
"Have you been watching Jeanne la tely?" Hellebore
asked the child.
"Yes, but I don't like traj paze work.
She wal nts
me to try, but I don't like the work."
"Well, they can't make you do it if you don't wa nt
"Oh, Jeanne told me to tell you that people still
Said
said
talk about the Fins," "/Edgar tate Ea sleepily.
"Do they? I should never ha ve thought so."
"What was the Fins?"
"Your mother and I used to do a turn together.
Did you try those stunts I showed you?"
"Yes, and I did them on my own."
"I'11 come down and see you at it one day. I'll
ta ke y ou by surprise," 11 Hellebore said.


"Are you going to take me away this summer?"
"Well, the show comes off in the first week of
June, - I'1l write to Jear nne about it.
Don't sweat on
The cl hild was silent for a moment, then added:
"I heard Jeanne say to Monty you're a rich ma n.
Is it true?"
"Yes, I'm richer than those two rolled together.
Wha t were you doing listening?"
"I was next door. I heard them."
"Don't call Jeanne a bitch, either."
Hellebore put his arm round the child's shoulder
and turned to a young actress standing near him.
"Hear what he called Jeanne?" he asked her.
"Oh, I expect he hears worse than that."
"Down at Monty Brane's, y ou mean?"
Hellebore nodded:
"They have to grow up early down there."
"Has he started properly yet?" the actress asked.
"No, not till he's turned fourteen.
Then he'1l
be like his dad."
An actor came up from behind Hellebore and whispered
to him:
"Well, you can keep y our dawns, Jack."
Hellebore turned with a look of surprise, a nd la ughed.
"You'11 pull through," he said.
"There's some
brandy coming."
The coachmen brought the silver tray a nd glasses


to a stile at the foot of the hill, and when he saw them
Hellebore walked down with the others. When the compat ny
was together again he filled the glasses with bra ndy a nd
took the tray from one person to al nother.
While the carriages were being turned round they
stood drinking in silence, watching the dawn come up.
Hellebore bent down and gave Edgar a sip from his glass.




On the evening of Good Friday, 1920, Hellebore
was due to meet Albert Lorraine in the foyer of the Hôtel
de la Reine in the Rue de Rivoli.
The foyer was a long
hall with wicker chairs al nd palms on either side, and
at the end there was a wide staircase leading up to the
apartments. Albert Lorraine stood waiting at the foot
of the staircase in his evening clothes.
He glanced
at his watch, then touched his ha ir lightly with the tips
of his fingers. He was between fifty and sixty years
old, a small, plump ma n with a very pale face.
He had
tiny, delicate eyes and lips nervously pursed.
He walked back a nd glanced in at the lounge,
where there were already thirty or forty people, most of
them standing and talking together. A clock on the
foyer-wall chimed half-past seven.
Hellebore turned the corner of the first landing
and waved to Lorraine.
They smiled at each other.
When
he reached the foot of the staircase they shook ha nds in
silence, looking into each other's eyes.
Lorraine took
Hellebore's arm a's they went towards the lounge, and
asked him:
"Did the journey pass quickly?"
Hellebore was shy, gazing down at ti he carpet of
the hall.
"Yes, I enjoyed it, Albert," he answered.
Lorraine put his hal nd on his shoulder and walked


alower:
"There are fifty people coming tonight.
"Fifty? Do I know al ny of them?"
"You know Bernard Charpentier, and Eliza Manning,
Francine Berger, Jean and Pierre Duloi-Bordeau."
"Is Eiselheim here?"
Lorraine shook his head and told him that Eisel-
-heim had stayed at the thea tre.
"We've interrupted rehearsals, y ou see," he sa id.
Hellebore stopped.
"What, for me?"
"Yes. We wanted to give you a good welcome,
"Have you seen Eliza?"
"Yes. She's inside waiting for you."
Hellebore glanced into the lounge and instantly
took hold of Lorraine's arm. He drew him back from the
door, out of sight, into the hall again.
"Is all this for me?" he asked.
Lorraine nodded with a nervous sa mile, blinking
as he looked into Hellebore's eyes.
"But I don't know these people, #t Hellebore
whispered to him.
"I'll keep most of them away from you.
I do
promise that. We'll have the introd luctions after dinner."
They went into the lounge side by side and gost of
1 hoibll A
the guests turned to look at them.
manaodhanhaneda
MN E EV
ttA AdRABMAA1WE
ABBAAMANG


Hellebore was more at ease now.
He clasped Lorraine's
ha nd firmly under his arm and walked among the guests
smiling and bowing, geering at one or two of them closely
Nopt Fglr 2
every now and then, as if he had caught(an old face.
"Can you see Eliza?" Lormaine asked him.
But just then a young woman came from behind
Hellebore and said quietly in his ear: "I'm here, Jack."
she had pushed through the press of people at the
entrance.
She was a well-built young woman, a little
taller than both Lorraine and Hellebore, al nd across her
right cheek there was a dark scar.
Hellebore turned
at once.
They hugged each other, la ughing.
She looked
deep into his eyes as she spoke to him:
"I've been so nervous waiting for you."
Hellebore took her hand proudly a nd turned to
Lorraine.
"Let's find somewhere quiet, - just the three of
us," he said.
They walked to a corner of the launge aogeadana
and sat down, a little a part from the other guests.
was a kind of alcover with rose-patterned wall-paper, a
little raised above the level of the salon, from which
they could see all the other guests. Lorraine sa 6
leaning forward on the arms of his chair, biting his
lip,
glancing about him, tapping his foot on the carpet, as


if there were something he must tell Hellebore which he
could not bring himself to tell.
"I heard you kept cattle in the War, Jack, 11 he
said.
"I only had a couple of Ayrshires."
"Well, I want to hear about all that. Have you
decided what t it's to be after the Theatre de la Fete?"
"Yes. Madrid, wn the Circo Allegria."
Hellebore turned to Eliza.
"What about Eiselheim?" he asked. "Where will
he be going?"
"Belgium again, I think," she replied, wa tching
him with a smile.
"He went down well there. I shall
see more of you now that you're working again, shan't I?
Did you really not go on a stage once?"
"I gave three private performances, that's all.
And one of those was at my own place."
Eliza toughed the back of his hand with her finger-
-tips, ignoring all those who stood near the alcove glancing
up at them between the palms.
"Why, Jack?" she asked. "Nobody here knows why
you did it."
"Instinct.
I took a cab round London a nd I could
see it wasn't the place for me. It was empty. All the
old-timers were gone.
There were a lot of new faces
backstage, a nd they were faces I didn't like. Something
went out of me. The parties weren't the same. Those
people didn't need a clown."
"He did keep his hand in, though, 11 said Lorraine,


seeming to wake up suddenly.
"Did y ou hear about the
gymnasium?"
Eliza told him that she had been hearing about
this from Bernard Charpentier the previous evening, but
Lhoname :


Lorraine simply turned to Hellebore and said to him, as
if only this had been on his mind: "I told Benedict a
dress rehearsal at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
Is that convenient?"
"Yes, provided I have the stage in the morning. 11
"I shall call for you here soon after ten o'clock,
Lorraine winked at Eliza.
"Has he changed?" he asked her, nodding his head
towards Hellebore.
"I don't think so, Albert.
The eyebrows are
a little fairer, and he isn't quite so slim." She kept
her eyes on Hellebore as she spoke. "What about me,
"No, you haventt changed, my dear. Are you going
to have lunch with me tomorrow in the Crimson Tower?
Does it still exist?"
"I had it lengthened, ' Lorraine told him. "It
now has a magnificent balcony of its own, and the walls
are panelled with morrors, Jack.
I shall take you round
the theatre tomorrow mc norning."
"All right, then," Eliza sa id," we'll lunch
together in the Crimson Tower."
"And ask Helen," Hellebore murmured. "Is she
here tonight?"
Eliza told him that Helen was at the thea tre
with Heinrieh Eiselheim.
She said this a little bitterly,
and she had frowned at the mention of Helen's name. She


waated a few moments, her eyes avoiding Hellebore, than
added:
"They do annoy me."
"Why, are they together too much?" Hellebore
asked her.
"They spend all day together, but he never says
a word to her. They just look at each other.
She
adores him, you know. And I think he's jealous of you."
"You shouldn't tell Jack these things, Eliza,"
Lorraine put in quietly. "I don't know what you can
ha ve a ga inst Eiselheim. What hat ve you got against him?"
Eliza half smiled as she spoke.
"His silence, his composure..." she answered.
"Sometimes he makes me feel quite frightened. Sometimes
I turn round, and there he is watching me -
His eyes are
so clear!"
Hellebore laughed.
"He hasn't come here tonig ht," she went on,
#t because he is jealous of you, Jack." Lorraine tried
to speak, but she cut him short.
"of course he is!
And Helen must always follow his whims.
Sometimes I'd
like to bang their heads together."
"Don't listen to her, Jack," Lorraine sa id.
"Eiselheim is at rehearsal."
Eliza waved her hand in front of him angrily.
"Oh, the rehearsal isn't important!" she cried.
"We only finished at Brussels three days ago. He could


easily have come, Jack.
So could Helen."
A waiter brought each ofthem an aperitif.
He first of all spread a cloth over the dark oaken table,
then put down the slim glasses.
Lorraine a nd Eliza
raised their glasses to Hellebore, and they drank.
Hellebore smacked his lips and looked at the palms just
to one side of the alcove, then at the finely-worked
céaling.
"This is different from the old place in the
Rue de Tournon," he said.
"They'11 miss me there."
Lorraine answered him nervously, tapping his
foot on the carpet aga in:
"I thought it was better to have y ou near the
thea tre. 1"
"You know why, don't you?" Hellebore asked Eliza.
"No, tell me."
"He likes to keep an eye on his first turns.
There's a clause in my contract about my leaving the hotel
after midnight, too.
He couldn't keep his eye on me in
the Rue de Tournon."
"What's the clause, then?"
"You tell her, Albert," Hellebore sa id.
Lorraine spoke unwillingly, glancing at neither
of them, as if he were the victim of a joke:
"It simply says that if Jack leaves his hotel
after midnight during rehearsalstime he is guilty of a
breach of contract, except in the case of war, fire,
pestilence, robbery, earthquake, assault or kidnap.


But Jack isn't the only one who has it in his contract."
Eliza smiled at Hellebore.
"You're his prisoner, dear," she sai id.
Hellebore hid a yawn with his hand:
"A willing one tonight."
"Did the journey tire you out?" she asked him.
"No. I sat on deck a nd enjoyed myself.
wa S sunny all the way over."
"Have you spoken to Bernard yet?"
He shook his head and followed the direction
of her gaze.
"Look. He has just come in."
She pointed to a tall man, not older thai n forty,
who was standing by the entrance to the lounge talking a nd
gold
lau ughing.
He wore a heavy black cloak with a
clasp and ahain at the neck, al nd he was just throwing it
back on his shoulders. He carried yellow gloves, which
againt
he constantly struck,the palm of his other ha nd, a nd in
his buttonhole was a white carnation.
He stooped a little
as. he talked, frowning al nd gesticulating, then threw his
head back with a laugh.
He seemed to dominate those
round him, and to expect their eager attention.
He was
slim, his face had many lines, a nd his gaze never dwelt on
a thing for very long.
He constantly looked about him as
he talked, but seemed to see nothing.
This was Bernard
Charpentier.
"I've asked him to manage the press tonigat, H


Lorraine sa id. "We shall be leaving the press until
after dinner."
Hellebore glanced at him with a frown.
"Leaving wha t?" he asked. "What are you
springing on me?"
Lorraine stroked his chin.
"Well, I thought they'd like to hear a few words
from you. After all, no one in Paris has seen you for
five years."
He turned to look at Charpentier, and added:
"Nat turally, the newspapers are interested."
"Ah, the newspapers.. "
Hellebore nodded
ironically.
"What do they want to know?"
But Lorraine was occupied with something else.
He took no notice of Hellebore's. question and got up.
"Will you excuse me if I go and hat ve a word with
Bernard?" he asked.
Then he seemed to remember. "What
do they want bo know? Perhaps you'd better talk to
Bernard about that over dinner, Jack.
I've put him next
to you at table. Will you excuse me, then?"
He left them, and Hellebore watched him walk
between the guests towards the door, where Charpentier
was still standing.
"What's he up to?" he asked Eliza, his eyes
narrowed.
"Well, you have a big reputation now, dear,' 1
she replied.
"People ha ven't seen you on the stage for


nearly five years.
He wants you to meet the journalists
afterwards a nd talk to them."
"Well, I'm not a paper doll."
He was still watching Lorraine.
Eliza laughed ar nd sqeezed his ha nd:
"Perhaps you are to Albert, my dear. He ha S
sunk six hundred thousand francs in this show.
He told
me this afternoon he'd never spent more on a show in his
"I doubt that." Hellebore glanced at her.
"I was very surprised to see that note waiting for me,
you know, telling me to wear my dinner jacket and be
punctual.
I thought we were going to have a nice little
supper-party on the stage or in my dressing-room, like we
used to. Does he eppect me to enjoy this?"
"What about us, then? We haven't had a bite to
eat since two o'clock this afternoon."
"Why not?"
He was looking at her ha ir, which was smooth and
short, and at her cheeks, flushed healthily now with the
heat of the room.
He smiled proudly as she answenee him.
"We came straight from rehearsals," she said.
"Albert insisted. He promased us a little snack as soon
as we got there, but nothing came of it.
He sa: id he must
ha ve at least five people from the theatre here, - so there
are Frandine, the Duloi-Bordeau's, myself and Charpentier."
She picked up his glass and offered it to him,
catching his smile.
He took a sip al nd she laid it down.


Then she got up and came to the chair nex t to him.
"You haven't asked about the Virgin, 11 she said.
"No, I was looking round for her a minute ago."
"Even now she doesn't look a day older than
seventean.
She was a nurse in the War.
She was in one
of the hospitals very near the front line, and she had to
deal with all sorts of horrible cases, 1 so Albert was
telling me. And when she was offered leave she wouldn't
tak ke it.
She refused leave twice."
"Yes, she's a calm girl, very calm," Hellebore
murmured. "Has she still got that lovely fair ha ir down
to her shoulders? She hasn't cut it?"
"No, dear.
You'll see her at dinner."
She took his hand again.
"I heard about your son," she whispered, leaning
towards him. "Where was he killed?"
"Flanders somewhere.
I don't know exactly.' N
Eliza sighed.
"We came down from Brussels by car," she sa: id,
"and all along the road there were those ruined villages.
They were all white and quiet.
We never saw people in
They sat in silence for some time.
The talk in
the room was louder now, and they were more alone.
"Did you notice my scar when you came in?" she
asked him.
"No, of course not.
It doesn't make any
difference to your face."


There was a movement close to them, a nd they
both look up as Lorraine returned to his seat.
coughed and smoothed down his waistcoat, watching Hellebore
anxiously.
"What's the matter?" Hellebore asked him.
Lorraine did not tmxEE answer immediately.
"I was thinking, Jack," he said.
"There's still
time enough to postpone, - if you really want to." He
flushed slightly, as if he had at last spoken his mind.
His tone became more intimate. "I have everything ready
in case you want to do the wise thing and rehearse for
another week. You know what I feel about it from my
letters."
"I know just when I need a long rehearsal, and
at present a day's enough for me."
Lorraine frowned and shifted in his chair
ar ngrily.
"Of course, this leaves me a little worried,' #
he said.
"When weren't you worried over a First night?"
Hellebore asked him very quéétly.
"I sent you twenty-four cables inside ten days,
Jack, but you seem set against all advice.
In 1911 you
let me revise the whole of your turn, but you've changed
since then."
He leaned foward.
"You see, Jack, business
has been none too good since the Armistice, and I have
sunk more into this show of yours than I like to think


about. My restoration costs since 1918 hat ve actually
trebled the fund I set aside for repairs and delapidations.
During the War, Jack, my theatres went to wrack and ruin.
Now without you I can't recoup that loss.
Naturally,
I'm unwilling to take unnecessary risks.
Of course,
Jack, like all business men I tend to minimise my profits
at nd make much of a loss. But business isn't an easy
game, al nd I don't want to throw away our chances for the
sal ke of a few more rehearsals."
"What do you think I've been doing in EnZkand"
Hellebore asked him.
"But I wasn't there to see you, Jack, and from
my point of view over here that show of ours is going to
be under-rehearsed.
It's not a risk I enjoy tal king, and
the more I think about it the more terrible it seems .
Whom can I consult about your rehearsals in England?
No one. Four years is time enough to lose all yoûr
abilities, Jack.
In that time you could forget how to
act, you could run to fat, you could lose enthusiasm,
you could forget what it feels like to stand in front of
two thousand people every man, woman and child of whom
look on you as the greatest clown in the world."
Eliza looked sideways at Hellebore, protectively.
"Don't be depressing, Albert," she said.
"You're
silly to talk like that."
Lorraine continued to watch Hellebore.
"I want him to do the wise thing, I he said.
"And I wonder whether an English ma nager would take the


risk I'm taking."
Hellebore still did not move.
"Shall I go back al nd find out?" he asked.
"You're annoying him, Albert, # Eliza said.
But Lorraine took no notice of her:
"In the War, Jack, people used to be asking about
you all the time. Bernard kept you alive in this
gountry, al nd without that column of his people would never
ha ve gone on asking, Where is Hellebore?"
"Don't take any notice," Eliza told Hellebore.
"He had no sleep last night."
Lorraine shook his head andwith tight lips
murmured: "No, I'm very worried about it."
He gazed at the floor with a frown, then suddenly,
as if light had broken from the sky, he looked up a t
Hellebore and smiled.
"Ipromise not to worry over dinner . 11
He felt in
one of his pockets.
"I wanted to give you something for
luck, Jack.
Did I bring it?"
"Yes," Eliza told him. "I saw you put it in
your pocket.
It's only beads, Jack."
Hellebore smiled.
"Ah, you still carry your beads, do you?" he asked.
"Now don't refuse them, Jack,' I Lorraine said,
"because i must be humoured in these things, as Bernard
will tell you."
He took from one of his pockets a rosary with


black beads and a silver-plated crucifix.
He ha ndad
it to Hellebore, who twirled it round his fingers,
examining it.
"What about that one with rubies Eliza told me
about in one of her letters?" Hellebore asked him with a
wink at Eliza.
Lorraine glanced away slyly and replied: "I
still have that. It is precious, of course."
He leaned back in his chair, as if he had
performed an impotrant office, and added:
"Now take it to the theatre tomorrow. There,
that makes me feel better. Do I look tired?"
"A little pale, Albert, R Eliza told him.
"Do you still suffer at nights?" H ellebore asked.
Lorraine nodded.
"Nowadays I keep a little a samovar in my bedroom, 11
he said, "and when I know there's no hope of sleep I drink
tea. I usually know by three or four olclock. He
sighed. "Leaving the bedroom at dawn is like walking out
of a tomb.
Sometimes I have gone without sleep for three
or four nights together, Jack."
"You worry too much, ff Hellebore said.. "You
ought to see a doctor."
"But I don't believe in doctors." Lorraine looked
down. "And the older I grow the more I think about death."
"You've a long way to go yet," Eliza said.
"Waanever I see a young girl, I imagine to myself
what she'll be like in fifty years' time. I can't sit in


this lounge without thinking what it will be like
tomorrow morning when everybody has gone.
Sometimes
I'm afraid to go to sleep, you know. Perhaps that is
why I don't sleep at nights.
Perhaps I'm afraid I shall
die in my sleep.
Well, sleep is a kind of death, isn't
Lorraine raised his glass to Hellebore and
smiled, as the tall doors leading into the dining-room
apaned were folded back, revealing a brilliantly lit
table and a row of liveried servants on either side.
The guests began to put down their glasses on the
occasional tables, waiting for Lorraine and Hellebore
to lead the way e


On the mantel in Hellebore's drawing room stood
a slim damask vase with a handle on each side. He took
Lorraine's rosary from his pocket and laid it over the
neck of this vase, so that it was supported by the two
har ndles. A large a nd hot log-fire burned in the hearth.
These were his apartments in the Hotel de la
Reine.
The time was fifteen minutes before midnight,
and he had not long ago said good-night to the departing
guests downstairs.
The room was quiet, a nd his footsteps
made no sound over the carpet. Across the wide windows
were drawn long, deep-red velveteen curaains, a nd little
could be heard from the street below save the occasional
passing of a hackney-carriage.
Hellebore was not a tall man. He only ga ve the
impression of largeness.
He had very thick, light-brown
eyebrows, a straight nose and a firm chin which he pushed
forward when he was angry or rebellious. One noticed his
long ears ar nd their lobes; he sometimes pulled them with
his thumb and forefinger when he was perplexed, gazing down.
He was light on his feet, and he moved easily and slowly,
as if he were always comfortable.
He sat down and for some time gazed into the fire,
then he began to doze. His head fell very slowly to the
back of the chair, his mouth opened : ar nd his right har nd
became limp on his knee. He breathed deeply, as though


exhausted.
A church-bell near the hotel struck midnight,
ar nd he woke up with a sharp snore and stared about him.
Then he went to the bedroom a nd undressed in the dark.
He fell asleep instantly.
At ten minutes past midnight there was a knock
on his drawing room door, then silence again. The door
opened and closed. Someone took two or three steps into
the room, a nd the lights went up. A male voice called
out softly: "Mr. Finstanley ." It was an Englishma an's
voice, precise and educated.
Hellebore opened his ey es.
"Who is that?" he called out.
The visitor was confused.
It could be told
from his tone:
"I'd no idea you'd be in bed."
"Who is it?"
"My name is Henry Sangson."
Hellebore cursed.
He went to the bedroom door
a nd opaned it. He stood on the threshold in his pyjamas,
his hair tumbled, frowning and peering into the lighted
drawing room.
Henry Sangson stood before the log-fire, with
his hands behind his back.
He was a slim y oung man'
with dark hair, smaller perhaps than Hellebore.
He had
a sharp, pale face, and long hands. He had the
appearance of a young priest with a very serious, even
awed, sense of his vocation.
"I'm sorry," Hellebore murmured. "We haven't


met before."
He did not trouble to button his pyjama-jacket
over his chest. At first the young ma n did not reply,
then he spoke, nervously:
"My name is Sangson.
I knew y our son, - Eggar."
Hellebore walked further into the room, staring
at him.
"We were in the army together, # the young man
added.
Hellebore shook hands with him absently, a nd for
somte time theywwatched each other without speaking.
"I was told y ou kept late hours," Sangson sa id,
lowering his eyes. "Otherwise I should never ha ve come."
"Were you with him when he was killed?"
Hellebore nodded, then yawned: "You must give me
time to wake up."
Sa ngson remained standing in the same position,
with his ha nds behind his back, as if nervousness prevented
him from moving. He watched Hellebore breathlessly.
Suddenly he said, his voice full of anxiety:
"Let me see you tomorrow!"
But Hellebore shook his head:
"Now that I'm up you may as well stay a few
minutes. Who told you I kept late hours, 1 Edgar?"
"You are about his age, I excpect. #
"A little older."


Hellebore indicated a chair by the fire, and
they sat down.
"I hat ve nothing to offer you here," Hellebore
said. "And I can't ring for anyone, because that might
worry my manager.
I'm a prisoner here, y oung ma n.
insured down to my finger-tips.
Did Edgar tell you that?"
Sar ngson continued to watch him thoughtfully.
"Yes," he answered. "He was always talking about
"How did you come by the name of this hotel? But
perhaps you were a t the dinner-party downstairs?"
"No, I wasn't.
Mademoiselle Berger told me."
"You know her?" Hellebore asked.
"A little."
"She was there tonight, - one of my guests."
"She told me when you'd be arriving in Paris
at nd when your dinner-party wai S likely to end. I promised
Edgar that I'd visit you."
"He asked you?"
Hellebore was ill at ease.
He rubbed the side
of his nose, watching the young ma n with narrowed eyes.
"Was that his dying wish?" he asked.
"Oh, no!" Sa ngson replied with a smile.
"But
I felt under a spec ial obligation to him because we were
intimate friends, al nd because when he asked me to come


al nd see you he asked me in a specially serious way . #
"I don't know why."
They both gazed into the fire.
The church-bell
nearby struct half-past the hour.
"He worshipped y ou," Sa ngson murmured.
"It was a kind of religious worship.
The thought
of you consoled him.
He never connec ted you with the
War. Among your theatres and circuses you were holy
and immaculate. As for himself, he thought he was exactly
the kind who ought to suffer 1t.
So there was a kind
of mercy in it for him,- tt He looked up at Hellebore.
II at the mercy that it wasn't being inflicted on you.
you had put on a uniform and gone out to Flanders he would
ha ve lost faith, because the only thought that made it
bearable to him was the thought that there was something
in the universe unconnected with war, namely, you."
Sangson spoke clearly a nd without hesitation,
sitting on the edge of hischa ir. It was as if he had
been in the room a long time, whereas Hellebore was still
tired, and troubled by this visit.
Sangson looked about the room.
"I feel like a child who has just come into a
palace," N he said. "A nd like a child I don't really
believe you exist. After a time Edgar at nd I ceased to
think of you in the flesh. You have a beadtiful room


"I hadn't really noticed," Hellebore replied
in a quiet voice.
"It's the kind of room I expected you to ha ve e
Edgar told me about the extraordinary houses you used to
buy in Enland,
He told me you decorated them fabulously,
then got tired in a few weeks and sold out."
"Oh, : thee are stories people pick up.
I wasn't
used to money, that's true. But don't believe all those
stories."
"He used to tell me about your retinue of doctors,
secretaries, gymnasts and masseurs in the old days. He
used to tell me about your little daily rituals: massage
at ten o'clock in the morning, a ride in the afternoon,
a coffee-party before each performance.
He told me about
the bar nquets in your honour, y our crowds at the stagedoors,
your magnificent clothes, your opening of charity ba: zaars,
your statements to the press, y our signature under the
forewords of books, the gymnasium you built in Wiltshire
duri nethe War which could be turned into a little theatre
with a seat ting capacity of a hundred.
There were so many
things, and I've forgotten most of them.
I never expected
to know you in the flesh, and now, with you in front of me,
I can't bring the two together in my mind 1 you and
Hellebore.
He told me about your tours from country to
country, and how half theworld never realised wha t
nat tionality you were.
The French claimed you as French,


the Hungarians claimed you as Hungarian.
He told me
about the royal processions of ha nsom carriages you used
to take out of London to see the dawn come up, and the
brandy you served from a tray just before the return
j ourney. " He looked into Hellebore's eyes with an
ex pression of awe.
"When you came into this room
from your bedroom just now it was rather like seeing God
for the first time."
Hellebore stared back at him in a puzzled way.
"Was it?" he asked.
"A porter downstairs a t the door has instructions
to keep out visitors.
A banquet is given in your honour.
Legends fly about that you keep late hours and perf orm
every evening on two or three hour's sleep. A special
hush falls over people at the Théatre IA
de la Fête when your
nan me is mentioned."
"What people?"
"I'm thinking of Francine Berger, tl Sangson replied.
"She is a lady9in-waiting of the court. A kind of sacredness
surrounds you. That's how Edgar and I used to think of you.
We felt we had a special claim on your attentions because
he was your son and I was your son's best friend. We
seemed to possess you.
We could carry you like a feather
in our caps, and sometime S you made us feel immune to
da nger."
Hellebore glanced down.
"I'm glad," he said.
"He was always proud whe n people told him he was


like you. And sometimes he annoyed me by appearing to
have a secret too good even for me. The secret was you.
It annoyed me to think that you were more his possession
than mine, being his father. But I used to console myself
with the thought that after all he was very unlike you:
he had none of the clown in him.
We used to talk about
you in the dug-outs, ar nd between bombardments, and when
it was cold and raining, and when we were going up f or an
attack, and when a patrol had turned out badly."
The young man pa used and then spoke awkwardly,
shifting in his chair:
"When he was killed the world he had made up for
both of us - out of you I fell to pieces, a nd I was left
in its ruins. You see, he should ne ver ha ve been allowed
to come back to the front after he was wounded the first
Hellebore's eyes were half-closed.
He was not
looking at the young ma n.
"Wounded? Was he wound led?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Sal ngson.
"In the spring of 1916.
Didn't you know?"
Hellebore's answer was hardly at ud ible.
"No, I didn't know that," he mumbled.
"But you must have known."
Hellebore seemed to become a little impatie nt.
"No, I tell you I didn't," he said.
"But the authoraties must ha ve notified you."


Hellebore shook his head again:
"I never heard a word about it."
"But he was sent back to England," Sangson went
on, "and he was in an English hospital for two months.
It was a hospital in Herefordshire.
He came back to my
company the following year."
"Well, I was never told about that," Hellebore
sa id quietly, sunk into his chair.
"The War Office must surely ha ve notified y ou."
Sangson was fixing him with his dark eyes.
Hellebore shrugged his shoulders, and shivered a little.
He got up, rubbing his har nds togéther, and went to his
bedroom.
There he put on a dressing-gown of white
towelling a nd a pair of bedroom slippers.
Several times
he yawned.
He walked back to thetr fire without looking
at the young man and warmed his hands.
He then went
to one of the windows.
He pulled the curtain aside a nd
looked out, leaning against the wall with one foot crossed
over the other.
He looked down at the lamps of the wide,
empty street.
It was now utterly silent outside.
"Whene was S he wounded, did you say?" he asked,
without turning.
"Early in 1916."
"Well, it's possible they notified me, I suppose.
I moved about a lot in 1916.
The letter was probably
passed on from place to place, at nd then lost. I didn't
ha ve a settled address in 1916, y ou see.
It's possible
they notified me and I ne ver got the letter. Was it a


bad wound ?"
Neither did Sangson turn when he spoke.
rema ined staring into the fire, neat and erect.
"It was a shpapnel wound in the thigh from a
heavy German shell," he said. "I thought it must get
him his discharge from the army, because of the damage
to his thigh-bone. But it healed and within six months
he was fit again."
Hellebore looked up quickly at the roofs
opposite:
"I might hat ve been able to see him, then."
"Being an officer 1 tl
Sar ngson stopped. "You
knew he was an officer?"
Hellebore made a little gasp, and lowered his
head as he answered: "No, I didn't realise."
"Being an officer he knew what was expected of
him, so he went back to the line in 1917, and a few weeks
after that he was killed. Had his nerve not been broken
when he was wounded he would never have been killed, I'm
sure of that. He was killed in one of the fiercest
battles of the War.
He could no longer bear to hear
men scream. He was always on the point of running.
away, he was always pai nic-stricken, though his face looked
determined enough. A terrified man in battle is like
a vulnerable child.
Normally he sees his own death in
advance." Sangson turned at last to look at Hellebore.
"The knowledge gives him a grey, condemned, mute,


beseeching look about the eyes."
Neither of them spoke for a few moments.
"The authorities should have seen at the end
of 1916 that his nerve was going," Sangson said.
"But
He shrugged his shoulders, and aga: in there was
silence.
"He wrote you a letter, I think, at the dn end of
1915 or in January, 1916.
It was to tell you he had
joined the army and was embarking for France."
"Yes, I remember that one letter," Hellebore
replied.
"He thought y ou might disapprove of it, and he
wrote the letter to find out."
Hellebore was puzzled by this.
"Disapprove of what?" he asked.
"Disapprove of his having joined the army a nd
volunteered for the western front."
"Who was I to disapprove?"
"He had such a deep respect for you," Sa ngson
said. "He was anxious to know what you thought.
was anxious to have your good will."
"Oh, he had that."
"He tried to imagine your face as you read the
letter. One minute he thought you'd disppprove a nd
refuse to answer. Another minute he thought you'd be
proud of him and that your answer had gone astray.


Another minute you were preparing a surprise for him,
a father's surprise."
- "Did I not reply, then?" Hellebore asked.
"No. I think he put it down to the bad postal
arrangements.
They were bad at the time.
It was a
pity. You could have helped him, you see. You could
ha ve prevented his death."
"He wrote you many letters you see, and you
answered none of them.
He should never have been allowed
to go back to France.
His nerve had gone. It was quite
easy to see that from his letters.
He knew it himself.
He wrote you two letters from hospital and asked you to
do your best for him, in just so many words."
"But I only remember tha t one letter," Hellebore
sa: id. "Perhaps the others never reached me. I only
remember the first one, at the beginning of 1916. Ar nd
how could I help a soldier?"
"You could have used your influence to keep him
in England. . Your influence must have been very great
on certain people.
In those letters he told you his
nerve had gone and that if he went into the line again
he'd certainly walk into trouble.
He told you tha t
nightmares woke him at night, that he seemed to hear men
screaming.
He wanted the compar ny of gentle people, so
tl ha t he could learn how to be at his ease agai in.
Yet
he lacked the courage to tell the army that. It was up


to you.
He depend ed on you."
Hellebore's head was still bent forward.
"What inffuence had I got, - a clown?" he asked.
"Everyone knew your name." Sangso on was instantly
ready with his reply. "You must have had powerful friends.
You could have insisted like a father on his ataying in
Ehgland. He expected your fatherly interest and felt
quite confident of it even when he was dying."
"What could I have done?"
"The thing to do was to go straight down to the
hospital ar nd find out how long he'd be there, then make
representations to the War Office, then visit all your most
influential friends in London to press your claim
priva tely. Oh, it was often done successfully.
I've heard
of many instances where mothers a nd fathers were able to
do this service of mercy for their children simply by
speaking to the right people at the right time.
He had
done quite enough in the War. People would have known
that. When he was wound ed in 1916 he was one of only
twelve or : fifteen survivors.
That was out of a battalion."
Hellebore turned nervously from the window.
"You must understand, young mal n," he said, "1916
was one of the busiest years of my life.
There were
contracts to termina te, managers to see, 1 I had thousa nds
of jobs to do and I was never in the same place for more
than a fortnight." He left the window suddenly and began
pacing the room, frowning. "My secretary dealt with most
of the correspondence. And you must understand that


every year I had many, mal ny begging letters from people M
His voice became weaker, as if he had begun to realise
the lameness of what he was saying. I
begging for
money, for release from gaol, for rescue from cruel
He stopped and stared at Sangson, then walked in
silence to his chair, appalled at himself.
He sat down
and leaned back wearily, stretching out his legs.
"Did you come here tonight to show me how much
I'm to blame?" he asked.
"No, Mr Finstanley," Sangson replied politely.
"I had the letter about his death when I was alone
in the country at the end of 1917. That was one of my
quieter years. I thought about his death.
I - wrote to
Jeanne straight away."
Sangson had also leaned back in his chair, as if
he were tired now: "I remember he wrote your name as his
next-of-kin in his army book," he murmured.
"He gave your
address, not his mother's."
"Well, she brought him up. I only took him for
holidays a nd taught him a few stunts."
"Really, I suppose," Sar ngson sa: id, # he invented you.
You were one of his dreams, and very necessary to him. You
were neeessary to both of as, to bring some warmth into our
bodies.
We talked about you as if you belonged to us. You
Behped us to deny that everything we saw a nd heard a nd touched
had death in it, that every ma n was dead or dying,
that the meaning of everyt thing in our world was death.


You helped us to deny the truth. You helped us not
to die too soon." He leaned forward, and for the first
time he gesticulated. "I curse the day when my eyes
were opened to that empty, forlorn world where your son
died. When he died he was cold, wet to the skin,
speechless and blind, and he couldn't move. I remember
the rain pouring down his face.
He was sitting up.
'It was dark.
All he could do was to sit and wait for
death.
I wish I could put that memory out.
It was one
thing to know and live in a dead and ruined world, but,
my God, to fall into it, to become part of it as he did,
to have the universe turn its back on you, to be without
any foothold in a huge desert of emptiness..."
"Are you blaming me for that?" Hellebore asked him.
Sangson's lips were pursed as he answered:
"You could have spared him that."
"But I had my own life," Hellebore said quietly.
"I was only twenty-two when he was born, and I separated
from his mother five years after that.
So Monty Brane
was really his father.
I'm not making excuses." He
pa used, wat tching Sangson, as if to judge the effect of
his words. "I used to give him treats, and - another
thing a I never put my ha nd round his mouth like Monty
Brane did now and again. The hos used to hear a lot of
gaudy stories about me down at Monty Brane's, and he grew
up proud of the name.
But I never brought him up."


"You were his father."
"All I'm saying is, I had a life of my own.
My father trained me up as an acrobat and tightrope walker,
but I had to fight to be the kind of clown I am today.
You don't learn that sort of thing in the circus, I can
tell you. On the stage you have to know how to use y our
face.
In the ring it doesn't matter.
All I'm saying is,
I'm made of flesh and blood.
It took me years of practice
to build up my turn.
A lot of people used to worship me
like Edgar did. That's quite natural.
I was mobbed onc e.
But you can't lay a whole war at my feet.
You and I
lived in two different worlds.
I knew nothing about yours.
Thousands of men were killed in the War, but you can't lay
their deaths at my feet."
"I would never try to," the young man said.
Hellebore smiled uneasily: "You sounded as though
you were."
Sangson's reply was without any warmth: "All I
said was that a word from you could have prevented Edgar's
death. That was all."
"But I hardly had a private life at all.
Sometimes
I never had a moment to myself for six months on end.
Thousands of people used to write me letters.
I had to
travel up and down the country every week.
When I wasn't
travelling I was practising, and when I wasn't practising
I was on the stage performing. #


"Then you'd become a kind of statue," Sangson
toldhim.
"Listen to me, young man, y ou could take all my
carpets and my managers and my earnings a nd my cronies
and my clothes and my cabs and my hotel suites and my
foreign contracts and my masseurs, you could take them
awey


away at nd drop them in the sea if you liked, but I'd go
out in the street and I'd do a turn and I'd get an
audience somehow. That's because I've got the spunk
of a clown.
I'm a clown down to the nails on my feet."
He pushed himself forward in his chair, tapping his own
chest, his face flushed with anger. "What do you think
I am, some pot-bellied pie-can with a million of money?
It's people like you who make me a statue, people like
you and Edgar. What about all those stories he told
you, about rides in the Park al nd royal processions?
They're not true, I tell you, they're not true."
Sangson glanced at him diffidently al nd they sa t
in silence.
Hellebore was brea thing heavily, stirred
now. But suddenly he laid his hands down on the arm-rests
of his chair, smiled at the y oung man and got up.
Only one small log wa S burning in the hearth, al nd there
was a chill in the room.
"Let's go out, y oung mal n,' t he sa id briskly, rubbing
his hai nds together.
"Let's find somewhere warm.
wide-awake and I'm hungry. You know Paris. Take me
somewhere."
Sangson was astonished by this.
"But surely you must sleep now," " he said, staring
up at Hellebore from his chair.
Hellebore turned and walked towards his bedroom,
where the light was still burning.
"Come and talk to me while I change.' I
Sa ngson followed him into the bedroom, and


Hellebore took his evening clothes out of the wardrobe.
He was smiling ar nd excited, moving about the room quickly,
from chest-of-drawers to wardrobe.
"I haven't done this," he said, "I haven't gone
out at this hour of the morning for the best part of five
years."
He began cha nging while Sangson stood at the door,
wat tching him.
"Are you always thinking about the War?" Hellebore
asked him.
"Itzseemsa to have got into your blood."
"yes, I suppose I belong to the War," Sangson
replied, his aharp eyes lowered. "I feel I shall never be
able to tear myself away from it. It won't let me live
properly. Before it happened I felt I belonged to a few
friends al nd a small town in Somerset, but now I don't belong
to anything, 1 except to War. When you fight in a war
you root yourself like a plant into another world, - a
world of murder.
Whereas once you helped people into
chairs ar nd amiled at them, now you set mines for them to
fall on, ar nd you run your bayonet through them. And these
are things you can't forget.
I ought to have been killed,
like Edgar.
That would have been logical."
Hellebore drew his chair nearer the mirror to tie
his bow.
"Go about the world, 1 he said, "as if you didn't
ha ve a past, it can be done." He turned from the mirror


to face Sai ngson. "What's your work?"
"I work in a jeweller's shop."
Hellebore continued to look up at him, his
ey ebrows raised:
"In a shop? An educated y oung fellow like
yourselfai he asked.
San ngson nodded in a resigned way .
"Earotly," he said.
"The work has no meaning
for me."
"Why do it, then? Are you free to leave it?
Could you leave Paris if you wanted to?"
Sangson was like a pale child at the door,
answering Hellebore's questions.
His hands were in his
pockets, al nd he stared down at the carpet.
"Well, then, why don't you?" Hellebore asked him.
"I'm well looked after here.
I've nothing to go
away to."
"Ar nd suppose there had never been a war, 1 what
would you have done?"
"I had work as a solicitor's clerk when I was
fifteen, and I would have saved money from that and used
it to take a teachers' certificate wher n I was nineteen."
Hellebore frowned at him, unable to believe this.
"And here you are," he said, "selling jewels in
a Paris shop."
"I refused to go back to England because my
childhood was S finished.
In the War I met a man called


Celida.
We became friends, a nd he invited me to his
house here in Paris.
Then he offered me a job in one
of his shops.
He is a rich man, and his wife is devoted
to me. He has a large house, and servants."
But Hellebore was still puzzled.
"How is it you can do work tha t bores you?" he
asked.
"Oh, I think while I'm doing it."
Hellebore got up to put his jacket and overcoat
on, and as he did so he came near to Sangson. He looked
into his pale face warmly, examining it for ma ny seconds
in silence. All this time the y oung ma n did not lift
his eyes from the floor.
"War took away all y our hope," Hellebore told
him.
"But we've got to get used to death."
Sal ngson shook his head.
"I never did," he sa id, "and I ne ver will."
"But mustn't you try and forget these things?"
"Have you ever seen a dead man?" Sangson asked.
Hellebore stared at him and shook his head.
"You came upon him suddenly," San ngson went on.
"There he was, blind al nd mute, exactly as trees are.
You sométimes felt him watching you. A momer nt before,
perhaps, you heard his voice, but now you were alone.
He wa S still there, yet y ou were alone.
That's the
petrifying thing tha t happens when you come across a dead
mal n: y ou become alone in a universe of mute, eternal


things. And you can't get used to that. No ma n can
get used to that."
Hellebore buttoned his overcoat, then took up
his hat al nd cane from the dressing-table.
Sangson
wa tc hed him while he pulled on his white gloves.
Suddenly the young man spoke a ga in, but this time with
his eyes full on Hellebore.
"I've been an evil visitation to-night, he said.
Hellebore walked into the drawing room. As he
BXEXIA passed Sar ngson he pinched his cheek lightly with
his gloved ha nd.
"But suppose you had never come?
I should ha ve
gone on living like an orchid on other people's dresses."
He glanced a t the dying ashes in the fireplace.
One of the curtains moved with a slight chill wind.
"I shall move tomorrow,' tt Hellebore murmured.
"This room feels like an undertaker's." He turned' back
to Sangson sharply.
"Well, I'm ready to make a night of
it. Where shall it be?"
"I know a place called Les Anges," ft Sa ngson replied.
"It's the only place I can recommend after midnight."
"Is it far?"
"No. It's in the Rue St. Honoré."
Hellebore noticed the roaary ha nging over the
arms of the vase.
He went to the mantel a nd took it
down, then returned to the bedroom.
He opened the
wardrobe door and slipped the beads into a pocket of
next
hext/ the tweed suit which he would be wearing the follwoing


day - Sangson remained standing quite still at the door
leading out into the narrow hall.
Hellebore went across
to a small table between the windows and took a rose
from the bowl.
He put it in his button-hole and smiled
at the young man.
"One for you?" he asked.
He looked at Sangson in silence, waiting for the
answer, smiling.
But Sangson only replied:
"You see, when I say you helped to kill Edgar
I really mean you helped to kill me."
They arrived at Les Anges, a casino at the
fashionable end of the Rue St. Honore, soon after half-
past one.
It was the morning of Easter Sa turday.
The entrance hall of Les Anges had high columns on either
side and tapestries which were neglected and dusty, and
at the top of a wide stone staircase was the corridor
leading into the cluh-rooms themselves.
The lustres
in this entrance hall were not alight, and only a bare
arc-lamp shone down onto the staircase from the third
la nding, giving the great hall a blue, ghostly appearance.
They had walked through the streets without
saying a word to each other. Sangson had simply


indicated the tall entrance to Les Anges with a nod
of his head, and Hellebore had fallen back a little
to let him lead the way. The moment they had reached
the top of the staircase a faint noise from the rooms
could be heard, the faint thumping of an orchestra in
a quick waltz, and the clattering of dishes.
The impression made by these rooms was quite
different from that of the ghostly entrance hall downstairs.
Sa ngson pushed open the door and at once the coloured
lights and the sound of the fast, loud waltz burst forth
upon them. The ceiling was made of frosted glass with
robed figures engraved across it, and, being 1lluminated
from behind, this glass had the appearanc e of being a
huge, solid block of light.
In the walls there were
arched niches each containing small plaster casts of
classical sculpture illuminated by violet, blue and
yellow lights.
Some people in fancy dress were throwing long
par per streamers over the heads of the dancers in the
ballroom. One after another the streamers flew across
the room, falling onto the shoulders of the dancers,
then gradually floating down until they were split and
tradden underfoot.
The throwers laughed loudly, and
one of them clapped his hands at a waiter nearby and
imitated a man thirstily drinking.
The dining tables were arranged in long tiers
above the ballroom, separately.
Hellebore and Sar ngs son


went to a table at the very back of the room, on the
highest tier, almost under a minstrel's gallery.
Sangson leaned back in his chair with a smile.
"This is what happens," " he said, "when a
ma nufacturer fpom Ly ons decides to buy a club.
thought he was going to get a fashionable clientele,
but all he got were pe ople much like himself."
"What are you doing here, then, as a member?"
Hellebore asked him this quietly, with his eyes averted,
wat tching the ballroom below. "There aren't any young
people here.
It's a club for middle-aged people.
None of these people have ever been young. You can
see that by the look on their faces."
"The Itallans I share house with brought me
The waltz ended, and two or three couples
ascended from the ballroom to the dining room. The
clothes of the women were a little behind the prevailing
fashions.
"By the way," " Sangson said, "I shall have to
introduce you to my benefactors.
They're here."
"To who?" Hellebore asked absently.
"To the Italian couple I told you about this
evening: the Celida's, the people I share house with.
I saw them as I came in."
Sangson seemed to be excited now that he had


come into the casino.
His dark eyes had become
sharper and glanced about more quickly.
He was still
pale, and there was sweat on his clean-shaven upper lip.
He had unbuttoned his evening jacket, so that he ga ve
a slightly less neat and prim appearance than before.
A new dance began, and Hellebore watched a
ma n and woman from the table nearast aim go down to
the second tier of the dining room, then into the
ballroom.
The streamers were now all in fragments
on the dance-floor and their raatling could be heard
from the dining room as the couples swept them forward
with their feet. A waiter brought two glasses of
Italian Vermouth to their table, then laid the cutlery
for a meal.
"Ehey only seem to do the old dances," Hellebore
said. "I've been waiting for the one-step."
"No, they don't play ragtime here. The band
does Sir Roger de Coverley and the Lancers if you ask
them. You have to put in a request with one of the
waiters."
"But do these French people know how to dance
Sir Roger de Coverley and the Lancers?" Hellebore asked,
a little disagreeably.
"Some do.
Do you prefer the new dances, then?"
"No, I like the old tunes. But I'd give anything
to see young people dancing round that floor and
enjoying themselves. I like the one-step because


young people do 1t."
"Look," Sangson said, leaning forward and
putting his hand , on Hellebore's sleeve, "there they are.
My Italian friends."
Hellebore tarned and watched them go down the
staircase and, after pausing for a moment at the edge of
the floor, take up the dance.
The woman was dressed in
a fine gown, with a purple rose at her waist. She was
sure and erect, while her husdand was perhaps a little
smaller, a slim, dapper man with a pale face and ha ir
grey at the edges. He moved deftly, even arrogantly.
Sangson told him that he and Giordano had
met in Belgium in 1916, a nd had become friends.
Then
they had met a second time in the last few months of
the War, and Giordano had invited him to Paris.
The
Celida's had a large house in the Rue du Bois de Boulogne.
"She's a fine-looking young woman," I Hellebore
said, wat tching the couple.
"They're not a happy couple."
Sangson glanced
at him quickly, almost suspiciously.
"They both want
a child, and he can't give her one."
"No. He'11 never be able to."
"Did he have an accident in the War, then?"
Sangson shook his head shyly, playing with his
knife on the table-cloth.
Girodano Celida had been to the doctors, al nd


his sterility had been proved .
They had offered him
no hope of ever being able to produce children.
doubt there were explanations, but none could be given.
Maria was a robust woman from the country, the
dat ughter of a farmer in Tuscany. Her hands were those
of a peasant woman.
Only in her face was there an
extraordinary delicacy. She had black eyes, refined and
pure, and their expression was distant, like that of a
dreamer. Perhaps her nose was her most delicate feature,
and as for her mouth, 1t was full of a wilful determination.
People watched her when she moved, soothing their eyes,
as it were, on her calm frame.
Every day she yearned for her child, and in a few
years she would be too old.
Her body cried out for a
child, the more so because she felt she might never have
one. The 1dea of his being sterile horrified Giordano.
For many years he had made no mention of this horror: he
only carried it in his eyes, behind the urbane neatness.
Giordano would be willing to let her sleep with
a not her man, simply to get the child.
Sangson told
Hellebore this in a whisper.
"Well, then, there's the solution," - Hellebore
answered quietly. "Why doesn't she go and sleep with
someone else?"
"It's so difficult for them.. . H
Sangson turned
ar nd watched them again in the ballroom below. "She has
her religion, and sleeping with someone else is a mortal


Hellebore shrugged: "It depends how badly she
needs the child."
"She doesn't wish to hurt Giordano.
She insists
they choose a father together."
Perhaps the couple had waited too long.
She
had dreamed about it too much.
She had often described
the child, a its ideal hair, the colour of its eyes, the
fact that it would take after Giordano, whoever the
father might be. They had talked it over too much.
Giordano had known that he was sterile for five years.
All this time they had waited, presumably for the right
father.
"It's a very misefable business, believe me,"
Sai ngson said with a sigh. "The more they wait for the
right man the less likely are they to find him."
Suddenly Hellebore asked him: "What about your-
self? You could ha ve slept with her. You aren't sterile.
You're d-cent looking.' n
Sangson stared at him in confusion.
He was
astonished by the question.
He could not at first reply.
Then he spoke:
"It would seem like incest, I suppose. I live
in the same house, and ever since I came to Paris Maria
has treated me like a son." He smiled.
"Perhaps I
sometimes look to them like a frightened child, as I do to
you. When I came to Paris I needed a little nursing.


No: perhaps they'll never be able to choose.
She may
be incapable of being unfaithful to him, and he of allow-
ing it. I often wonder whether they are too devoted to
each other."
A waiter brought champagaa and an ice-box to the
side of their table.
Hellebore nodded slowly.
"Yes," he said. "It's a miserable business."
The dance ended. Most of the couples went to
the velvet seats atthe side of the ballroom, and three
or four waiters clad in white hurried down from the dining
room to take their orders. As Maria Celidaz returned to
her table she looked up towards the minstrel's gallery
and noticed Sangson.
She waved her hand, then pointed
him out to her husband, who bowed and smiled.
"They seem out of place here," Hellebore said,
wacthing them.
"Yes, they look as though they are thinking
some thing out between themselves. Yet they're rich
shopkeepers like all the other people here."
The waiter drew their champagne from the ice
and turned away from the table.
He crouched with the
bottle between his knees and pulled out the cork.
Hellebore yawned.
HRaxiaziaznxplamn
"You'a be surprised what illegal business goes
on be etween some of these people,' A Sangson added, looking
at some of the guests sitting nearby d "Giordano ha s


done a bit of smuggling in his time across the Italian
border. Most of them deserve a prison sentence."
"I can well believe 1t."
"Paris is no place for Maria.
She doesn't try
to dance elegantly like the other women here."
They ate their dinner slowly.
Sangson asked
Hellebore's opinion about every dish, and, after closely
examining the list, he called for a wine which he said
would exactly match the food.
He leaned over the table,
touching the plates when they came, judging everything
that the waiter brought and sending back to the kitchen
the dishes of which he disapproved.
When the crepes
Suzette were being prepared behind them, he went and stood
by the waiter until the brandy had been lit.
When they had taken coffee he got up.
He was just
about to leave the table when a waiter came with cognac.
He drank it standing, in one gulp.
Hellebore watched him,
then did the same. They put their glasses back on the
table simultaneously, and as they did so they glanced at
each other ar nd laughed.
He went down to the second tier a nd spoke to the
Celida's.
They turned and looked up with surprise at
Hellebore.
Giordano Celida peered at him and smiled as
Sa ngson talked to them.
Then he nodded and rose, and
all three of them came up the narrow gar ngway towards
Hellebore's table.
Hellebore was still laughing a little
to himself.
He got up and pushed his chair back noisily.


then went a little way to meet them, his hand outstretched.
Giprdano nodded tp Hellebore genially as he sat
down:
"We have a box for tomorrow night, Monsieur, # he
said.
Hellebore made a little bow in his seat and
murmured, "I'm delighted."
Maria spoke to her husband with a smile, touching
his shoulder lightly: "Tonight, my dear."
"Of course!" he cried. He neatly pulled back
his sleeve and glanced at his watch. "In eighteen hours
"Don't remind me," Hellebore answered as they
la ughed politely.
Giprdano turned and beckoned to one of the waiters
who was sta nding on the lower tier. He did so with his
chin up, not looking at the waiter, like one accustomed
to servants.
"I saw one of your performances in Italy," he
told Hellebore.
"Wherewould that have been?"
"Ah, of course, you don't remember it. It
was a long time ago, eleven years ago, in Rimini."
"But I do remember."
Hellebore turned to
Sangso on. "That was my first continental tour," he told
him.
A waiter stood at Giordano'sside, bowing
respect-


fully. Giordanolaid his hand on Hellebore's arm.
"Now we shall celebrate this honour. Because
you understand it is an honour meeting you here.
always thought you were a little... a little magical.
But here you are in the flesh.
So a #l
He took a
wine-list from the waiter. His charm was perfect, and
every gseture schooled. # - we shall celebrate."
glanced at Hellebore.
"You like champagne?" Hellebore
nodded, watching him. "I see you have been drinking it
already . But Sangson is an amateur in these matters."
He then selected a vintage, and the waiter
hurried at way e
Hellebore asked him whe ther he had always
lived in Paris, and Giordano told him that they had left
Italy in 1904.
"What made you want to leave?"
Giordano moved closer to him, appearing to reflect
deeply on this question.
"There wasn't a big. enough living to be had," he
sa id. "Both of us love our country, but
I He rubbed
his thumb and forefinger together.
it was a question
of bread and butter, y ou und erstand. My idea was to go
to America.
I had just enough money e We were both
y oung. Maria was just turned twenty-one . But there!
Maria a well, you know what women are!"
All this time she had been watching Helleb pore,xttk
following her husband's words with a smile.
"I hated the thought of going to America, I she


said.
"It was all I could do to get her here, from
Tuscany . But now we have a very fashionable little
business.
Oneof our clients is a gentleman called
Albert Lorraine who # He made Hellebore a little bow.
I believe is known to you."
"Of course, of course."
Giordano was flattered: "He often visits us.
Yes, I saw you perform in Rimini eleven years ago.
remember your name outside the theatre: ELLEBORO.
But
I never thought I would ever come face to face with you."
He turned to Sangson.
"You called at Mr. Finstanley's
hotel, then?"
The waiter poured the ahampagne, and Ginrdano
raised his glass: "A health, then. In honour of
Hellebore, wishing him success tomorrow night tf
corrected himself with a smile as Maria and Sangson raised
their glasses. II tonight - #
The polka came to an end and there was the sound
of applause from the ballroom.
It was very hot now in
the rooms. Most people had moved away from the dining
tables, and some had gone up to the minstrel's gallery,
to get a batter view of the dancing floor below.
Maria
and Giordano turned to look.
The couples who had been
dancing continued to applaud the orchestra, laughing ahd
crying out.
Maria clapped her hands together excitedly: "They


want it again!"
Giordano leaned towards Hellebore, hiding his
mouth from her with his hand as he spoke : "She tires me
out dancing."
Silence fell in the ballroom, and then the crowd
sighed.
The conductor raised his baton under a yellow
spotlight from the minstrel's gallery, and the orchestra
struck up into a second polka.
Many more couples than
before went onto the floor, and the light stamping of their
feet could sometimes be heard above the orchestra.
Giordano laid his hand on Hellebore's arm: "Dance
with my wife. Please.
Show her how you dance."
Maria overheard this remark, and flushed slightiy
when she saw Hellebore rise Yrrom his chair politely
His presence seemed to strike her dumb.
Her eyes were
particularly beautiful when he bowed to her.
Together
they went down to the crowded ballroom, and Giordano al nd
Sa ngson wa to hed them as they took up the dance.
"What made y ou call on him?" Giordano asked.
did not look atthe y oung man.
"It was a sudden decision.
I don't know why."
They said nothing for some time. Then Giordano
asked suddenly:
"Was it Maria's idea that you should go and see
"Maria's? Of course not. What are you thinking
Giordano looked away uncomf ortably.


"Does he know about her?"
"Know what?" Sangson asked him..
"I mean, what did you tell him. about her?"
Sangson glanced at him quickly, then understood.
"Oh, I said we were friends, a no more."
"But you talked about Edgar mostly?"
Sangson nodded sadly, as if there had just been
a betrayal.: "He seemed to have forgotten Edgar."
"Well, three years is time enough to forget.
I expect you made him feel a little miserable. But
Maria thinks it must be a relief to you... You needed
to talk these things over, though I sometimes wonder
whether it was wise to go back over the past like that."
He sipped his champagne, gazing at Hellebore and Maria
as they danced. "That's how I like to see a man da nce,
with his shoulders firm and straight.
Look, he's as light
as a feather.
She looks well, carrying him in her cap."
He glanced at Sangson, but the latter's head was bowed.
"He's shorter than I would hat ve thought.
He looks
taller on the stage, 1 at least as I remember him, though
that was eleven years ago. Perhaps it's due to the
floppy clothes he wears on the stage. He doesn't look
sad now, does he?"
Hellebore was la ughing as he danced, and at
every fourth beat he hopped particularly high.
He moved
more swiftly than most of the others, whirling Maria
lightly between the couples, in and out, along the edge


of the floor and into the middle again, his head high,
his cheeks very flushed, with Maria lost and seeming to
dream in his arms as she floated along.
"This is the first time he has left England
since the War broke out," Sangson murmured.
"Then I expect he means to enjoy himself."
As soon as the dance came to an end Hellebore
and Maria returned to the table, laughing a nd breathless.
Her shyness had gone.
"Hadn't we better go back," she asked Giordano,
"1f only for a few minutes?"
"Not yet, my dear. We'll have a little more
champagne, then go." He spoke to Hellebore. "We ha ve
three or four friends at the lower table.
We mustn't
neglect them entirely."
He took the bottle of champagne a nd filled Maria's
glass, then offered it to Hellebore, who shook his head.
"I'm merry enough, thank you."
Giordano chuckled and held the battle up to the
light, squinting at it.
It. was a quarter full.
"Come," he said, "you must have at nother glass.
We must finish the bottle before we go back to our own
table. Yes?
Of course!"
He filled Hellebore's glass. Then they all
touched glasses and drank.
"The next dance ought to be for Henry," Giprdano
whispered to Maria.
"He looks so out of it sitting there."


He beckoned to one of the waiters and ordered
more champagne. But Maria wanted to stop him.
"Mr. Finstanley has already refused it, Giordano,"
she said.
"Oh, mere politeness!" he shouted.
"Do y ou
want to be off home, then?"
"No, my dear." She shook her head quickly.
"Let's make a night of it!"
Giordano was triumphant.
"Shall we then?" he asked Hellebore and Sangson.
"We canhll go back to the house together 9 # Maria
said, "for an early breakfast at dawn."
"Does that suit you?" Giordano asked Hellebore.
"You are both very kind."
The prahestra began a slow waltz, and Maria got
She touched Sangson's hair lightly, putting it back
from his forehead, and together they wel nt down into the
ballroom. A waiter brought the second bottle of champagne ,
and Giordano moved to a chair at Hallebore's side.
filled their glasses, tipping a little onto the table-eloth.
"Has he made you feel sad?" he asked.
Hellebore shrugged, staring down at the table:
"He has suffered too much, I think."
Giordano did not reply to this.
They toue hed
glasses a nd drank, then he filled them again.
He glanced
at Hellebore quickly and said: "I hate Sangson being in
my house."


Hellebore looked at him in astonishment, his
eyes wide open: "Why?"
"He is too secretive a person.
You never hear
a sound from his room. He 1s so quiet in everything he
"He's a child," Hellebore murmured, embarrassed
by Giordano's words.
"I no longer belleve that. He is always trying
to get Maria alone, for instance, though he says she is
only a kind of mother to him.
Also I am certain he has
a lover somewhere, but not a lover in the proper sense.
I mean I'm sure he doesn't love her, only uses her as a
kind of prostitute.
I have heard various things."
He gazed down at Sangson in the ballroom, not
troubling to hide his feelings in front of Hellebore.
He took up the latters glass and put it against his lips,
mak king him drink; and for the third time he filled the
glasses, a little unsteadily, but still with rare breeding:
"I happen to know he visits her two or three
time s a week, to relieve himself, if you will excuse the
expression.
of course, I would never tell Maria any of
this.
It would kill her dream of him, as the son she
might have had. If it weren't for her, I would have
asked him to leave my house long ago." He leaned back,
with his arm on Hellebore's shoulder, sighing.
"How I
reproach myself for ha ving offered him a job here al nd a
place in my family.
Young men like these belong to dug-outs,


not to families.
But there, he is polite, he is well-
eduaated, he is useful to me in my export work.
He is
my only employee whom I dare send to dinner with a
business agent from another country."
He frowned.
"But he belongs nowhere.
He refuses to make roots for
himself.
He behaves like a paralysed man.
He must
depend all the time on other people.
Otherwise he would
ha ve a home of his own by now, and a beautfful wife, and
children." He looked Hellebore in the eyes. "And I
ha ve to bear this blood-sucker in my house. Sometimes
I am even afraid of him. I am afraid that he will bring
ruin into my home.
He's a wrecker."
"Well, his own life has been wrecked, perhaps,"
Hellebore said 4MAMh in a low voice.
"Oh, I know what he has suffered, Mr. Finstanley.
I ha ve been his friend. But I happen to know one thing:
he liked the War. Such a young ma n is born for murder."
"You hated it, yourself?"
Giordano smiled rather sadly: "All the War meant
for me was my separation from Maria. We were too much
in love with each other, perhaps.
I used to yearn to
be with her until I was almost mad.
I was in the Franch
army for three years. I lost weight.
I had skin-trouble.
I caught malaraa, and one thing after another. I'm not
a fighter.
War isn't for people like myself. War is
for y oung men with nothing to lose. What had this young


fellow got to lose?"
Hellebore nodded slowly, then glanced up at
Giordano: "Did you meet my son?"
"No, my friend."
Maria and Sangson returned to the table before
the dance ended, and Giordano got up: "Now we really
must go back to our table. For a few minutes, A would
you mind?"
"Not at all." Hellebore added, looking at
Maria: "But we must have another dance or two before dawn,"
and Maria laughed shyly.
Girodano pointed to the bottle of champagne:
"It is there for you to arink."
The Celida's went down to their table, where
their guests were waiting for them, and sat with their
backs towards the minstrel's gallery.
Sangson bit his 1ip and said to Hellebore with
an effort: "I'm sorry I used those words about y our
killing me."
"The fact is you said it." Hellebore then
added: "Litsne to me, Sangson. You went out to Flanders
because you wanted to.
I didn't ask you to go. A nd
in your place I'd never have gone. I'd never have joined
up. My work comes first with me, and it always has done.
I wouldn't have cared if Jerry had won the War and then
burnt my theatre down, my work would still come first.


You'd never have caught me taking the trip to Flanders.
If Edgar wanted to go out and risk his life, that was
his business. I didn't ask either of you to go, and I
don't owe you anyt thanks for winning the War."
"We weren't fighting for you or any one else."
Sangson answered him coldly, holding aloof. "We weren't
even fighting for our country "
"You went out to cut fine figures, th hough." I
"Well, that could be true."
"If he'd come to me and asked me what to do,
I should have said, do what you want to do - if you do
that you'll only have yourself to blame." Sangson began
to turn away, but Hellebore put his hand firmly on his
cheek and made him face him again. He fixed him with
his eyes, sternly.: "When I was fourteen years old,
San ngson, I wanted to be a clown and get a first turn,
and I became a clown and I got a first turn.
I'm the
sort that gets what he wants. You've only got to look
at my chin,
it belongs to a man who gets what he wants "
Hellebore laid his hands on the table palms downwards.
"And the same with my ha nds. I never came along and
asked people like you to live my life for me, and I'm not
going to live yours for y ou. Every man's free to do
what he can in this world."
He lifted his glass and drank the champagne in
one gulp.
He had begun to talk less distinctly.
"You let.the War House push you about, and


you've only yourself to blame.
If you didn't like the
War you ought to have been a conchy. It's no good being
a conchy afterwards."
"It wasn't against my conscience to kill Berma ns o
I volunteered to do it.
I wanted to do it."
Sangson's reply was bitter: "Perhaps to see
men die and hear them scream. I only vol unteered when
I knew what kind of war it was, when I heard about the
explosives and the camualty-rate.
I couldn't bear that
there should be so much suffering and me not there. I
wanted to suffer."
Hellebore shook his head in wonder. It was
clear that the drink was affecting him.
"I can't understand it," he said. "What made
you want to suffer?
I can't understand it. Why go and
throw away your life? a a decent young man like you?"
"Oh, well, I would ha ve had to go anyway."
"But I can't understand it. Here you are working
in Paris in a jeweller's shop when you could go back to
England tomorrow if you wanted to and live a life of your
"No, the War killed my faith in a 9 well, it
simply killed my faith." He paused, as if he had said
too much, but he decided to go on. "It taught me that
at any minute the worst can hap ppen. That's an extraordinary
discovery.
It killed my sense of having a future.


After the War the world became a cold and desolate
place. I needed protecting against that. And my
work at the jeweller's does protect me. It's so
simple.
It needs no thought whatsoever."
Hellebore stared at him, swaying: "How does
it protect you?"
"It gives my life a fhxed order. Igo to the
shop soon after nine in the morning, I call on Signor
Celida for lunch at half-past noon, and then I return
home for a bath and aperitifs soon after five o'clock
in the evening.
I daren't live otherwise. Icouldn't
bear freedom."
"The War's turned you into a child.
Yes,
you've got the look of a frightened child sometimes.
What do you think about at your work, then?"
"oh, I daydream."
"But don't you ever want to do something else?"
"Yes, I do, very often.
But as far as ambition
goes I'm iike a man who worships the dawn al nd always sleeps
through it."
It was as if Sangson had rehearsed these words.
He allowed himself no remark which might seem natural.
He drank with Hellebore, but not for a moment did he lose
grip.
He sat in his chair solemnly, like one whose
confession had just been written down and signed.
But Hellebore was beginning to tap his feet
under the table in time with the orchestra, to smile at


nothing, to whistle a nd hum, to swing his shoulders
slightly as if he were dancing.
Suddenly Sangson called out for some cognac.
The waiter came to the table and asked whether he wanted
glasses. He replied coldly: "Une bouteille."
Hellebore laughed: "We're mixing this a bit,
aren't we?
I'm beginning to feel among friends.
the old days we used to take hansom cabs round the West
End after the show. We used to talk and sing in each
other's bedrooms until the dawn came through.
We used
to have supper on the stage with our make-up on.
used to play tricks on each other during the show."
He looked down at the second tier, where the
Celida's were sitting.
It happened that at this moment
they were pointing Hellebore out to their guests.
"I like your friends," he said.
"Soon the word will be round that t Hellebore the
clown is here," Sangson replied. "And they are sure to
ask you for a little turn. They have that kind of
vulgarity."
"Lorraine wanted something dignified.
wanted it described in all the newspapers. But your
friends are easy to get on with."
Their bottle of cogna C came, and Sangson filled
two iqueur glasses.
Hellebore took his immediately
and put it back.
"Come to the Crimson Tower tomorrow at four,' Il


he said. "It'll help to get you through the day . I
"The Crimson Tower?"
"Ask at the box office.
Tell you what: I came
fr om England with only a day to spare.
I want to go
strai ight into dress rehearsal.
I don't want to break
the spell."
Sangson had begun to watch him, for Hellebore
wai S really talking to himself, with his head bowed.
"Lorraine's putting six hundred thousand francs
into this job. I haven't been near a professional stage
for five years.
That was the War, thank y ou. HE's one
of the richest men in France, but he'll never miss church.
He worries too much.
He wants a woman behind him, though
I should think a woman would find him a little too fussy.
He likes his two baths every day, and his f ingernails are
always just so. I've never seen a crease in his suit.
He's frightened of being ill, and I don't have to tell you
he ne ver is 1l1."
Sangson nodded. He had hardly listened, though
his eyes had remained fixed on Hellebore.
It was as if
he had become a more resolute person, perhaps because of
the drink.
For suddenly, with a very determined look,
he leaned forward and whispered to Hellebore: "Drink.
Drink."
Hellebore looked at him in drunk surprise for a
tim selg
moment, then obeyed him with a smile, as if he/had made the
suggestion.
He poured his cognac into the champagne


and drank.
The moment he put down the liqueur glass
Sa ngson filled it again.
It did not take long for the other guests in
the club to discover that Hellebore was among them.
Word had travelled down to the ballroom from the Celidas'
table, and even the conductor of the orchestra had been
told.
Some minutes later a waiter came to the highest
tier with a message from the ma nager.
He asked whether
it would be possible for Hellebore to give them a little
impromptu performance, or at least a speech, to celebrate
the honour of his first visit to the club.
Sangson
smiled at Hellebore when the waiter had given his message,
and said, so that the waiter could hear: "Just as I told
you. These people are capable of anything.
Nothing 1s
too vulgar for them. In what other Paris casino would
they ask a celebrity to do such a thing?"
"It's because I'm a clown. A clown is supposed
to belong to everybody."
Hellebore's words were run together. Sangson
told the waiter that Mr. Finstanley wished to rest, having
had a Channel-crossing that day. He said this coldly,
making it sound like a rebuke, and the waiter bowed before
leaving the table.
"Well," Hellebore murmured, "I might oblige them
"Perhaps a bit more to drink will give you the


necessary courage, N Sal ngs on said, filling his glass
again.
The dancers in the ballroom constantly turned
to watch Hellebore.
Newcomers were quickly told the
news, and some of them came and stood near the minstrel's
gallery in their outdoor clothes, staring at him quite
openly.
Sangson seemed troubled by their gazes, but
Hellebore simply shifted his chair a little so that his
back was turned towards them, and went on talking, drumming
his fingers on the table.
"Eliza's got a scar down one side of her face
which I think makes her look all the prettier.
She gets
sawn in half.
Eiselheim does the sawing. You ought to
see her among the tigers. She was twenty at the time.
The lovely sleepy one turned on her. It knocked the
whip out of her hand and caught her on the right cheek.
Now every day that sleepy tiger sees her come into the
cage. Does it so much as stir?
They're like lovers.
He was born in captivity, and they're always more dal nger-
ous. The wildness comes out of them, and they suddenly
He raised his head ar nd looked at Sangson with
clear eyes.
The latter was caught off his guard.
"What did you tell me to drink for?"
Sangson blinked quickly and murmured: "Why
shouldn't we enjoy ourselves?"
"I don't need two managers. Lorraine by himself


is a hand-full." He laugheda and it was impossible to
tell whether he had been joking.
His hair was dishevelled,
and his cheeks were very flushed, as he lolled back in
his chair gazing at the wall, away from the other guests.
"My dad took to drink.
That finished him. He tried
his luck at the stagedoors selling songs at a dollar a
number. Those were the days when the circus used to
ride through your twon in a long. procession. The ba nd
used to go in front, then the horses and ponies and eleph-
ants all spruced up.
There used to be big golden
tableaux on the carts with the trapeze girls on top, and
you could see the lions in their cages.
The clowns used
to walk alongside.
They used to fool about and give
sweets to the kids.
The circus my father was in went
round the same circuit for thirty years, up to Leeds and
back again.' 11
Three or four waiters went across the ballroom
gathering up the paper streamers. The plush seats on
either side were now crowded with people waiting for the
next dance, and the dining room was empty save for Sangson
and Hellebore.
When the dance-floor was clear of
streamers the orchestra struck up into another polka,
and Hellebore clapped his hands, roaring with laughter.
He watched the dance closely, tapping his feet.
He took the bottle of cognac and filled his own
glass, keeping his free hand cupped over Sangason's.
"In my honour , H he said, then drank and
gasped.


"For old times."
He reeled in his chair and gripped the table
firmly with both hands. His face had changed.
smiled loosely as he spoke:
"I did murder Edgar."
Sangson started forward:
"Are you drunk?" he whispered.
"Your eyes are
very bloodshot."
Hellebore answered him vehemently:
"I murdered him."
He stared at Sangson for a moment, then took
his hands from the table and leaned back.
He had half
pulled the white cloth to the floor in doing this.
"I'm drunk, # he said quietly.
"I'm not used
to all this. I never touch it. Very careful about
"Do you feel sick?"
"Do you feel you might fall?"
"I feel dizzy, and I'm going to oblige them.' #
Sangson looked down at the second tier where
the Celida's were sitting. They had now been joined by
their guests, and one of them was watching Hellebore.
"You must sit still," Sangson told him.
"You
must talk as little as possible."
Hellebore frowned and stared at the table.
swayed a little and tried to look at Sangson, lowering


his head and blinking a great deal, then widening his
eyes fiercely.
"Why?" he asked.
"People are watching you." He spoke to Helle-
bore slowly and distinctly. "You must go to the lavatory
and smarten yourself up. You8ve spilt champagne down
yourshirt-front, and your hair needs combing."
"That's it.
Everywhere I go people treat me
like a statue. It was you gave me the booge. But you
still want the statue."
Then he added: "You look like
a school-teacher."
He got up, pushing his chair back with a clatter,
though he could hardly stand.
The orchestra had just
finished playing, and everybody was returning to the plush
seats. Sangson at once jumped up to stop him.
went and laid his hand on his arm, but the moment Hellebore
felt it he turned and pushed him away with all his
strength.
Sangson fell back against another table with
a shocked gasp, upsetting a decanter of water and almost
tearing the cloth from the table in his effort to prevent
himself falling. Hellebore was standing with his face
towards the ballroom, panting, his eyes furious.
"I'll give you lavatory," he murmured.
Sangson was also angry now. Everybody in the
ballroom had turned and was watching him, having heard
the deaanter fall.
He came to Hellebore's
side and :


"What are you up to?"
Hellebore did not look at him.
He merely said,
swaying as he stood there: "I'll pay yourlot out for
those five years."
Before Sangson could stop him he was on his way
down to the lower tier, slipping and stumbling as he went,
his eyes furious, and his head high, in defiance.
The
Celida's and their guests drew back their chairs when he
approached them, wondering anxiously what he would do.
Most of the people in the ballroom were watching him in
silence, as he swayed and frowned over the Celida's.
Two of the women at the table, friends of Giordano, smiled
nervously, as if wishing to placate him and make his visit
seem ordinary.
Giordano got up and put his ha nd on Hellebore's
arm, like a father, but the latter shook him off.
pointed to Maria, who was meekly sitting in her chair,
prc obably terrified.
No one was speaking in the ballroom.
"You will dance?" Hellebore asked.
His question
wa s like a threat.
She looked at Giordano, who hesitated.
Then he
smiled and nodded, as if he had known Hellebore a long time.
He had decided to be polite.
"Give Mr. Finstanley this dance, my dear,' I he
sa: id.
He went to Maria's chair and pulled it out as she
got up. She went to Hellebore's side, casting a nervous


glance behind her, and took his arm before they walked
together down into the ballroom. All eyes were upon them.
The conductor had his baton raised, waiting for them to
reach the floor.
Hellebore was still frowning and mur-
muring to himself. He swayed on the staircase, and Maria
gripped his arm tn firmly.
He was aware that the silence was for him, a nd that
the conductor had been waiting.
He took his time.
His
eyebrows were raised, a little imperiously, as he led
Maria with slow steps to the centre of the floor, and the
other dancers, silent and watchful, drew back to let him
pass. She avoided their eyes. She was hushed and
tremulous.
Hellebore took her left hand delicately in
his, as if she were a princess, and put his arm round her
waist. He gave the conductor the briefest of glances,
and for an instant the baton remained still.
Then it
fell, and the orchestra struck up into a quick waltz.
He danced more quickly and boldly than the rest,
and the orchestra quickened its rhythm to keep time with
him. He whirled and whirled Maria round on the tips of
his toes, his eyes wild and lost, the sweat pouring down
his flushed face, flinging himself into the dance with a
kind of callous vehemence, sparing himself nothing. Maria
was helpless in his arms, trying to keep pace with him.
The rose had fallen from her waist, and had already been
trodden underfoot. Her hair was out of place, and several
times she almost slipped. But he did not glance down at


her, to catch her appealing look.
For he was really
dancing alone.
He stared ahead of him, his mouth open, trans-
fixed into the circular dance, as if he could never stop,
and seeming to dance faster and faster.
His bands rested
on Maria, rather than held her. At any moment she could
have slipped out of. his grasp.
Yet he did not so much as
brush lightly against any of the other dancers.
whirled in and out of the other couples, al nd they would
turn tith astonishment as he apssed them.
But suddenly his hands ceased to hold her. At
last he was alone.
She stood in the centre of the floor,
abandoned and on the point of weeping.
He was lost in
the dance, and the conductor decided to prolong the tune
when he saw what had happemed.
It was a triumph f or him.
Hellebore was taking long, sure strides between the other
couples, whirling round with his arms exactly as they had
been before when they had held Maria.
Only his face was
different now. For it bore an expression of pain, like
a teerible grin, with the sweat saturating his brow and
cheeks, and his black jacket flying open.
The conductor
was prolonging this martyrdom, delighted at the solo
perf ormal ne e o
He conducted with his back to the orchestra,
working his shoulders up and down vigoureusly, his white,
bald head shining in the spotlights from the minstrel's
gallery.
Maria walked quickly to thfe side of the floor,


her head bowed and a handkerchief up to her mouth, and
there Giordano drew her solemnly to one of the plush
seats.
They sat there inbilence, waiting for the, dance
to end. They watched Hellebore's frantic dance with
pity and fear.
At last the final chord was played, and the
conductor lowered his baton with a proud smile.
came down from the rostrum with his hand outstretched.
For a few seconds Hellebore continued to dance, until
the silence began to dawn on him and he stood staring up
at the ceiling, his arms hanging at his side, in a strange
paroxysm of trembling.
Gradually he came back to life,
seeming bewildered at the sight of the other dancers, who
clamoured round him clapping their hands.
Everybody made
way for the conductor, who put his arms round Hellebore's
neck and kissed him on both cheeks.
Hellebore did not know whether he should bow or
not. He was not sure whether these were his enemies or
friends.
He looked from one to another of the hard faces,
and at the small, inquisitive eyes. He lifted an imagin-
ary hat quickly from his head, then clapped it back on
again and did a mock bow. They laughed, pushing forward,
the ones at the back ju umping up al nd craning their necks to
see him.
Then he seemed to grow tired. He looked about
him again, seeking somebody. He pushed his way roughly


through the crowd, cursing them in a low voice.
went to the side of the floor, and there Giordano led
him to where Maria was sitting.
Hellebore fell back
into his seat with a sigh, understanding nothing, al nd
very tired -
When most of the couples had returned to their
seats and the waiters had come down into the ballroom to
take their orders, something unexpected happened.
The
condutcor had been consulting with the rest of the orchestra
in a whisper.
He kept glancing back at Hellebore, who
was totally unaware of him.
He then raised himself and
lifted his baton. When he wlowered it a no one was paying
any attention to him - the orchestra entered a slow, melan-
choly,anas forlorn tune, and people began to turn their
heads. The music filled the domed ballroom witaits lonely,
sad phrases, and Hellebore's eyes grew wider.
Slowly he
turned his head. The effect of this music upon him was
extraordinary.
His mouth fell open, and a drowsy wonder
seemed to take hold of him as he listened to the phrases
which night after night for so many years had preceded his
entrance as the white pierrot.
The ananing conductor was
a cunning man. He watched Hellebore with the eyes of
a servant, divining the speechless pain which might perhaps
be taking hold of this clown.
It was clear that they expected something of him.
The refreshments were forgotten.
Everybody knew this tune.


They all looked across at him, some of them clapping,
the bolder ones beckoning him to rise.
He did get up,
and it was clear that he had little control over his limbs.
He seemed to be faintly aware that an audience had come
into being, and that it required something of him.
appeared that he might make a speech, and everybody
stopped talking. He had his hands on the bapels of his
jacket, in a speech-making attidude, but when he opened
his mouth, trying to keep his dignity as he swayed about
in front of Maria and Giordano, nothing came forth.
stood there paralysed, with all eyes upon him, the only
man in the long ballroom who was standing.
The conductor saw his predicament and gampad came
down to rescue him. He walked across the floor with a
smile and took his arm. He led him up. to the pla atf orm,
and there was instantly a burst of applause, because it
modest
was now clear that the dig clown was about to gegin some
kind of performa noe.
Hellebore walked slower than the
conductor, plodded rather, his shoulders bowed, as if he
were being dragged along. But this only appeared to the
audience as his unwillingness to show off.
When he reached
the stage, in the centre df the spotlights from the
minstrel's gallery, their applause grew louder, then died,
as they waited for his act to begin. Only someone
standing very close to him would have been able to see his
stare, like that of a drugged man, and the trembling of his


11ps.
He went straight to the piano.
For a moment
as he stood there with his back to the audience, his
shoulders bowed and his hair tassled, leaning over the
pianist, he looked like a beggar who had come foot-sore
into this expensive place. The pianist at once jumped
out of his seat and made way for him. But Hellebore did
not sit down, nor did he play any notes.
He was looking
for something, in the gloom outside the spotlights.
bent down and peered under the keyboard.
He was about to
ask the conductor a question, but then went on with his
search, this time feeling with his hands be hind the thick,
round leg.
There was not a sound in the hall.
He searched about in such a rapt, absorbed way
that it was possible to see a humottrousd intention behind
it. And accordingly a few people began to laugh.
Others
smiled, peering forward into the shadows at the edge of
the spotlights, waiting for this bowed figure with the
black jacket and the crumpled trousers to bring the little
act to its climax.
But he became impatient.
Only the pianist could
see his face, which was close to taars.
Suddenly, without
any warning, Hellebore hit the highest key S of the piano
violently with his fist and cried out at the top of his
voice: "Where's the lever?
Where's the lever?" The
conductor turned to the audience and shrugged his shoulders,
roaring with laughter.
The hall was almost in uproar.


They were all asking each other questions a nd laughing,
wondering what could have happened. The next thing they
saw on the stage was Hellebore puffing wildly at a cigar
which he had seized from one of the guests nearby. He
blew the smoke out as if he were trying to form a cloud
in front of himself, and, though his expression was ARE
frantic and panic-stricken, far from that of a performing
clown, at a distance it was possible to see a grotesque
figure trying to raise a few laughs.
Once a sufficient cloud of blue smoke had been
created, he w pulled off his black tie, then began to
take off his jacket.
But he was in such a hurry to throw
of all this clothes that he only pulled the jacket half
off, down to the elbows, before he gegan heaving at his
trousers.
Some of the men in the audience jumped to their
feet. At hhe sight of Hellebore bent slightly forward
al nd savagely tugging at his belt, a tall woman with a red,
chapped face at the side of the hall began screaming with
hysterical laughter, so that the whole of her body shook
in a series of helpless spasms. Two members of the
orchestra obeyed the conductor's glance.
They went Up
to Hellebore and shouted something at him, then, when he
appeared not to hear them, they seized his arms and pulled
them away from his trousers.
Sangson wa s standing at the
top of the stairs leading into the dining-room, looking
down, quite still.


The Celida's had noticed Sangson. They got
up and returned to the dining-room, avoiding people's
eyes, and hurrying along.
Hellebore did not seem to understand the shocked
laughter.
It was clear to anyone standing close to him
that he could hardly see his spectators, for he blinked
and peered about with a frown, as if he were trying to
make out an object a great distance from him. Probably
he could only hear their voices, A the laughter and, here
and there, the salacious, half-muffled cries of enc ourage-
ment.
But he must ha ve seen Maria leave the ballroom,
for he at once stumbled forward from the piano and, in
trying to gain the other end of the hall, fell straight
down from the platform to the floor, with his hands strete hed
out before him. Everyone now knew that he was drunk.
The noise, certainly the laughter, became different.
was now a kind of shocked clamour, as people left their
seats and came onto the floor to get a better view of him.
Hellebore still had his eyes fixed on the end of the hall.
He jumped awkwardly to his feet, covered with the white
French chalk from the floor and broken streamers of every
colour, and lurched forward between the closing ranks, his
ha nds held out before him like one walking in his sleep.
At the top of his voice, with the tears pouring down his
face, he called out: "Maria! Maria!"
Maria had disappaared from sight at the top of the


staircase.
She and Giordano, led by Sangson, had gone
to - a table from which it was impossible to see down into
the ballroom.
The crowd was now determined to get a performance
from him of some kind, however grotesque.
They clustered
round him, encouraging him with "Bis! Bis!" and "Bravo!"
One of them, a small, corpulent man, cleared a way and
laid down in front of Hellebore a long blue streamer.
Then 9 roaring with laughter, he held his arms out side-
ways and began tip-toeing ridiculously along it as 1f he
were walking the tight-rope.
Hellebore stood there
reeling and seemed at last to understand what was required
of him, for he began to do the same thing at the other end
of the streamer, peering down with a frown as he lurched
and stumbled along it, with the tears still wet on his
face. The laughter was not good-natured. But Hellebore
stayed on his tight-rope, jostled and pushed by the crowd.
He nodded and smiled absurdly, as if he were pnoud of their
la ughter.
Some of the men exchanged scornful glances with
their wives, and close to Hellebore, perhaps within earshot,
someone murmured: "Bête homme...Y But most of them,
though quite aware that he was drunk, were enjoying his
grotesque antics, in which there was no humour or dignity
at all.
The conductor was biting his lip nervously, for
he realised that matters were now out of his control.
Taxtnraad


He turned a nd struck up the band into a loud rag-time
tune, calling out to everybody below to take their places
for another dance. But no one took any notice of him,
for Hellebore was now dancing alone, stamping his feet
on the floor, with his arms held ntgh above hinx his head.
He was waggling his hips in the oriental fashion, as two
of the men in the crowd tied long streamers round his
neck and waist, trussing him up like a corpse as he lifted
his knees and jiggled about on the same spot.
But suddenly he wanted to go. He stopped and
looked about him.
He was in the very centre of the crowd.
He looked from one face to the other, and panic seemed to
overcome him.
He put his head down and pushed furiously
at the shirt-fronts of the men nearest him, though it would
have been easy enough for him simply to walk away. o By
doing what he did he made it necessary for them to defend
themselves, and they did this by clinging to him, to prevent
him heaving about with his arms and legs.
He pushed himself
forward, and the men involved - four or five of them -
moved as one body with him, towards the staircase.
The
orchestra stopped instantly, and the conductor jumped down
from the rostrum. One or two of the women screamed, and
there was no longer al ny laughter.
The co nductor could not
believe his eyes.
There was an expression of utter horror
on his face. Most of the other guests began leaving the
ballroom. A hush had fallen over them, a hush of shame
perhaps, as they realised that things had gone too far.


It was as if Hellebore had suddenly realised
that the crowd had been mocking him: for one moment he
had been dancing in the oriental fashion, and the next
he had been punching at the chests of the men nearest
him.
He managed at last to break away e But instead
of running up the staircase he went baek to the empty stage
where the instruments lay. He must have intended to do
damage there, in a sudden mood of spitefulness.
He tried
to Jump up onto the platform, but one of the waiters
quickly pulled him down al nd drew him roughly away . The
crowd gasped when they saw a waiter handling Hellebore the
clown in this way
The proprietor came.
He was a tall, broad-should-
ered man with a thin, greased moustache twirled like a
sergaant-major's at the edges.
He pushed his way through
the urowd a t the top of the staircase, but before he went
down into the ballroom he looked about him and called out
for Sangson.
The crowd made way for the latter, who left
his table and walked, quite calmly and slowly, between
them to the ballroom.
He looked down at Hellebore's
slu umped body without astonishment.
He only seemed to
detest being on show in this way, with a silent crowd of
guests behind him.


Hellebore was standing limply between two
waiters, with his head bowed, covered from head to foot
with white chalk, while from his neck and waist hung
numberless streamers in shreds.
He was quiet now.
The waibers who were on either side of him holding his
arms shifted in an embarrassed way, for this was a most
unusual charge.
It was possible that one of the other guests
had struck him, in the face, perhaps, or the stomach,
for he almost hung, deathly pale, in the ir arms.
The mai nager approached him:
"Qu'est-ce qu'il y art, Monsieur?"
Hellebore raised his head and looked at him
with half-closed, bloodshot eyes.
He pointed dumbly to
Sar ngson, who was on his way down the stairs.
The ballroom
was empty now save for the little group round him.
The manager turned to Sangson and asked him in
broken English: "You are a friend, I believe?"
"Yes. I am sorry for what has happened . 1
The manager then spoke in a low voice, so that
Hellebore should not hear: "Get him out of here."
"He is not my responsibility."
"Very well.
I shall get him out myself."
The manager whispered something to the waiters,
and they half-carried Hellebore up to the dining-room.
As he apassed Sangson's pale, erect figure, Hellebore
asked:


"What have you done to me? They've been
laughing at me. It's you behind it."
And he repeated to the mal nager as he passed him:
"It's him, that young man."
The crowd made way for him and stood in utter
silence as he was led like a criminal to the second tier
of the dining-room, then through the door leading out
into the vast entrance hall.
When she saw this Maria ran across to Sangson:
"Won't you help him?"
He did not look at her, nor did he answer her.
He simply looked straight ahead.
"Won't you get the car for him?" she asked.
He smiled bitterly: "So you have chosen him, as
I thought.
Well, if you have chosen him, minister to
him like a wife. Order the car yourself.
Tell one of
the waiters."
Suddenly he regretted this and looked
down at her pitifully.
He took her hand. "I'm sorry
for saying that, Maria."
"You have changed." Then she asked: "What will
they do with him?"
He looked away: : "Oh, they'll find him a car.
They'11 send him back to the hotel. You must understand,
Maria: he's in a dangerous mood. We could do nothing
with him.
He blames me for all this."
"And you are not to blame? He was your guest


"Then you have certainly chosen him."
"I don't know what you mean," she replied,
looking down quickly.
He led her back to their table.
It was empty.
"Has Giordano gone, then?" he asked.
She gave him a glance full of contempt, and said
quietly: "No. He's with the ma nager, making it up with
him, and probably greasing his palm."
He had seen her contemps.
"Maria, please walk with me." All his arrogance
had disappeared.
"Only for a few minutes, until
Giordano has finished. Please, Maria,
just to clear
the air.
We're confused."
"will you come?"
He got up.
"If you come," he said, "I shall be able to
explain myself. I can't bear that you should hate me like
"No, I'll wait here. You go, and we'll wait
for you here."
"All right, then!"
He sighed and began walking away *
The moment
she saw his expression, however, she came running fr om the
table and took him by the sleeve, gazing into his eyes:
"No, I'll come," she said, "if it's a very short
walk, and if you really want me to."


He drew the wrap round her shoulders, and
together they left the room.
There were low, dark clouds over the streets
of Paris, and the lamps were still alight.
One side of
the sky was clearer, where the dawn was coming, and a
cpill wind was beginning to blow.
The streets were
deserted and quiet, apart from a hansom cab here and
there.
Sa ngson and Maria were walking slowly down the
Rue St. Honoré towards the Place Vendôme, arm ân arm.
"You've chosen him to give you a child, haven(t
His face seemed very pale in the half-darkness,
and his eyes very piercing and black.
She frowned and
passed her hand over her brow wearily.
"I don't know," she murmured, shaking her head.
"I don't know."
"Did you mention anything of the kind to him?"
"These things can't be done in cold blood, Henry."


She turned her face away, trying to escape.
"We only
danced together. He's a stranger. We hardly sa id a word
to each other."
"The blood wasn't cold when you danced, a so
why should it be at any other time? Speaking is unnecess-
ary. There's a communion of the flesh. "
He added
breathlesslyl, not daring to look at her: "And I suppose
you'll ask him about it tomorrow?
Or perhaps Giordano
"You aren't being fair to yourself, Henry o
You're
a better person than this."
"As soon'as I told you he was coming to Paris
you started asking questions about him."
He smiled.
"Well, he's a famous man, so it'll be a kind of immaculate
conception, which is what you're after." He paused,
and asked quietly: "But don't y ou see how disgraceful he
"He may ha ve been upset by your visit.
I'm sure
he was."
"You are only finding excuses for him." He
stared down at the pavement.
"This is the man we dreamed
about.
This is the great Hellebore.
He's nothing but
a boose-sodden murderer."
She took her arm away from his at once, and walked
alone.
"You've never talked like this before," she said.
"You've always been so gentle.
But something horrible


ha S come into you tonight."
"Did you enjoy the spectacle, then? You don't
think he disgraced himself?"
"It was only a mood.
He was wonderful before
y ou ga ve him all that drink."
"I gave him -?"
"Well, before he had all that drink."
"But don't you see that these are only the tar nhtums
of a quite worthless cehebrity?" he cried.
"They think
they ean stampede their way through other people's lives.
They think they're exempt from criticism.
Their minds
go soggy because they're always with cronies."
He lifted
his chin defiantly. "Well, I believe tha t the poor shall
inherit the earth."
Maria spoke quietly, unaffected by what t he was
saying: "You should never ha ve gone to see him. You
should never have mentioned his son." She looked a head
of her, at the distant lights of the square, between the
trees. "What you did tonight may affect the whole of
his career."
"Perhaps, then, I wouldn't mind being the instrum-
ent of his destruction." He spoke with extraordinary
clarity, in a low voice. He was a like a priest who had
overcome his scepticism a nd really believed at last.
"My God, he murdered my best friend. Do you know -?"
He turned to Margi. "I think I enjoyedhis degradation
tonight, a every moment of 1t."


She took no notice of this remark, and he went
on: "But you have faith in him. You refuse to see the
real Hellebore."
He frowned, in a sudden spiteful mood.
"You've chosen him because he has a famous name,
the
cheapest possible reason. You chose him immediately
you saw him in the flesh.
In fact, you were astounded
to find that he's got flesh at all!"
She half stopped, in tears at last.
"That isn't true!" she oried. She watched him
for a moment.
"Why are you so angry with me?"
He gripped her arm frantically al nd made her stop
altogether in the silent street.
"Are you going to ask him to give you the child,
tell mem Maria!"
He put his face very close to hers, his ey es
desparately staring at her in the growing light.
She hid
fr om him, bowing her head.
"I can't answer you," she said.
"I haven't
thought about 1t."
"Well, why have you waited all this time?
You've
been waiting five yaars, and soon you'll be too old. Why
don't you let me do it, Maria?
Let me give you a child,
Maria!"
He took her by the shouldefs al nd tried to pull
her further towards him.
He put his arms round her, under
her breasts, and hugged her to him, crying into her
shoulders.
They swaye ed helplessly toggther on the


pavement.
"Henry! Henry! What's the matter? For
God's sake tell me!"
His head bent forward, sobbing al nd screaming,
his hoarse voice echoing in the silent, empty street,
he cried out:
"I could do it! I could do it!"
Hellebore turned into the Champs Elysees and
went to the middle of the huge, deserted avenue. He
carried his top hat, and his black overcoat was open.
He lifted his feet high, as 1f there were steps to mount
in front of him. He stood still, swaying a little,
with a frown.
He reeled, then ran forward in a helpless,
headlong rush, trying to stop aimself falling. His top
ha t slipped out of his hand onto the road and rolled over
on its brim.
He bent down and moved towards it, his arm
stretched out. He fell forward onto his knees a nd crawled
to the ha t. He put it on the back of his head and slowly
lifted himself up. He began walking towards the Arc de
Triomphe along the middle of the avenue, lurching from
side to side.
As he walked he closed his eyes al nd smiled, and


began (singspa at the top of his voice:
Bon soir, old thing, cheerio, chin-chin,
Na-poo, toodleoo, goodbye-ee!




The curtains were still drawn in Hellebore's
bedroom, and he lay asleep on his bed.
He was still
fully dressed, and his overcoat was torn from the shoulder
down to the middle of hisbback. He lay on his stomach,
breathing very deeply, and near his head, at the side
of the pillow, was his top ha t with dust on the brim
and a crack the whole length of its crown.
The
eiderdown had fallen to the floor, and it was crumpled,
as if he had trodden on it before getting onto the bed.
Albert Lorraine opened the door of the drawing
room and looked about him in the half darkness.
wore a dark morning suit with a carnation in his button-
hole. He stood with his hand on the door al nd drew
back a little, afraid of what he might find. There
was no one in the corridor behind him. He called out
"Jack!" softly, then went across to the bedroom.
pushed the door open al nd gasped with surprise when he
ca ught sight of Hellebore in the darkness.
He quickly
pulled the curtains back and sat down on the bed at
Hellebore's side. He seemed suddenly very tired.
The
clouds outside were low E nd grey.
He bent forward to have a better look at
Hellebore's face. He noticed the torn overcoat a nd


gazed at it with horror.
He then went into the bathroom
and returned with a tumbler of water:
He began gently
flicking the water into Hellebore's eyes, at nd after a
few moments Hellebore started up and stared about him,
almost knocking the tumbler out of his ha nd.
Lorraine spoke to him softly:
"Shall I call the nurse?" he asked.
Hellebore shook his head a nd closed his eyes
again.
"Our own, I mean," Lorraine added.
Lorraine gave him a towel for his face, dreaching
a corner of it in wha t was left of the water. He pulled
up the eiderdown from the floor a nd put it round Hellebore's
shoulders.
"The hall porter ra ng me last night a nd told me
you'd left the hotel, # he said. "You look very ill, Jack."
Hellebore lay back on his pillow with a frown
and put his hand to his head.
"Did the porter see me?" he asked.
"Yes, he saw you go out."
"No," Hellebore replied irritably, "Did he see
me C ome back?"
"No. You must have been very drunk. Look a t
y our overcoat."
He lifted a piece of the torn overcoat which lay
under Hellebore's shoulder.


Hellebore peered up a t him and said, "Look at
you, with your flower.
You look like a tallyman's ink-
bottle."
"Well, I had this morning planned. But now we
shall have to postpone."
"Have you any tablets for my head?"
"I want to see you in a bath, Jack, then we must
go to the theatre.
Postponements are complieated.
There
is a great deal to be done.
Conferences ha ve got to be
called, and contracts prolonged, and a new show ha S got
to be rehearsed at short notice."
"Help me down, then," Hellebore murmured.
He put one foot over the side of the bed, then
the other.
He sat for a moment on the edge with his head
in his hands.
"A postponement. of two weeks would be fair,"
Lorraine said, watching him carefully.
"Let me help
you to the bathroom."
Hellebore put his arm round his sl houlder and
together they went to the bathroom.
"Now you must tell me what happened."
Hellebore sa t huddled at the side of the bath,
at nd Lorraine ran the hot water.
"A young fellow called," Hellebore replied.
"I was just hopping into bed.
His name was Sangson.
Have you heard about him? He's a friend of my son's."
He glanced up at Lorraine drowsily. "Do I look drunk?"
Ero 93


"Your eyes are very bloodshot, and you look
paler than I've ever seen you.
I ought to call a nurse,
I really ought to."
"No, I shall be all right."
Lorraine looked down at him, his lips trembling:
"Where did you go to?"
"Where what?"
"Where were you off to when the porter saw you?"
"A place called Les A nges in the Rue St. Honoré."
"I know 1t," Lorraine said.
"Business people go
there. Is your young friend in commerce, then?"
"No, he's a jeweller's assistant."
"Shall I help you in?"
Hellebore shook his head and bega n taking off his
clothes.
He remained sitting while he pulled off his torn
overcoat and then his evening jacket. The sweat had dried
in great crinkly patches over his shirt.
When he was naked
he took a jar of bath-salts down from one of the shelves
and poured them into the water clumsily, almost emptying the
jar. Lorraine took it from him and carefully rescrewed the
top. The green crystals floated under the surface of the
wa ter like a cloud, melting, and a warm scent gradually
filled the room.
Hellebore stayed leaning on the side of
the bath for a moment with his eyes closed, then he got into
the water.
"I met an Italian jeweller and his wife.
Giordano
al nd Maria were their names.
I forget their surnames."
Lorraine still watched him closely.


"How long have you known this y oung mal n?" he
asked.
Hellebore took a sponge and pressed some water
over his forehead.
"Is there a towel ha ndy?"
Lomaine.


Lorraine put a towel into his outstretched hand.
"How long ha ve you known him?" he asked again.
"I told you, It Hellebore said. "I saw him for
the first time last night.
I've never seen him before
in my life."
Lorraine seemed disturbed by this.
"But you said he was a friend of your son's."
"so he was. They were soldiers together."
"But I thought y ou meant he was a friend of the
family."
"What family?" Hellebore asked.
Lorraine hesitated, then shrugged.
"A friend of Jeanne's, perhaps,' # he said.
"But
why did he come last night?"
"I don't know. He talked about the War. That' S
all I remember.
He's a good talker."
Lorraine watched him in silence as he washed.
After a few minutes Hellebore lay back in the bath,
exhausted.
He closed his eyes.
"It's lovely here, Albert."
Lorraine glaneed at his watch.
"You ought to j ump out now," he said. "It's
past ten, a nd we were due there at nine."
"JU ump. Listen to that."
Hellebore sat up, put his hands on the bottom
of the bath knuckles downwards a nd heaved himself up to a
kneeling position.
Lorraine laid the bath-mat across


the floor and went to stand in the doorway -
Hellebore
drew one of the chairs nearer the bath.
With one hand
he clung to the rim of the bath and with the other he
held the chair. He lifted himself up, but as he did so
the chair slipped back, he lost his grip al nd fell downwards,
hitting his chin on the side of the bath.
The water
splashed across the room, and there was a booming noise
from the bath as he struck it.
Instar ntly Lorraine ran
forward and took him by the arm.
Hellebore clung to his
shoulder and gradually pulled himself out of the bath.
As he did so he drenched Lorraine's jacket.
"Oh, my goodness, look."
Lorraine stared at his wet sleeve irritably.
He went into Hellebore S bedroom and with a look of
distaste took the jacket off. He wiped the hot water
pipies carefully with a handkerchief, thenlaid the
jacket over them, smoothing out all the creases.
Hellebore dried himself and came into the bedroom
to dress.
Lorraine turned to him suddenly.
"Where do they all live?" he asked.
"This y oung man and these jewellery people."
Hellebore shook his head and mumbled, "I've no
idea." But Lorraine still fixeds him with his eyes.
"Isn't that an odd hour to call?" he asked.
"He happened to hear about your dinner-party - I1
Lorraine cut him short:


"Who from?"
"Oh, these things get around Paris."
"How is it the hall porter fa iled to see him
come ins?"
"Perhaps he did see him," Hellebore replied.
"No, he didn't. He has instructions to 'phone
me if you receive strange visitors."
Behind the dress circle of the Théatre de la
Fête a door led into a wide lounge with mirror-panelled
walls.
It was customary for the artistes to use this
room during rehearsals, al nd among them it was known as
the Crimson Tower, because its balustrade skirted an
immense dome of stained glass over the foyer. Lorraine
al nd Hellebore sat drinking coffee by one of the windows.
They had waited at the Hotel de la Reine for Lorraine's
jacket to dry, and a little before eleven o'clock they
had come to the theatre by swift car. All the way
Lorraine had sat in the corner of the back seat watching
Hellebore, but the latter had not turned his head, only
hummed, then seamed to fall asleep.
Lorraine had
jogged his arm ar ngrily when the car drew up outside the
stage-door in the narrow alley-way.
He had run up the carpe t ted sta irs from the


foyer and ordered black coffee.
Then he had helped
Hellebore to one of the chairs by the window.
"When am I seeing Benedict?" Hellebore asked.
"Seeing Benedict for what?"
"For the rehearsal."
Lorraine stared at him.
"Well?" Hellebore asked.
"Which rehearsal?"
"The rehearsal this morning, 1 what's the matter
with ayou?
The rehearsal for tonight's performance."
Lorraine spoke quietly ar nd deliberately:
"But I am postponing, Jack. I told y-ou I was
postponing.
I thought we agreed.
I am postponing."
"You are not."
"I thought all our difficulties were over, and
that for once we had agreed with each other. Why must
you open the question up again?"
"Because tonight is first night, a nd we are not
postponing."
"Look at you, Jack, with y our head in your hands 1
you won't be fit for a first night before the end of nex t
week.
I have everything ready for a postponement.
You
heard me tell you I was postponing at the hotel and y ou
said not a word. Why open the question up again?"
"I felt ill.
Now I feel better."
"You look, if anything, worse."
"That won't show under powder and a wig," Hellebore
said.


"It will show in your movements.
I won't
ha ve pou falling off the wire simply to gratify y our pride.
I shall call a conference at half-past eleven, and there'll
be no performance tonight.* I have made up my mind."
"You are going to turn a couple of thousa nd
people away from the door tonight."
"Oh yes, and more if you wish." He looked at
Hellebore defiantly.
"But I won't have you throwing
away your career, and also my money.
I shall call a
conference at half-past eleven, and meanwi hile I shall
show you round the new wing. You have all the time in the
world.
I am the one who'll be busy today. Sit here
and rest for half-an-hour if you wish.
Or let me take
you round the new wing. Do whichever you want."
Hellebore yawned at nd rubbed his eyes.
"I shall see Benedict," he said.
"We shall all see Benedict at halfprast eleven.
Shall I show you round the new wing?"
"Show me my dressing room," Hellebore answered.
"That's all I want to see. I want to see my paints and
costumes and the Virgin; and t want to be left alone with
them.
Call a conference if you like, Albert, call a
dozeh, but we won't postpone." I
"I have made my mind up."
"And I have made up mine."
They left the lounge a nd walked along a carpetfed
gallery under the glass dome, then down the foyer staircase


to one of the entrance doors of the auditordum. A
corridor went from the back of the pit along the whole
length of the theat tre to the dressing rooms, passing
undernea ath the stage.
Outside the dressing room Lorraine took Hellebore's
arm and drew him back.
"Look, I he said. "I just want you to see that."
Hellebore looked up and above the frame of the
door saw in gilt and flonrished letters the words: Le
Salon Hellebore.
"Was that y our idea?" he asked.
"What t are you going to do now, scrub it out?"
"No, that won't be necessary."
"You'd better scrub it out," he sa id, tur ning to
face him.
Lorraine looked away:
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you don't think I am worthy of it."
"Oh, you'll be worthy of it and more in a week,
provided you are sensible," Lorraine sa id quietly.
"Get a man to scrub it out, then.
Shall we go
Lorraine opened the wide double doors and ti hey
went in.
It was a long room, its ceiling high and carned :
much more a drawing room than a dressing room. Two wall-
length windows faced the door, a nd between them stood
Hellebore's dressing-table.
On the left VAMMWMVAMA


there was a wide couch which could serve as a bed, and
beyond it a curtain drawn to conceal one corner of the
ro om. On the right there was a tapestried screen and
beyond this wardrobe furniture, a sewing table and a
wicker chair.
There were ink portraits of the tw O
Grimaldi's on the walls.
"All this is new," Hellebore sa id. "Was it
your idea again?"
"No, this time Charpentier helped me in the
design." Lorraine was frowning. "We spent many hours
together over it."
"When I was last here I had a room fifteen by
ten; this is a char nge from that.
It must have cost
you money . "
Hellebore watched him cunningly as he sa id this,
ar nd Lorraine murmured with.exaggerated casualness: "Oh,
money - I
Hellebore walked towards his dressing-table but
then stopped in the middle of the room ar nd stared before
him.
"Albert," Il he said.
"I want to be sick."
"You what?"
"I want to be sick."
"There's a sink, then, quickly!"
Lorraine ran to the corner of the room on the
left of Hellebore's dressing-sable and pulled back the
curtain; behind it was a wash-basin and a mirror.


Hellebore went to it, his hand over his mouth.
Lorraine
turned away as he vomited thickly into the basin.
retched three or four times, then turned both taps on.
He leaned over the basin with his eyes closed, gasping,
and Lorraine supported his brow with the palm of his ha nd.
"Look," Lorraine said, "that's only for a quick
wash. r'il show you the bathroom and la avatory."
He led Hellebore to the opposite side of the
room and showed him a door behind the screen and wardrobe
furniture.
"I expect you could use it," he added.
But Hellebore shook his head and turned back
into the room again.
"May I use the telephane on your table?" Lorraine
asked him.
Hellebore coughed and blew his nose.
"I didn't know I had one," he replied hoarsely.
"I want to call the conference.
You'll be well
enough by that time, no doubt."
"Go to hell with your conferences. Help me to
get better."
"Lie down on the couch, Jack.
Don't talk.
Lie back."
Hellebore went to the couch a nd lowered
himself slowly down.
"Put your head back, that's right.
My God, you look washed out.
I'll call the Virgin up."
Hellebore raised himself suddenly al nd spoke as
if it were a terrible effort to him:


"No, leave her alone.
I want to get rid of
this burning in my throat."
Lorraine took a white handkerchief from one of
the drawers in the dressing-table, sprinkled Eau de
Col ogne over it and brought it to him; he laid it across
his brow, and Hellebore closed his eyes.
"I'm sick to death of all this," he sa id.
His
voice was barely audible.
"I want to go a way. I'm
sick of the job."
"Well, eaactly, so would anyone in the world,
at nd that's why I decided to postpone."
"I want to go away for good. To hell with
your postponements."
Lorraine pursed his lips:
"I simply don't understand you, 1l he answered.
"I'd like to break all these walls down, all
these thick walls.
I'd like to set fire to them and go
away for good."
"Would you include this room, Jack?"
"Yes; oh, I'd include this room, I'd start with
I'd smash the mirrors first "
"The ones over the dressing-table?" Lorraine asked
with distaste.
iwell, that would be quite a good beginning, they
are worth quite a little fortune in themselves.* What else?"
"Oh, I'd set a match to the curtains. That


screen - I
"I thought you'd go for that screen." Lorraine
smiled bitterly.
"The tapestry is one of the rarest
things in this theatre."
"Burn it, burn it.
I'm sick to death of it
all. You can't keep me walled up in this place.
I've
finished with everything, and I'M glad I've finished."
"I don't understand that," Lorraine replied.
"Whoever wants to keep you walled up? That's the tal lk
of a sick man."
"I'm glad, then, Ee a
"Glad about what?"
"Well, it's. all over.
I've been S ick down the
sink, and that's the end of Hellebore."
"Why should that be the end of Hellebore?"
Lorra ine asked, arranging the things on the dressing-table
with a smile.
Hellebore was only a dead carcase,
anyway, so good riddance."
"Listen to me, Jack.
You are a siak man, and
you hardly know what you are saying. I shall postpone
the show for a week, a nd then you'll have your first night,
and the best one of your career."
Hellebore opened his eyes and looked across at
him fiercely.
"Do you think I don't mean wha t I say?" he asked.
"You mean it, my dear fellow, but tomorrow you


will mean something different.
Meanwhile I shall call
a conference and postpone the show."
"Shall I tell you what we'il do?
We'll cancel
the show, we'll tear the contract up * this morning.
said I've finished with everything."
"What?" Lorraine cried.
Hellebore raised himself and leande forward on
his elbow, watching him.
"There," he said quietly, "that's what I mean.
Ar nd that's what I say."
Lorraine turned away, chastened.
"No, no," he murmured, shaking his head.
"I am finished, I am not fit to go on a stage
again. That's the bare truth of the matter. Your
instincts were right last night; I'm not fit to go on a
stage again.
So let me go away.
I've finished with
Hellebore.
Bring the contract here and we'll tear it up,
go on."
Lorraine was awed and pale:
"This is a different tune, Jack."
"I tell you, Hellebore is finished,' so see him
decently buried."
"What have these people been doing to you?"
Lorraine asked him with compassion.
"What people?"
"These jewellers and this y oung ma n of yours."
Hellebore sneered at him, his head down on the


cushions again:
"Oh, I'm old enough to look after myself.
Didn't I cancel the contract out of my own free will
last night?"
"How?" Lorraine asked.
"I walked out of the hotel after midnight and
there wasn't a war or revolution on. That was a breach
of contract, wasn't it?"
Lorraine shrugged his shoulders and pouted glumly:
"These are very serious words, Jack," he said.
"The whole world's changed I can't find a footing
again."
"I shall postpone the show for a week, and I'll
leave you to think the rest over.
It can't be true.
Your words mean the end of a career, and I won't allow it."
"They are true."
"My poor, dear fellow," Lorraine murmured, "what
a sight you are, lying there. I could never have predicted
it. What I said last night was due to bad nerves
"It was due to bad nerves."
Sulealy


Suddenly Hellebore leaned foward again and
groped in his pocket for something.
"Here, take this bloody souvenir away," he said.
He drew Lorraine's rosary from the pocket of
his tweed jacket and threw it violently at Lorrainess
feet.
It clattered against the leg of the dressing-table
near which Lorraine was still standing.
At first Lorraine said nothing.
He simply
stood and watched Hellebore.
His lips were drawn tight
together.
Thenke he spoke:
"I've seen them behave like this before."
"Them? Them? What do you mean, them?"
"The celebritied like yourself.
It's a form
of hysteria that comes with middlg-age. You are forty-
five, aren't you?"
"My name is Jack Finstanley. Aren't I more to
yo ou than them?"
"You appal me."
Lorraine, pale a nd trembling, bent down a nd
picked up his rosary from the floor. He then walked to
the door without glancing at the couch. Having opened
the door, he turned, and said deliberately:
"Very well, I shall cancel the contract."
He left the room and Hellebore lay back on the
couch again with a long sigh.
Lorraine went swiftly to his own office.
This
wa S on the floor above the dressing rooms. One of its
doors communicated with a wooden gallery running across


the stage high above it in the flies; its windows
overlooked a small park which adjoined the theatre at
the rear wall, behind the stage.
He slammed the door a nd went straight to his
desk, his lips pressed toge ther and his eyes narrowed.
There was mist between the trees outside, and everything
was still.
Bernard Charpentier got up from one of the
armchairs by the window. He had been sitting in the
shadow with his dark cloak wrapped across him, and Lorraine
started when he saw him.
Charpentier bowed, immensely taller than Lorraine.
"The entire theatre has been ringgng you for the
last hour," he said.
"You look troubled."
"I have just come from Jack.
Something very nasty
has been going on."
"Where is he, then?"
"Where is Jack Finstanley?" Lorraine looked out
of the window bitterly. "I'll tell y ou where Jack
Finstanley is.
He is lying on his backside in his dressing
room; his face is green and he has been behaving like a
madman."
"He has been most dreadfully sick.
Some y oung
adventurer came up to his room at midnight a nd the worst
happened: they filled him with drink and sent him back at
five in the morning. 11


"I have my suspicions, but no more.
Listen
to me, Bernard: I shall need your help, because I
think this wili be our busiest day since the Armistice."
"Listen to me, Bernard: I am going to run an
entirely new show.
I am cancelling tonight's performance.
A nd I am PAAA tearing up Jack's contract.' 11
Charpentier roardd with laughter.
"Oh, Albert, come, come!" he cried.
But Lorraine continued staring out of the window,
pale, his lips pursed.
"I am going to tear up his contract, I he repeat ted
quietly.
"All that will take time."
"You can't tear up a contract signed by Helleb ore.
A ny managar who tears up a contract signed by Hellebore is
a fool or a madman: which are you?"
"But, Bernard, I have just C ome from his dressing
room. For the last five minutes I ha ve been listening to
him telling me that he is finished for good, that he wants
to leave Paris and that he would like to burn his dressing
room and then the entire theatre down; and I know when
Jack is in earnest."
"He got drunk, I suppose?"
"Drunk? I found him lying on his bed with all
his clothes on, and the shoulder of his jacket torn.
had two hours' slaep. A nd you know wha t Jack is like
if he doesn't. get his sleep."
Charpentier shrugged ar nd sat down again, drawing


his cloak about him like a blanket.
He stretched out
his legs and yawned.
"It doesn't sound like the end of the theatrical
world to me," he said.
"His eyes are bloodshot.
His hai ir's all over
the place.
His face is swollen, there's a bruise the
size of your finger on his chin, his hands are trembling.
Ift that is the Jack Finstanley I knew yesterday and the
Jack Finstanley I signed up a month ago then I hat ve nothing
more to say: but it isn't. He could no more play
Hellebore tonight than you or I could. Ar nd he realises
that. He sees it very clearly.
He said it very slowly
al nd plainly to me, I am finished, he said, Hellebore is
finished. A nd he asked me to give him a decent burial
by tearing the contract up."
But Charpentier still shook his head.
"Get him down onto the stage," I he replied, "and
see how he shapes; postpone the show until next week "
"No, I can't ha ve dealings with the fellow.
ha ve other shows waiting to see the light of day."
"It may be that he's only trying out your loyalty,
Albbrt." He watched Lorraine slyly. "And it may be
that t after a little rest he'll be himself again."
"Ar nd it may be that he is, as he himself says,
finished."
"well, it would be most ar musing if y ou tore up
his contract and he then recovered and fell strai ight into


the erms. of another ma nager. It would be most amusing
to see him sign up gith al nother manager."
"Oh, that can't be helped."
Charpentier chuckled:
"Still, it would be amusing," he said.
Lorraine pulled the curtain further back a nd
looked down at the park in silence. After some time he
turned and looked at Charpentier, his eyes clear now.
"Would you back him with your last franc in his
present state?" he asked quietly.
Charpentier nodded.
"You see, Albert," he said, "if you intend to
destroy Jack you won't do it by tearing his contract up."
"Why should I want to destroy him?"
"If you refuse to sign him up y ou are obliged
to destroy him, or at least to try. How can you afford
to let him strike bargains with other managers in France?
You must know that quite half of all business enterprise
consists in thwarting other people's.
You can't destroy
him by tearing his contract up. But you can destroy him
by letting him go on the stage tonight and deserve his
cat-calls.
In that case he will be his own enemy; he
will destroy ainself. And that is the best you can hope
for: that he will destroy himself.
In that case not
another ma nager between here al nd Tokyo would touch him.
A nd should he recover: suppose this first night were his
best? Who would be the gainer then?"


Lorraine shaok his head:
"I can't forget those bloodshot eyes."
"Send him a message that Benedict is waiting for
him on the stage."
"No," Lorraine answered, "I must think about it."
"weli, the time is already twenty-six minutes
past eleven."
"And I already feel worn out."
Francine Berger, dressed in a white surgical
oevrall, knocked on the door of Hellebore's dressing room
and walked in. She drew back the moment she saw him.
One of his arms hung down at the side of the couch, his
eyes were closed and his mouth open; across his chin was
a dark blue bruise.
She closed the door at nd went to him;
she knelt and listened to his breathing.
Then she pulled
him by both armpits further onto the couch so that he would
lie more securely.
He gasped a nd shook his head limply
as she moved him.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"You are in y our dressing room."
"I know. What's the matter with you, I mean?
What do you want to move me for?"
"I thought you looked uncomfortable," she replied
in a soft voice. "When I came in I thought there had been
a tragedy.
I thought someone had killed you. May I get
something to cool your head? You look so ill."
She went to the wash-basin and made up a strip of


wet flannel.
"Tell me wha t ha ppened," she said.
"I think somebody must have hbt me last night,
but I'm not sure wha t happened.
I was as tight as a
fiddler's bitch.
I was sick a little while ago, so
I feel better than I did."
"What about the bruise on your chin? You must
have had an accident."
"I hit it on the side of the bath this morning,
This is an unlucky day."
"Oh, don't say that.
Remember tonight. 11
She laid the strip of cold wet flannel across
his brow.
"I have been waiting in my room since ten o'clock, #1
she told him. "Every one was looking for Lorraine.
Has
he seen you?"
Hellebore sighed as she pressed the flannel
against his brow, a nd smiled.
"Oh, yes, we've seen each other, tt he said. "We've
gertainly seen each other."
"I cannot remember you drunk at the hotel last
Someone called on me shortly aftEE before
midnight.
We went out together."
"This was a friend of yours, I suppose?"
She took from one of her pockets a bottle of
smelling salts and held it under his nose.


"No, a stranger," he said.
#What was his name?"
isangson."
She became quite still a nd stared at him in
silence.
Her hal nd with the smelling salts had moved
away from his nose, ar nd she now rested it against his
shoulder, quite lost.
Then she remembered herself,
replaced the salts in the pocket of her overall ar nd got
up fnom the couch.
She had long, blonde ha ir to her
shoulders, and a slim, delicate face.
"What are we to do, then?" she asked. "It is
so odd, you lying there at this time. Hou are us ually
up on the stage by now."
"I shall be going up soon.
I want you to lea ve
me here to rest a little.
Just leave me a little and I
shall give you a ring when I'm ready."
"Shall I draw the curtains?" she asked. "will
tha t help?"
He nodded, a nd she said: "You must not get
drunk on important occasions."
She took the wet flannel from his forehead and
wrung it out in the basin.
She then drew the curtains
across both windows and left the room.
Hellebore slept again, then stirred and looked
about him.
The room was in half darkness.
There was
not a sound from the stage or the other dressing rooms.
He pushed himself lower down on the couch so


that t his head would lie at the same level as his body.
He lay absolutely straight, with his arms firmly at his
side: he began breathing deeply at nd regularly, expanding
his chest to the utmost each time.
He continued this
exercise for some minutes.
Then he turned to a position
at right at ngles with the length of the couch, so that only
his trunk lay across it, while the calves of his legs on
one side and his head on the other were unsupported.
raised his arms and drew them in a circle over his head
so that they touched the floor under him palm downwards;
then gradually he hegan lowering his head and shoulders
to bring them nearer the floor. At the same time he
strained upwards with his hips a nd thighs.
He trembled,
he began to sweat, but gradually his legs came up.
When
they were clear of the couch he swung himself up into a
vertical hand-stand.
But the instant he was there,
balanced on his head and the palms of his hands, a pain
seemed to strike his middle, a nd he flung his legs down
to find a sitting position. As his right leg descended
it caught the side of his dressing-table, a nd a glass jar
fell and smashed on the floor.
He went to the dressing-table a nd sa t down before
the mirrors.
He leaned close to the mirrors in the half
darkness a nd peered hard into them. He dabbed rose-water
on his temples and along his upper lip.
He widened first
one eye and then the other by hold ing back the lids.
took a pair of nail scissors from the table and carefully
cut the hairs in his nose, drawing his upper lip down over


his teeth.
He rubbed cold cream into the bruise on
his chin, and combed his hair.
He then went behind the
screen; from the chest of drawers he took a silk blouse,
a pair of cloth trousers secured with elastic at the
ankle, and a pair of slippers.
He changed into these and left the room.
Eliza Manning entered Lorraine's office just as
Charpentier was getting up to go.
She stopped hal lf way
across the room at nd looked from one to the other.
"Hullo, what's the matter with everyone," she
asked. WBenedict has been down on the stage for the
last hour."
"Albert will tell you everything, 1 Charpentier
answered.
"I'm off to see Jack."
He left the room, and Eliza Mar nning went across
to Lorraine and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
was sitting now at his desk, close to the window.
"Well, what's the matter?" she asked him.
"You
look nervous again."
He looked away from her:
"Oh, Jack's been playing the fool. But I refuse
to talk about it now. Sit down."
He indicated a chair next to his own.
"We had a little disagreement, I he said, "and I
war nt to forget about it. I promised to see you at ten
o' clock, my treasure, and I wasn't here.
That was due
to Jack.
I am sorry.
Let me kiss your hand."


He drew her ha nd across the arm of his chair,
smiled at her sadly and gently kissed it.
"You looked pert and handsome last night,' I he
sa id. "I would have Eiselhiem on permanent contract if
I could, just to keep you in Paris...
Did I disgust you
by talking about death?"
"You must ne ver worry about wha t I think.
"Do I disgust you?"
"No, my dear."
He looked at her for a few moments, then sighed.
faker
"You understand my faith in Michelon, don't you?"
he asked.
"You don't think it's laughable?"
"Well, I wrote to him about that very question of
death some weeks ago.
Would you like to see what he wrote
back?
I've never shown you one of his letters.
Would
you like to see it?"
He opened one of the drawers in his desk a nd took
from it a sheaf of papers secured by a clip onto an oblong
piece of three-ply wood. All these papers were numbered,
beginning with mumber one at the top.
On the wooden
board itself there was a subject-index.
He pushed back
the sheaf of papers al nd ran his fingerz down this index
until.he found under the letter D the word Death, No. 57.
He turned to No. 57 of the papers al nd withdrew it from the
sheaf.
He handed it to Eliza.


"Hôw careful you are with your things," she said
quietly.
"Fancy keeping an index."
"Is that foolish?"
"No, it's clever."
She read the letter while Lorraine looked over
her shoulder:
"How miserable a life everlasting on earth would
be. Death is not your melancholic thoughts about
it. It is not drab, empty, dark, loathsome. It
is peace.
It is the door by which you go out.
Try to cast away these memories of funerals: they
ha ve to do only with the living death, with the
hell that is inside us now, hot with the real
death, that is everlasting peace.
Every melancholic
thought you have is a temptation from the devil,
and you must treat it as such.
Do not pity
yourself. Be heartless to yourself, and in this
you will be heartless to the devil.
Self-pity is
a pleasure indulged most by melancholic people:
it is their sin and shame, and it is no more
forgivable than the most heinous crime.
In Jesus Christ,
Father Michelon."
Hellebore entered the pit by a door at the side
of the stalls.
Grey dust sheets covered all the seats.
The curtain was up and there were noises of hammering and
shouting in the wings.
Only a dim blue light came from
the stage.
Subdued red stars were alight in the domed


ceiling of the auditorium, wtenty or thirty in number,
and from the centre of this dome hung a huge silver
chandeller.
In the pit itself, where Hellebore stood,
the air was hot, but now and then a swift cold wind blew
down from the wings. There were only cables, ropes,
ladders and chairs on the stage, and no backcloth, so that
the dark brick wall behind it was visible.
Some one in the wings shouted "Voilal" and two
powerful arc-lamps were switched on. Hellebore turned
away, for the moment blinded.
He watched Benedict
Amurrat walk across the stage, then he went up the centre
gal ngway to the back of the pit.
He pushed open one of the
doors marked SORTIE and peeped into the wide carpetted
foyer.
Someone passed across the entrance doors: he
quickly took his hand away and returned to the stage.
He stood behind the conductor's rostrum a nd waited.
The
arc-lamps were switehed down and the auditorium was once
more in darkness.
Heinrich Eisellaim
*ex came into the foyer from the street.
Etselkeim
wore a black overcoat with a fur collar.
He was a tall,
slim man, with a dark moustache and watchful eyes.
had caught sight of Hellebore, only for an instant, and
had immediately stopped. He stood still in the foyer,
listening.
There was the sound of slippeted feet from
the auditorium, and they seemed to be coming nearer.
walked swiftly behind one of the pillars al nd waited.
But the footsteps died away. He walked out inbo the


foyer again, listened, then went into the street and
round the side of the theatre to the stagedoor.
Francine Berger returned to Hellebore's dressing
room and after glancing at the couch pulled the curtains
back.
She immediately caught sight of the smashed glass
and powder at the foot of his dressing-table.
She paused
over it with a frown, then went to the couch and tidied
the cover.
She stood listening for a moment: then she
went to the door, opened it, took the key from the outside,
closed the door again and locked it. She went straight
tox the dressing-table and sat down before his mirrors.
She pulled out all the drawers of this table one by one,
and she scrutinised closely every article and scrap of
paper within them.
She replaced the things with a sigh and opened
the door again.
She then went behind the screen and
began laying out Hellebore's costumes one by one.
Hellebore put one hand on the conductor's rostrum
to support himself and closed his eyes.
Suddenly there
was the sound of a woman's voice close to him:
"...death soon enough!"
He started back.
Lorraine's voice, behind her in the darkness,
called out: "Jack?"
"What on earth are you standing here for?"


Eliza asked him.
They could just make each other out in the
darkness.
"Ah, so you got my measage," = Lorraine said. "We've
just come down from the office."
"What message?" Hellebore asked.
"To say that Benedict was waiting on the stage
for you.
Bernard went down to tell you."
"No, I never had it."
"Then you got into tights 1 ?" Lorraine peered
at him, leaning forward. "Those are tights, aren't they?"
"Hes, I'm in tights."
"Well, I've never known such beha vious. First
you will never go on the stage again a nd then you j ump into
a pair of tights."
"Wait and see," Hellebore told him. "Perhaps I
am finished."
"What were you doing, 1 trying me out?"
"No, I only spoke my mind."
"But you ha ve changed it now, It Lorraine sa id sharply.
"NO, Ihaven't." 1
iwhy are you in tights, then?"
fout of habit."
Lorraine scoffed at him:
îwhat has been the trouble, Jack?" Eliza asked.
"Albert won't tell me."


"Oh, I was drunk last night."
"What, in the lounge during the party?"
"No, afterwards."
"Well, that isn't a crime, Albert, is it?"
"Ah, wait until you see his face," Lorraine told
her. "That is.
He went off with a bunch of ne'er-do-
wells.
They released him at five o'clock this morning."
"Released..." Hellebore murmured.
"stop biting at each other," Eliza sa id.
"Take him for a walk, Eliza," Hellebore at nswered.
"Ma ke him say his beads."
Just as Francine Berger la id Hellebore's sequin
suit across the table Charpentier came into the room.
He glanced at the couch.
She turned ar nd asked him
whether he was looking for Hellebore.
"Yes," he replied, "and the bird appears to have
flown."
"He must have gone up to the stage, but God knows
Wl ha t he has been doing with himself."
"Have you seen him, then?"
"Yes, and he needs looking after.
He is really
Charpentier put his ha nd s in his pockets a nd
sa id casually:
"Oh, he wa S only a little drunk last night."
"I came back just now al nd found one of his powder
jars on the floor."
"Broken, you mean? How?"


"Perhaps he fell against the table.
Tha t
corner smells of vomit.
What chance will he stand this
evening?"
"Only he himself knows."
Francine went behind the screen to her sewing
table, and Charpentier peeped round the corner.
"Ah, so these are the legendary accoutrements!"
He went nearer the table where Hellebore's costumes lay.
"Let me touch them.
May I?"
"By all maans."
Charpentier lifted up a pierrot's dress with
awe.
"It is like touching ancient parchments, 11 he
said. "I can already see them as museum exhibits.
remember these pom-poms and neck-frill,- what will he use
this pierrot's dress for, Francine?"
"He always used it for his entrance, but I don't
know what he means to do with it tonight."
"Yes, I remember those sudden entra. nces in white."
"Onto an empty st tage."
iYes," he sa id.
Francine came to his side at the table.
"Haven't you seen his stuff before?" she asked him.
"From the pit, yes, but never backstage, to touch
with ny own fingers.
When does he wear this sequin jacket?
Remi nd me."
"I don't think he used it for his last two shows


in Paris, but before then he did his trapeze work in it."
"It usedto make those flashes, - of course. And
the big shoes, I I remember them well." He picked up
one of them.
"It must be two feet long?"
"At least.
All that part 1 11
She pointed to
the toe.
11 is very lightly made, so that it can flap
up a nd down.
It makes a smacking noise when he walks."
"And where are the removable tails?"
She brought out the tails of a morning jacket
from under the sequin suit, then the jacket itself dese like
a Spanish jacket I onto which the tails clipped.
"Yes, yes, I remember that clearly," Charpentier
murmured with a smile.
"I remember him tumbling over and
"Feel for the little water-tank.
Can you feel it?"
She handed him a pair of black trousers, and he
felt in the right hand pocket.
"Yes, I can feel it.
Those are his tears? A nd
I can remember the outsize check suit.
He used it for
the shooting parties.
But no gun. No gun this year?"
"No. Perhaps he won't use it this season."
"And why the bowler-hat and this horse-whip?"
He lifted up first a tiny bowler-hat, no more
than six inches wide, and then a long horse-whip of the
type used in circuses.
"I ha ve never seen them bebore," Francine told him.
"But there they were, among his other costumes.
It is


something new, I dare say."
"But I know what these are for.
Don't you?"
He took from a deep box on the table two or three
white china eggs.
Francine nodded: "So does Eiselheim, I fear."
"Yes, there may be a little trouble about that.
Where are the kerchiefs, the top hat and the other
incriminating articles?"
"In the cupboard.
I dare not put them out on
the table lest Eiselheim or Helen should come in."
Charpentier smiled.
"Eliza would love the idea, of course,' # he sa: id.
"Oh, Eliza, - she is disboyal."
"Do you think so?" He put the china eggs back
slowly and thoughtfully, then he went towards the door.
He looked at her. "Your English is remarkably fluent
now.
Where did you learn it?"
She turned her back on him.
"That is my secret."
"You are a relentless woman..
Adieu. 11
The chorus of fifteen girls filed onto the stage,
and Jaques, the dancing master, was behind them.
trotted nimbly down-stage and stood with his back to the
footlighte: he was a small man, quick and loud-voiced.
He made a peremptory signal with his hand, at nd his girls
moved quickly into line before him. He told them in
French, pronouncing his words slowly at nd clearly, to keep
their heads up, their backs stra ight a nd their eyes level.


He told them to keep their eyes fixed on the lowest
part visible to them of the dress circàe, and to smile
within as well as without, not mechanically.
Lorraine was standing with Eliza by one of the
arc-lamps in the wings, while Hellebore wai S still behind
the conductor's rostrum a nd visible from the stage.
Jacques continually glanced obsequiously to his right, at
Lorraine, then to his rear, at Hellebore; as he talked
he made secret little signs to his chorus - his eyebrows
raised urgently - so that they should impress this special
audience.
The dance began and Jacques clapped his ha nd s to
the rhythm of the piano.
He went among the girls as they
danced; he pressed one girl's head further down as she
bent forward, and lifted higher another girl's leg as she
danced on one foot.
Continually throughout the dance he
cried out, to the rhythm of the music: "Heads up, backs
straight, eyes level"; if a girl glanced down at the floor
or the footlights, he ran forwardz and scolded her.
During the dance Benedict Amurrat came onto the
stage, peering down into the pit, saw Hellebore and then
descended. Hellebore walked along the gal ngway to meet
him and they shook hal nds.
When the dance was over stageha nd s began constructin g
the cage for Eiselheim's tigers.
The four walls were
bolted together and a passage-way about two feet high was
la id down in the wings for the tigers to come in by.
Eiselheim watched Eliza from the other side of


the stage, then walked behind the chorus to where she
stood wi th Lorraine. As he passed her he turned to
speak, after the briefest smile at Lorraine.
"Do you happen to know where Helen is?" he asked
her.


her.
She answered him rudely, "Don't you? Surely
you know?" and he immediately drew back in surprise; he
looked at her appalled for a moment, then smiled.
"No. I am afraid I do not."
He bowed slightyy to them both a nd left the
stage.
Lorraine put his arm in Eliza's and drew her
closer to him.
"Now what?"
She tried to break free from him.
"You are so rude to him, my dear."
"I can't hear a thing with this piano!"
He leaned over and spoke in her ear: "Why are you
so rude to Eiselheim?
He hasn't the right nature to deal
with your rudeness.
Why do you do it?"
"Well, why do you quarrel with Jack?"
He looked into her eyes gith a smile: "Yes, I
suppose we all have our reasons."
"What has been the trouble between y ou? I still
want to know, and I shall worry you until you tell me."
"There are always disagreements in the first
week, Eliza. They are a form of first night nerves.
They help to brace one up 1 II
"Tell me the truth.' H
She fixed her eyes on him
and put her face close to his. "Have you been talking to
him about postponement again this morning?"


"Not yet," Lorraine replied uncomfortably.
"Have you?"
"We talked about cancelling his contract, y ou
He said this quickly, as if it would not be
noticed.
She stared at him:
"Cancelling? You have both gone ma d."
"But he is no fit state to give a performance
today or tomorrow even.
You saw his face yourself,
didn't you, when the lights came on again?"
"Then I can't understand why the rehearsals are
going on.
Look at the time, it's already gone twelve.
You should be at work now if you want to postpone."
Lorraine looked about him, biting his lip:
"We shall have to see how he goes this morning." #
"By the time you have discussed that it will be
too late to do anything." She shook Lorraine's arm.
"What do you intend to do?"
But Lorraine was passive: "I don't know, 11 he
said, "I simply don't know." He kissed her lightly on
the temple.
"I must leave you now."
He went to the very back of the stage and climbed
the steep wooden stairs which led to his gallery in the
flies; he leaned over the rail of the gallery a nd waved to
Eliza far below, then he turned and want into his office.
He was about to go to his desk when he heard someone knock
on the door which communicated with the corridor in the
new wing.
He opened it and saw Jean Duloi+Bordeau


He did not invite him into the office but walked out
into the corridor and closed the door behind him.
Duloi-
Bordeau was a short, muscular man with plump cheeks,a
broken nose a nd the eyes of a child.
"I tried to see you alone all day yesterday,' # he
told Lorraine politely, coming closer to him. "The
troupe's tired, Albert, and we would like to know whether
you could drop us out of the next show, when Jack goes
to Spain.
It will only be for a fortnight, and we should
be fresher for it."
Lorraine smiled and patted Duloi-Bordeau's
shoulder.
"The season will be finished in a couple of
motths, 1t he said.
"But we must have a rest. We are tired."
"Listen, my dear fellow, I am not your family
doctor, I am your manager. If you want to be somebody
in the theatre you must be prepared to fight oub your
problems alone.
I am alone, Jack is alone, Eiselheim
is alone, you are alone, - and the Theatre IA
de la Fête
would collapse in a ruin tomorrow is we all tried to lean
on each other's shoulders.
If y ou want to drop out of
the contract, come and tell me so, but that will be y our
last chance to sign up with me, or indeed with any
ma nager of my standing in France or England.
I told
you at the beginning 1 didn(t I?
how horrible success
can be."
"My sister is a sick woman." Tears began to


appear in Duloi-Bordeau's eyes.
"She has to go on
every night with that chest of hers..."
Lorraine shrugged gently:
"I am in love with a young lady, Jean, a nd that
young lady refuses to take me as a husband. What are
you going to do about that? What could you do about that?
A nd the audience doesn't care one way or the other."
He gazed into the other man's eyes, then went
back into his office and closed the door, while Duloi-
Bordeau remained standing in the corridor, helpless.
Eiselheim was already wai iting inside the cage
while a stagehand in the wings raised the grill to
admit his first tiger.
He was dressed in riding boots
and a black jersey, al nd once the grill was up he jumped
forward and cracked his whip.
The tigers paused at the
entrance and cast up at him a slow, drowsy glance before
they trotted to their boxes, avoiding his whip. As
soon as they were all inside he became fierce and threat-
ening, prowling among them with bent back, his chin thrust
forward, striking at their faces and paws whenever they
tried to shift out of place.
He made them bow to him,
jump through hoops, snap at his hand as he passed, run
between his legs, leap one by one over his head, fight
with each other, lie down and take his neck between
their paws, and follow each other from box to box in
a continual octagon.
Everything was done with a


quick savagery, so that the beasts should not be still
for an instant.
Eliza stood in the wings outside, leaning against
the cage-wall, and she wa S watching every movement
Eiselheim made, perhaps with awe. Especially his eyes
had changed, sunk deep into his brow. The beasss moved
about cowed and resentful in his presence.
Suddenly,
just as he struck one of them in the mouth with the
stiff part of his whip, he turned and quite by accident
looked her in the eyes. At once she drew back from
the cage-wall, frightened by him.
She went out of the pass-door and hurried along
towards the new wing, her head bowed.
Not far from
Hellebore's dressing room Charpentier turned the corner
al nd almost bumped into her.
She started, disturbed in
her thoughts, and he apologised.
He touched her light
dress and asked with a smile: "Have you seen Jack, my
"Yes, and he looks dreadful.
His face ha S
swollen in all the wrong places."
"I've just come from his dressing room.
He fell
onto his table and smashed a glass jar while the Virgin
wa S away."
"Has she been nursing him, then?"
"She has been trying," ET he said, "but he evades
her. 1I
"Who wouldn't?"


"Exactly."
"The first thing Albert talked about in the office
this morning was Michelon." She looked round and spoke
in a lower voice.
"He showed me one og his letters on
death.
Did you know that Albert keeps all those letters
clipped t ogether onto a board, with a neat index of all
the subjects?"
"No, he rarely mentions Michelon to me."
"I was astonished; it showed me another side of
his character altogether."
"What Albert will never C onfess to Michelon, 11
Charpentier said with a chuckle, "is that t he finds doing
good tedious, and evil both exciting at nd lacrative."
Eieelheim's rehearsal was brief.
When he had
seen the last tiger back behind the grill again, he
mounted the wooden staircase to Lorraine's office,
brushing the dust and straw from his breeches as he went.
While the cage was being dis.nantled two
sceneshifters whealed in from the wings a ramshackle
grand piano with the varhish marked and flaking, the legs
cracked al nd bound up with ropes a nd rags, the lid split
into several parts so that when t*X*aX lifted it hung
over the strings like a number of planks insecurely tied
together, and the keys yellow with age.
Hellebore bent down to look at a metal lever
hidden at the side of the key-board. He stood clear


of the piano and, with his arm stretched out, pulled
this lever emartly down. At once the keyboard lid
fell with a crash to the floor, and he nodded to the
sceneshifters.
They now brought a small box from the
wings with a wire attached to it. This they inserted
under the keyboard, then drew the wire back to a detonator
mechar nism in the wings.
Hellebore stood close to the
piano, wa iting. An electrician pressed the detonator
button and instantly there was a loud report and a cloud
of white smoke burst from the keyboard al nd enveloped both
Hellebore a nd the piano, rolling at nd turning across the
stage.
Hidden now
from the audilonum


from the auditorium, he went through several actions in
mime: he went through the actions of taking off his shoes,
his trousers and his jacket, then of receiving from a
stage-hal and in the wings al nother set of clothes, then of
tugging sométhing from his right temple, 1 all in the course
of a few seconds. Now he reeled and stumbled across the stage
through the smoke cloud until he was once more in view
from the dark stalls.
Eiselheim went to one of the windows in Lorraine's
office and gazed down at the park, quite still.
"Are you sure?" Lorraine asked him.
"Quite sure. There are very seld om misunderstand-
ings between us. She has a headstrong na ture, but I
accept it."
Lorraine watched the other man carefully before he
spoke:
"I was thinking, you see, of asking her to take
s ome permanent work in this theatre."
Eiselheim turned from the window.
"Yes," he said, "but she isn't unhappy with me.
You must allow for her temparament: saddenly she will turn
on someone, a then it is all over.
Believe me .
I have
known her for mapy years."
"Well, she did talk last night as if she were a
little disc ontented."
"But do you think it is safe to judge any woman


by her words?" Eiselheim asked him.
"She is usually sincere with me."
"Try, then.
Ask her to take some permai nent
work here.
But I don't think she will hear of it."
Lorraine looked up at him sharply.
"Would you be willing to let her go if she did
agree?" he asked.
"Yes, certainly. But I know she won't hear of
1t." Eiselheim lowered his gaze. "of course, I do
understand your concern for Eliza.
I am not trying to
interfere with that."
"of course not."
Hellebore walked slowly towards the trapeze,
rubbing his hands on his tights.
It had stopped short
of the floor and level with his waist. He now poised
himself ar nd made a leap forward onto the trapeze so that
he lay across the bar, his head towards the pit, as if
he had fallen there.
When he seemed secure Amurrat waved
his hand at the operator, and the trapeze began moving swiftly
up towards the flies with Hellebore lying across it.
But suddenly he was no longer firm.
He yelled
out and the trapeze stopped just in time, nine feet above
the boards, to prevent him falling from it head first.
The trapeze returned to the stage and he jumped off,
perspiring al nd shivering. Amurrat came and patted him
on the shoulder.
The operator in the flies shouted down:


"That would ha ve been a nice fall," Hellebore
said. Amurrat asked him to try it again, but he shbok
his head and turned away angrily.
Eiselheim asked Lorraine a question in a lower,
secretive voice:
"How is Mr. Finstanley this morning?"
The window rattled, then all was quiet again.
Lorraine looked away quickly a nd blinked, with Eiselhedm's
dark, narrow eyes upon him.
"We must give him time to find his feet a ga in,
you know," # he said.
"I hear he ha S been uns teady this morning.
thought that was unusual."
There was a knock on the door a nd they both started.
Charpentier came in.
"Jack has been rehearsing for the last half-hour, , I
he told them. He bowed to Eiselheim.
"Good morning,
Heinrich."
Eiselheim did not smile.
He simply returned
the bow with pursed lips and murmured, "Good morning, Mr.
Charpentier."
Lorraine got up from his ahair behind the desk,
wat tching Eiselheim.
"We'll go down together, then, # he told Charpentier,
"and have a look at hime"
The conductor played several dances on the piano
and during each of them Hellebore danced a few steps so
that they should be able to determine the speed at which


the music should be taken. The conductor marked his
sc ore according to Hellebore's instructions.
Eiselheim left Lorraine and Charpentier in the
corridor, not wishing to re-visit the stage. The other
two found Amurrat with an electrician in the wings, and
together they descended to the first row of the stalls.
Hellebore was leaning over the conductor's shoulder to
look at the score.
Lorraine sat next to Amurrat and asked him:
"What are the chances of a fiasco tonight?"
"Well, all I can say is that the show apart from
Jack is thoroughly coordinated and rehearsed.
Its success
now rests with one man, and tha t man is Jack. I admit
this worries me a little.
I know my tasks, the stage
ma nager knows his, the conductor knows his, and so do the
electricians and the stagehands. The chorus dances better
than it has ever done bef ore: Eiselheim is in fine fettle;
the Duloi-Bordeau's ha ve rehearsed until now they can
barely sta nd up. But for Hellebore I cannot vouch; I
can only vouch for my own faith in him al nd my quite prisate
expectations. Suc h men defy prediction."
"Has he been on the wire yet?"
"Yes, it was the first thing he did this morning."
"Was he steady?"
"Yes. But he did slip on the trapeze, just a
few minutes ago." Amurrat leaned forward to look at
Charcentier a nd address a question to him: "Bernard, what


is the matter with our mal nager this morning?"
"First night nerves, my dear chap. He hears
y our words, but not y our mear ning."
A voice in the wings called out for Amurrat and
he returned to the stage. Lorraine and dahrpentier
walked slowly up to the centre ga ngway to the back of the
auditorium.
"There you are, look at that," Charpentier
whispered to him as they turned their eyes towards the
stage. "He's still a showma an."
Hellebore performed a number of very fast cart-
wheels, flinging his body over with an immense force.
"When they reach that age 1 I
Lorraine broke
off and gasped. "Now you look at that!"
On the rebound from his last cartwheel Hellebore
C-lipped


slipped backwards: he managed to right himself, but not
without pulling one of his calf-muscles painfully.
limped to the armchair in the wings and sat down.
Lorraine put his hand over his eyes and bowed his
head: "This is an exact repetition of my most fearful
dream, even to the point of the strange intruder in the
dead of night. Even I was not superstitious enough to
believe that my worst fears could materialise in such
elose detail.
In future I shall pay more attention to
those foolish fears of mine; apparently there is less
folly in them than you or I or al nybody else thought."
Charpentier put his hand on his shoulder:
"But I am afraid that if you begin taking note of your fears
and premonitions, Albert, you will never float another
show or take another business risk as long as you live,
and you will end a pauper." I1


A t noon each day during rehearsals the Crimson
Tower became a dining room for the artistes and members of
the orchestra: the armchairs and cocktail-tables were
moved back to the walls, and round mai hoga ny tables a nd
stiff-backed chairs were brought in.
Hellebore, Eliza and Helen Eugenie sat near one
of the windows, talking after their lunch.
Hellebore
was dressed in a light country-tweed suit.
Helen
Eiselheim
Eugenie, Nidok s second stage assistant, was taller and
older tha n Eliza; she was sombre, her ha nds were long.
She was dressed in black, with a black lace collar high at
her neck.
The clouds were still low, but now and again there
was a sharp ray of sunlight from between them which lit up
the lounge suddenly and then died quickly down.
Helen was speaking to Eliza: "You haven't said
a kind word to him since we arrived in Paris, and goodness
knows what you've been saying behind his back.
If he
ma kes you so unhappy why don't you leave him and find
other work?"
wan ruier, leanlug Cack in les chais.
Elia
Set
wae
et; leaning back
her t
sle aked r
"What t other work?" she asked.


Helen answered her like an elder sister, ra ther
mockingly: "Oh, my dear girl, Lorraine would surely find
something for you."
Eliza sneered.
"Yes," she said, "with certain conditions attached. #
"stili, it might make you see Heinrich in a better
light.
Never has he once done you ang unkindness.
Never
once has he even snapped at you..."
"No." Eliza looked across the table at her
bitterly. "He never talks, that's why.
It's the silence
I can't bear."
Helen twisted her glass in her hand, smiling:
"Well, I should try noisier work if I were you, and then
perhaps you'a call his silence peace of mind, and run
back to it like a nau ughty child. I suppose you ha ve
noticed .tha t he never answers your rudeness."
"Yes, but I wish he would answer me just once."
Eliza became a ngry a nd spoke quickly. "I wish he'd smack
my face or call me a slovenly little bitch.
Imagine
Heinrieh calling me a slovenly little bitch, Jack!"
Hellebore took no notice, but continued staring
down at the table shyly.
"I dare say you could find cruel a nd foul-mouthed
employers enough," Helen told her.
"There are plenty of
them in our profession. Why don't you go out and look
for one?"
"Because I am lazy a nd stupid.
I want a husband
at nd I want chiddren.
There is nothing Heinrich can do


about that, but you'd think that if he were as holy as
y ou say he is he would try to give me a little comfort.
A little comfort, I don't know what, but a holy mai n
would know, a so you would think, wouldn't you?" She
turned to Hellebore again. "Yes, Jack, she called him
holy the other day.
She worships him."
Hellebore glanced up at Helen, embarrassed,
and asked her: "Do you think I ought to have a word
with him about Eliza? She isn't happy 1 #I
Eliza cut him short, looking into his eyes
fiercely: "Yes, tell him I've been in love with you
for the last ten years; what could his holiness do about
Perhaps Helen was a little panic-stricken by
what Hellebore had just said.
She shook her head
gravely at him: "I know exactly how he would be if you
tried to talk to him, cas like a caught animal. You
could as well ask one of our tigers to speak."
Eliza watched her cynically: "But in any case
he hates Jack."
"Oh, Eliza..." Helen shook her head sadly.
"You say these rash things, but do you think whether they
are true or not?"
"I know that's true.
I can use my own eyes."
She spoke to Hellebore. "They both hate you.
If she
could put an end to your career tomorrow she'd do it,
for Heinrich's sake.
She'd lay the whole world waste
for Heinrich's sake.
Everything she does is for
Heinrich "


"No, Eliza, no!" cried Helen.
She was near
tears.
"She goes everywhere with that horrible set smile
of hers; it means she's thinking about Heinrich.
Dear
Heinrich a II
Hellebore wal S suddenly disgusted: : "Oh, shut up,
for Christ's sake. What the hell's it got to do with me?"
He stared at them as they sat in silence, ashamed
now. Then he asked: "Wine?"
He held the wine bottle diagonally before Helen,
and she shook her head.
He held it before Eliza, al nd she
merely averted her eyes without uttering a word.
filled his own glass and laid the bottle down again
meditatively.
Helen turned to him and sa id quietly: "Forgive
her. She is only acting out her little melodrama. :I
Hellebore shook his headm frowning:
"No, she
isn't acting anything.
I think she is fond of him,
Helen." He shrugged.
"But there, he never addresses
a word to her."
"That's his nature, which God gave him," Helen
replied.
*snaxtxnt*x
"The two of you have aged her in the last five
years. I cane see that, having been av way for five years.
She's so touchy now.' 11
"You say the 'two of you' as if Heinrich al nd I
were in a conspiracy together.' 11
Eliza replied to Helen in a quiet voice, but with


her eyes lovingly on Hellebore: "You are.
I'm sure
you do horrible things together, like putting spells on
people.
You told me yourzelf you believed in his spells."
Helen bowed her head devoutly: "I believe in a
certain power he has to change natural events.
I believe
some very rare and extraordinary himana beings ha ve that
power."
"Yes, and if you could do it by spells you'd
murder Jack in his bed. It always hurts him to think
of Jack's position in the theatre."
"Why does he accept a contract in one of Jack's
most importa nt shows?" Helen asked.
"Beacsue Jack fascinates him.
I can feel him
wa tching Jack all the time, trying to discover his secret."
"Isn't it possible that he admires Jack, and
watches him with awe?"
Eliza scoffed at her: "Don't degrade yourself,
Helen!" she cried.
"Watch him with awe!
Why, whenever
I mention Jack in his company he ju umps out of hisshoes."
"It isn't possible that you are jealous of me
for having so much of his attention, is it?"
Eliza looked at her for a moment, as if in
doubt, then replied: "I'm even tired of talking about
him. You can give me some wine now, Jack."
Hellebore falled her glass ar nd winked at her:
she took a sip of the wine, looked pained, as if the
taste displeased her, then set her glass down again.
"I don't know why I drink this yellow piss, #I


she said. "I loved Campeachy Bay last year because
they had all those beautiful fruit drinks. You can
keep your vintage wine."
Helen continued to fix her with her eyes, coldly:
"You can't forgive Heinrich his strangeness, can you?
You want everyone to be hail-fellow-well-met."
Eliza answered her with bitter gaiety: "Yes,
"He knows you as a mother knows the fruit of
her own womb. You hate his strangeness, but he ha s
always been steange." Helen was coolly determined to
vindicate Eiselheim.
"Ihave seen him talking to birds
in the Piazza Cataluna in Barcelona, with all the
Spaniards staring at him. He can speak to birds, you
know, and make them understand. All his childhood he
spe ent among superstitious women, and from them he
learned his silenee, his separateness and his dark powers." I
She paused, watchingthe effect of
Lles wores...


her words. "And shall I tell y ou how old he is, - this
euil
Ayurt
spiteful young man? He is fifty-four years old, Eliza."
Both Hellebore a nd Eliza looked up at her with
surprise when she told them this.
She nodded: "Yes,
he was born just after the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian
War. But there, he doesn't need my defence. He is so
sufficient to himself, and he was probably no less so
when he was four years' old."
Lorraine wiped the sweat from his upper lip with
a ha ndkerchief and pulled one of his windows down.
For
a few minutes he stood still by the window a nd wa tc hed
three chiddren playing in the park below, then he returned
with a sigh to his desk.
He rubbed his right ear a nd
shifted in his chair. There was not a sound in the office.
He put his ha nd on the telephone receiver but immediately
withdrew it.
He took a memora nd um book from the edge of his
desk a nd began writing: "You sa id that everything in
the world was my responsibility so long as I thought about
it, at nd tha t the more I think about the more I am respons-
ible for.
I must have this clear.
When I am face to
face with you I feel empty. Iwant the strength to say
what is in my mind, or ra ther the strength to bring back
to my mind the thoughts which your presence frightened
away. I ha ve a lot to tell you about pride. You sa id
that a mal n can also sin by failing to do good. What
did I fail to do? What am I failing to do now?"


He went to the window a nd looked out agein.
The three children were no longer visible.
The telephone
bell rang a nd he disregarded it.
He returned to his
desk and wrote the following words: "If only I could be
granted a moment of innocence."
Francine Berger's private room was on the ground
floor of the new wing, behind the stage and at the very
back of the theatre.
Its one window gave out onto the
park, the same area of park that could be seen, two floors
above, from the windows of Albbrt Lorraine's office.
was a very small room, and an elm-tree immediately outside
the window made it dark at all times of the day.
Most of the furniture had clearly been stage
properties a t one time.
Under the window there was a
violet divan with satin-covered cushions, al nd against the
wall near the door there was a dressing-table with an
ebony-inlaid top.
In the middle of the room, on a
fragment of rich Persian carpet, stood a light crimson
pouf. Na iled onto the wall were trinkets, gold-framed
medallions bearing the portraits of past actors at nd
actresses, cuttings from old newspapers, a silver-pla I ted
crucifix, visiting cards with signatures on them, at nd,
over the dressing-table, a long polished cutlass with a
blue ribbon a nd tassle a t its ha ndle.
In the hearth
there was a gas-fire, ar nd at this moment it was alight.
Francine Berger lay na ked on the divan, and in
the armcha ir next to the gas-fire, facing the window and


the divan, sat Henry Sangson,
Takee
She ha d her head turned towards the window a nd
was gazing up sadly a t the in elm-tree outside.
"You killed people when you were a soldier,' I she
murmured, "and now you're ashamed of it.
That's why
you are always talking about murder, because you yourself
are a murderer."
Both their bodies were white, untouched by the
sun.
Sar ngson nodded, his sharp eyes fixed on the gas-
fire: "Yes, perhaps you are right."
He leaned forward to warm himself. For a few
moments neither spoke.
Wwhat made you go and see him?" she asked quietly.
"Edgar Finstanley asked me to.
A nd I wanted
to on my own account."
She frowned: "But why?"
"Well, I told you long ago how important he was
to both of us. We lived among the dead, and death seemed
the most either of us could look forward to. We lived
among dead things, everything we touched wa S dead, every
noise denoted the nearness of death.
In our world the
worst always happened. We were young. I still am
young." He spoke bitterly. "Naturally, I war nted to see
Hellebore.
I needed to see him. I wanted to get back
a little warmth into my fingers."
"But you made him ill.
Did that make you feel
warmer?
This morning he wa S sick, and this evening


he'll be unfit to go on the stage.
If ne makes a mess
of it you'll be to blame." Suddenly she leaned forward
on her elbows, frowning at him. "What made you call
on him so late at night? What t made y ou take him along
to that club?"
Sar ngson lowered his eyes: "You told me he kept
late hours, an nd I expected to find him with his guests."
She lay back angrily: "Well, he needs protecting
against people like you. I don't know how he can possibly
get through his act tonight; I've never seen him look ao
ill. You're a fine one to talk about murder."
Her cheeks were a little flushed as she spoke. *
Sa ngson was silent.
Then he seemed to realise sonething
al nd looked across at her with clear eyes.
"You feel warmer towards him than you do towards
me," he said, with the slightest smile.
"I can see tha t."
a She lost patience:
"But you're thinking about yourself all the
time! You called on him to get back a little warmth into
your fingers, - into your fingers. And now you are wanting
more warmth out of me."
"No, I didn't mean that t. I think y ou are right
to feel more warmly towards him.
I wasn't asking for
pity." He smiled.
"If you think I was, you aren't a
good judge of men."
She watched him, at nd the frown left her face.
"But you were wrong go there are midnight and
upset him, my dear."
Sge spoke to him now ina


aAy gently.omm "You make the mistake of talking
too plainly to people.
You don't realise how all this
miserable talk about murder and death and emptiness may
affect some of them.
You shouldn't have called on him
a t midnight,
and you shouldn't have talked to him about his
own son." She shook her head in a puzzled way. "I
don't know, - you seem to go along like a blind ma n.
You behave sometimes as if you were soft in the head.
Even now you don't seem to realise what you did last
night: you don't seem to realise that Jack may ma ke a
mess of everything tonight just because of you. You
don't seem to realise you may ha ve murdered a grea t
career."
"Perha ps I don't think I have murdered a great
career," M he murmured.
"We shall see tonight.
Look at you, I even now
y ou don't seem to be grasping wha t I say."
He shrugged, and she told him coldly: "If you
were a self-sufficient person you would ne ver have called
on him ar nd upset him like that.
You only did it because
you can't stand on your own feet. You have to suck
other people to death in order to live. You aren't
self-sufficaent, not as Jack must have been when he was
your age."
fack,
back
Sa ngs on lear nedé resigned and calm.
"oh, come," Il he said, "you're only trying to


be cruel."
iyour job is jewel-cutting, but you aren't
interested in it as other men are interested in their work.
You aren't capable of leading your own life: that's why
you called on Jack last night. During the War you killed
people like every other soldier, but now you EFEAtE won't
forget it, al nd you won't let other people forget it."
She became a ngry again.
"Why couldn't you have gone off
to war and done your job like everybody else, and then
come back without all this fuss and bother?"
He did not take his eyes from the floor.
"Don't the others make any fuss?" he asked quietly.
"The fools don't, I agree."
iwell, where does your wisdom get you?
further than a jeweller's shop." She looked at the elm-
tree outside again, wearily. isuppose there had never
been a war?
What would have haj pper ned to you?"
"I think I would have taken up a teacher's
certificate al nd taught in a country school.
I would have
married no doubt. And I would have joined an archaeological
society.
But the point is I shouldn't have wa to hed
myself living, as I do now. The War ta ught me to do that."
"You haven't found your proper friends, - that's
all you mean," she replied. "You are with the wrong people.
The Celida's aren't your kind, nor am I, really."
"But where are the right people?
Nowhere."


"Exactly. You aren't self-sufficient."
There was a blanket at her side, a nd she now
drew
over her legs and hips.
Sangson watched her
do this, al nd asked : "Are you the wrong person for me,
dortidoanoNPLAWANwanadaerusyont - A
"Well, you don't love me,madaroMsMs "You
only need me sometimes. You've just made love to me,
but we don't know each other any better for it. You're
alone all the time, even when you mal ke love to me."
"But so are you in a different way."
"Well, I've told you before!" she cried fiercely.
"You must treat me like a cripple. You must try to give
me the sympa thy you'd give to a cripple.
But all y our
talk won't make me enjoy it more."
He stared at her across the dark room: "But
you do believe that making love is horrible."
"I've never said that."
She turned her head away violently, pouting.
"And you are right," he said. "It is horrible.
It is sex.
The word itself is horrible.
It is sharp,
merciless, brief, metallic.
Secare is the Latin for
divide or cut. That's where the word sex comes from.
But love, Francine, is from lubet, - 'it pleases'.
The
love is disappearing from our world, Francine, and instead
of men and women there are everywhere creatures alone
with their own flesh, dying for lack of blood and warmth,


cut off from each other.
In sex we are only two persons
fumbling with each other like monsters.
I hate and despise
sex. It is a twentieth century invention, like the
shrapnel bullet.
An act of sex is an act of murder.
It is two people joined together in a conspiracy of murder."
Francine gazed up at the ceiling, spent.
"Have we just committed an act of murder, then?"
she asked quietly. "Is everything in the world murder?"
"We are too secretive about each other, Francine.
We must let other people see us together. Even Giordano
and Maria don't know about us.
I ought to feel free in
this theatre. We musn't hide away as if it were a crime
we were committing."
"But suppose there really is no love between us?
Suppose we really never can please each other?"
He looked at her defiantly: "Well, in future,
when people ask me whether I know you I shall say, yes,
I'm her lover.
I shall force myself into the open."
"But you will still be alone." She shook her
head sadly.
"I don't think we shall ever be able to
break through to each other."
"We can try," he answered eagerly. "The will
is there."
"But you're secretive about everything you're
really interested in. You asked me, all those questions
about where Jack, was going to stay and when he would be
arriving in Paris, but you never said you might call on


him. And I don't expect I should ever ha ve known about
last night if he hadn't told me himself."
"I had nothing in mind when I asked you those
questions."
"I don't believe it," she told him. "You must
ha ve played with the idea of visiting Jack, because Edgar
asked you to do so. No, we shall never be lovers in the
true sense."
She lay staring up at the ceiling in silence.
"I told Maria last night," he said, "that I'd
enjoyed very monent of his degradation at the club.
But even now I don't know whether that's true, whether
what I felt was pity or a kind of triumph.
I know I
did him damage, Francine. I am stupid to deny it."
He looked across at her with frank eyes, al nd for a
moment seemed a much y ounger man. "I don't know what t
is happening to me.
It's as if I am suddenly turning
against all I have ever loved and still do love, turning
acainst my own life, really.
I don't understand it,
yet I can't prevent it.
Something is being forced on
me, from the outside. And all I can do in my guilt,
Francine, is to invoke the mercy of God."
He got up and went to the window. He stood
at the end of her divan. He looked across the lawn
of the park.
"Be careful!" she cried. "Someone might see


He drew back a little from the window and stood
by the curtain, among the shadows.
"You must try to understand what I tell you,"
he said. "War was a kind of religious experience f or
me; it is holy for me. I went out to Flanders to
suffer, not to kill people.
I went to die rather than
to kill.
War was a crucifixion for me. I went out
to be crucified." He looked down at her. "And somehow -
I can't tell you why = I expect ed to suffer my crucifixion
without dying. And that was my horrible error, to believe
that In was inviolate.
How did I expect to survive?
How did I expect to be na iled to the cross ar nd have my
side pierced and yet survive?
How did I expect to
survive just the tn exposure and the loss of blood? But
of course I
Slad to die


had to die. And now I can no longer feel the life in
my fingers, as I am always telling you.
So you mustn't
begrudge me my little midnight adventure."
Eiselhem
WAMA walked swiftly across the stage towards
the wings.
Only a part of a battery of lights in the
flies was switched on, so that the light was weak. Just
as he reached the centre of the stage he seemed to hear
something and stopped.
He turned and peered at some
flats close to the rear wall of the stage, where at present
the light was weakest.
Standing by these flats in the dzakness were
Eiselhum
Hellebore a nd Eliza Ma nning. saok stepped back in his
astonishment.
They were talking to each other, but what
they said was made ina udible from the front of the stage
by the heavy flats behind them.
Hellebore nodded to her,
then put his arm on her shoulder a nd kissed her brow
gently.
She smiled ar nd seemed from the distance to look
deep into his eyes.
Hellebore went towards the staircase
leading up to Lorraine's office, and Eliza turned towards
the wings on the right hand side.
Eiselleim
wnA walked into the darkness ar nd leaned against
the proscenium arch.
He closed his eyes and sighed.
was as if he had suffered some shock, for he breathed
and
Jhat
heavily
his head was bowed. He was patinfied ly
tiad seen,
Lorraine put down his pen and switched on the
desk-lamp.
Outside, the clouds were dark al nd low, and
a violent wind was now blowing across the park.


sealed an envelope and wrote the words "Father Michelon"
on it.
Nothing could be heard from the stage below.
There was a knock on the door, a nd Hellebore
came in from the stage-gallery.
Lorraine looked up,
then rose with a smile and went towards him.
"I just wanted to see how you were," Hellebore
said.
Lorraine nodded and took his arm, then led him
to one of the chairs by the desk in silence.
He glanced
out of the window.
"I had tp put the light on, 1 he murmured. "Were
you caught in the storm?"
"No, I was in the Crimson Tower."
Lorraine sat down and put the envelope in one of
the top drawers of his desk.
He sighed, then looked
at Hellebore with a tired smile: "I was frightened this
morning. You looked very ill, Jack.
I thought that was
the end of tonight's show."
"Yes, I was still shaking like a leaf during
rehearsals.
But I had a good lay-down afterwards, and I
feel steady enough now.
Have you anything to drink here?
I'm parched."
He sat in his armchair with his legs stretched
out a nd his head back.
He undid the top two buttons of
his trousers and patted his st omach with a confortable
sigh. Lorraine got up, taking a key from his waistcoat
pocket: "By all mea ns. What shall I give you?"


"Anything as long as it isn't cognac."
Lorraine smiled, watching. him: "Will water do?"
"I prefer it."
Lorraineknlocked a corner cupboard behind his desk
an nd took out a tumbler.
He bent down and looked along the
bottom shelf, then brought out an earthenware flagon, whic h
he put down on the desk.
He broke its seal with a heavy
paper-knife and drew out the cork.
Hellebore wa tc hed him
closely. Metrsptaaraavaptoatuptonaly
"Is that water?" he asked.
"Whatis it doing in there, then?"
Lorraine was still smiling calmly
"It's Lourdes water," he replied.
iwhat, - a kind of spa water?"
"No, no, 1 holy water." He glanced down shyly.
"I wanted God to be on your side tonight."
Hellebore nodded playfully: "Well, I hope it
does me good."
the
Lorraine filled k tumbler and handed it to him
carefully: "It comes from the holy spring at Lourdes."
He then looked out of the window at the park
while Hellebore drank.
It was now in ha 1f-darkness;
raindrops were flying against the window-panes, a nd
occasionally the window rattled.
The elm-trees close to
the theatre wall were no longer visible.
"Where did you eat?" he asked without turning.


"In the Crimson Tower, with Helen and Eliza."
"Eliza's still in love with you."
"Sha'd like me to marry her, but I don't think
it amounts to more than that, though it did before the
Lorraine answered him quietly, with perfect
assurance:. "Oh, yes, it amounts to very much more than
The wind suddenly dropped and for a moment not
a sound could be heard. It gradually started up again
and the rain grew heavier.
Lorraine yawned: "This is the time of day when
I feel a sleepless night most. And I usually feel sad
at this time of day. I prefer the evenings. I find
them exciting."
They smiled at each other.
Hellebore got up,
buttoned his trousers and went towards the door.
"Thank you for the holy water.
I'm going down
to change.
I told Benedict Amurrat two-fifteen.
"slip in at three for our little conference with
Bernard, Jack.
I shall be down at the stage in a few
minutes.
I'm very anxious to seethis new stuff of yours."
"I think it will please you."
Hellebore left the office and returned to his own
dressing room. From the stage there was the sound of
hammering ar nd shouting.


On his dressing-table, pinned to the white
C over, there was a letter addressed to "Monsieur Finstan-
ley (Hellebore), Theatre de la Fete." He switched on
the mirror-lights and read it.
"Please come without fail to Les A nges this even-
ing at seven o'clock. I shall keep you only for a very
few minutes. I should be happier if Sangson were not
told about this. Forgive the scribble.
Maria Celida."
He screwed the letter up and walked towards the
hearth.
He was about to throw it onto the flames, but he
stopped and opened it out again.
He looked at it closely
Cakod.


a second time, then bent down a nd set light to it.
The stage was now brightly lit, a nd stagehands
were hurriedly clearing ladders, cables a nd flats from the
back.
The garlanded staircase was brought in well upstage,
and a scation of the stage was raised to a height of ten
or fifteen feet to na ke a first landing.
A plain light
blue curtain was S the n lowered in front of this structure,
concealing it from the stalls and leaving the front part
of the stage empty.
Three sceneshifters wheeled in the ramshackle
piano, at nd simultaneously side-c urtains were lowered to
conceal the wings. A trapeze wa S lowered from the flies
so that it hung half-way between the boards a nd the top
of the proscenium arch, al nd a chest of drawers was placed
on the right near the footlights.
The tiny bowler-hat
descended from the flies, and a sceneshifter guided it
towards the top of the chest of drawers, where it remained.
Meanwhile the steel wire was drawn taut between the stays,
which were off-stage. A white skipping-rope was laid on
the piano, a nd two chairs were placed near the back-drop
curtain.
Two acc-lamps were switched on from each side, a nd
the front curtain was swiftly lowered al nd raised again.
Hellebore left his dressing room and went up to
the stage.
He wore his white pierrot's costume with the
pom-pom buttons, but no wig or mal ke-up.
Benedict Amurrat
was standing in the wings,,and Hellebore went to his side.
He glanced across the stage at the light blue curtain.


"Where's my own backdrop?" he asked.
"You'li see it tonight, Jack.
This one came from
the old stage. I beléave you used it in 1912."
Hellebore nodded and walked on to the stage.
He somersaulted to the centre, just as the last sceneshifters
were going into the wings. He stood on the tips of his
toes for a moment, then cartwheeled rapidly towards the
footlights.
He seemed out of breath when he rose.
threw himself onto his hands at nd hand-walked from one side
of the stage to the other, his legs curled over so that the
soles of his feet were parallel with the floor.
The orchestra began taking their places a nd tuning
up, and a faint light was turned onz at the conductor S
rostrum.
Two electricians brought on a fresh smoke-box
and fixed it to the piano.
Louis Comte, the stage manager, a tall, fair,
big=limbed ma n, went over to Hellebore, who was stal nding
upstage with his hands on his hips, breathing heavily.
"Albert Lorraine would like to see you'down in
the stalls."
"Is he there now?" Hellebore asked him.
"He was on his way there when I saw him," I1 Comte
replied.
"We ought to be away by now.
The orchestra was
late.
What's the time?"
"Nineteen minutes past two."
"Yes, well I was down here by two-fifteen."
Hellebore went between the footlights al nd the
proscenium arch to the wooden steps leading down to the


stalls.
The dust-covers had now been removed, and
Lorraine was sitting in the front row, alone. He called
to Hellebore as he came down, al nd the latter sat at his
side.
"Is the storm over?" Hellebore asked.
"The wind has dropped, but it's still raining."
Lorraine glanced at Hellebore's white dress and touched
one of the pom-pom buttons on his chest.
"I like seeing
you in that costume again. But your breat thing is still
none too good."
The conductor climbed to the rostrum and sa t
down. The curtain was lowered, and now only the footlights
remained to illuminate the stalls where Lorraine and
Hellebore sat. For a few moments Hellebore did not speak.
But at last he said in a low voice:
"My arms ache, my legs ache, every step I take on
that stage I have to think about.
I can't get my breath
properly.
I was never like this before the War. And I'm
not an old man."
Lorraine had started.
He watched Hellebore alertly
in the shadows.
"What's the trouble, Jack?" he asked. "I thought
you were back in the old style thirty minutes ago."
"I am sick of the work."
"But I can't postpone or caneel now, Jack."
Lorraine spoke in a shocked, breathless voice. The


conductor tapped the music-stand lightly with his baton,
and the orchestra ceased tuning up. "Are you seeing
that young man this afternoon?"
Hellebore paused, then said: "At four o'clock, in
the Crimson Tower."
He put his hand over his brow,
frowning.
"Is that what wearranged.
I can't think."
"Has he brought you all this misery? Is it
The orchestra struck up into a quick waltz.
Lorraine moved closer to Hellebore, shouting
above the music: "I've never seen you like this before,
Eack!


Hellebore sat low in his seat, staring at his
outstretched legs.
He did not speak until the music was
over a nd the auditorium once more silent.
"I should ha ve a nswered my son'szi letters.
wrote me letters during the War, and to me they were much
like all the other begging letters I got.
It was in my
har nds to save his life."
"How?" Lorraine asked him sceptically.
"These things aappen to bits of kids because of
people like me, I suppose."
"What things?"
He turned my room into an
undertaker's with all his talk about war.
He blamed me."
"But what could you have done?"
Lorraine was S
puzzled. "What were these letters y ou should ha ve
answered? What was it you did wrong to your son?"
"It's too long a story, Albert."
"But what does this y oung ma n complain about?"
He wat tcl hed Hellebore suspiciously in the shadows. "I
want you to tell me, Jack, - what was he after? Why
did he call you up so late? Why did he take y ou to a
club and introduce y ou to the Italian couple?
Tell me
what you think his motives were, because it's him who ha S
got under your skin.
I've never seen you worry like this
before. Until now I never thought you had a conscience
for anything outside y our work."
"He just wanted to see me, and cheer himself


up a bit.
He's finished. The War finished him.
He's
a boy without a future. He really didn't survive the
War at all."
He looked at Lorraine for the first time.
"I want to help him.
I could take him on tour, you
know, like my own son."
The orchestra began its secdnd tune, - a loud
military two-step.
Hellebore shouted above the music: "I wish to
God I could go back to that hotel now al nd forget this
dress-rehearsal!
I don't want other people watching me."
Lorraine stared at him: "Don't see anything more
of these people, Jack." 11
"I shall see Sal ngson a t four o'clock this
efternoon," H Hellebore replied bitterly, "an nd this evening
I shall see the Italian W oman at Les Anges."
"Not just before the performai nce?"
"Yes, at seven o'clock."
Lorraine touched Hellebore's white sleeve a nd
asked helplessly: "What are they up to, 1 these people?
What are they up to?"
Benedict Amurrat pulled back the heavy curtain
at the side of the stage and peered down into the dark
stalls. The moment he saw Amurrat's head Hellebore got
"We're ten minutes late starting, I he said.
He left Lorraine and returned to the stage. The
music ended, and Lorraine remained sitting in the stalls,
staring before him.
Just as the curtain began to rise
be-hemped-up I


he Jumped up and walked to a small door a t the side of
the stage.
Aporakosaddangharcrvrarecurt N 20OIG VORMVOSU boten
e AstepsA A L asagaserntrtmatsapeinosraslotogas
à Apaasathrrghadtunhbnghamtert UtxeuretNOMMDUMOAAV WAN VX
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Just
Fice
as he reached the gallery outside his/door there wa s a
smart explosion from the stage below and he turned nervous-
ly and locked down.
A cloud of white smoke issued from
the grand piano, and he watched it move slowly from right
to left of the stage.
He looked at the taut steel wire
al nd the hai nging trapeze, then he entered the office.
He took up the telephone and asked for Bernard
Charpentier.
When he had been found Lorraine told him:
"Bernard, postpone our little conference until four o'clock...
Well, a number of things...
Four o'clock, then."
The sky was no longer dark, though it was still
baining.
He leaned across his desk and switched off the
lamp, then picked the telephone up again.
"Get me Monsieur Jean Duloi-Bordesu... His
dressing room, I think." There was a pa use. "Hullo,
Jean.
Listen to me. I want you to come up to the
office immed diately...
It is Albert Lorraine... And,
Jean, I wa nt y ou to bring your brother.
But you must
both come immediately."
He walked across to the gallery-door, then out
onto the gallery. As he opened the door a bass-drum
sounded out from the stage below, then a clown's yell of


dismay.
He looked down.
Hellebore had just fallen
onto his back near the chest of drawers, at nd one of the
drawers was open.
His white pierrot's costume was in
rags, and his vest and combinations were now visible.
Lorraine teaned on the gallery-bai nnisters, gazing at a
battery of lights above the stage at the top of the
proscenium arch, his lips pursed. He remahned there until,
a few minutes later, there was a knock on the other door
of his office.
He went quickly back and closed the
gallery-door, then admitted Jean and Pierre Duloi-Bordeau.
Jean wore a dark suit with a high starched collar
of the kind no longer in vogue, while Pierre was in tights
ar nd blouse.
Pirre Duloi-Bordeau wa S taller and thinner
than his brother; he moved about awkwardly, al nd in
deference to the others he took a chair near the window,
a little apart from them.
Lorraine spoke very quietly, with his eyes on
the desk: "A young man is going to visit Jack this
afternoon whom I suspect of trying to blackmail him.
Ha ve you noticed anything wrong with Jack today?"
"No," replied Jean, a little startled.
"Did you wa tch this morning's rehearsal?"
Jean thought slowly, with effort: "Yes. I saw
Jack rehearse. I thought he was a bit slow off the mark,
but I'd no idea he was in trouble."
"He was a sick man," Lorraine told him. "He


vomited in his dressing room, and I don't think he had
more the n a couple of hours' sleep last night.
I found
him on his bed with his jacket torn: that was after nine
this morning."
"What had happened?"
"A y oung man called on him at midnight.
They
left the hotel together and went to a casino in the
Fa ubourg St. Honore.
They were joined by an Italian
couple.
Jack came back to his hotel at five o'clock
this morning, and he was very drunk and ill. And these
people ha ve dispirited him.
Somehow they ha ve broken
his will."
He glanced up at Jean. "He's sick at
heart.
He lost a son during the War, - I believe it all
ha S something to do with that.
Somehow these people have
play ed on his compassion.
I've no grounds for saying they
intend blackma il; I simply don't know wha t they are up to.
All I can tell you is that today Jack is a miserable, listless,
sick man, whereas last night, before these people came on
the scene, he was happy enough.
You talked to him last
night at the hotel, didn't you?"
"Yes. He wa S his old self."
"Exactly."
Lorraine leaned back in his chair, still gaz zing
at his desk: "In any case, whether they are up to misehief
or not, we mustn't take risks.
I am determined to stop
tha t young ma n visiting Jack this afternoon. I simply
ca nnot afford to ta ke a risk." He glanced at Pierre,


then at Jean. "I want y our help, you understand.
want you to prevent that young ma n entering this theatre.
All I can tell you is that he's an Englishman. He has
arranged to see Jack in this theatre at four o'clock
this afternoon.
One of you must wait for him nn the
foyer, the other at the stage door. You must tell him
tha t Jack's dress rehearsal has been cancelled and that
he wishes to see the y oung man at his hotel. You will
ha ve my car, but not the chauffeur. You must then offer
to drive him down to Jack's hotel. Drop him there and
tell him to await Jack in the lounge. But he must be
kept away from this theatre.
Of course, it's possible
that this is a harmless y oung. ma n. It's possible that
Jack wa nted a night out last night and took more than was
good for him. But I'm not prepared to take a risk: and
if the young man offers y ou violence run him to the nearest
police station ar nd call me up immediately. Perhaps he
did after all soldier with Jack's son, as he claims to do:
but I'm not prepared to take any risk."
His lips were trembling, and he wiped the sweat
away from his face.
There was silence, at nd then Pierre
spoke to him shyly: "I was watching Jack this morning from
the wings, and he slipped once. But he seemed all right
in himself."
"We've got to be careful precisely because this
immense show - it's the most important one in my career,
perhaps in yours "
Lorraine raised his eyebrows, and


Jean Duloi-Bordeau nodded gravely.
II i depends on Jack
being able to give his mind to his work.
Now I don't
want you to talk to a nyone else about this."
He picked up the telephone.
"Get me the stage...
Hullo, I want Monsieur
Amurrat and Monsieur Comte to visit me in my office
imnedlately.
Deliver that message, plaase... Monsieur
Lorraine...
I'm not the slightest
concerned about the dress rehearsal.
I wish to see
Benedict al nd Louis at once. I shall keep them for as
little time as possible.
Tell them that."
He replaced the redvérer and once more turned to
Jean and Pierre.
"We are protecting Jack, you see, against people
who want to break his will." He got up.
"Very well, I
shall call you up again at half-past three." He walked
towards the door, and Jean and Pierre rose.
"Please
stay in your dressing room until I call you again."
He held the door open for them, ar nd they walked
past him into the corridor. Jean seemed a little startled
still, and in the corridor he turned, waiting for Lorraine
to say something more.
But Lorraine only nodded and
smiled at him, then closed the door silently behind them.
He returned to the desk and took from one of his
drawers the file containing Father Michelon's letters.
He pushed back the sheaf of letters a nd looked at the
eubject-index.
He turned to the fifth letter.


"You ask for innocence.
But that is a very tall
demand for a man over forty.
It is an even taller
demand for a business-man over forty. And how
much taller a demand is it for a business-man over
forty in the theatre!*
I shall come and see you.
Father Michelon."
He laid the file down and went to the window. He
gazed out across the park for a moment, through the thick
rain.
Then he returned to the desk and took from a drawer
the letter he had not long before addressed to Father
Michelon.
He sat down and drew the waste-paper basket
nearer to him, then tore the letter up into tiny fra, gments.
There was a knock on the gallery-door, a nd Lorra ine
pushed the basket away from him.
Louis Comte entered the
room, and then Amurrat.
"You wanted us?" Amurrat asked him.
Lorraine nodded.
"With the dress rehearsal on?"
Lorraine got up: "Yes.
The matter's urgent, you
He went across to the gallery-door, which Amurrat
had left ajar, and closed it tight.
The orchestra could
be heard from the stage below playing slow, melancholy
music.
He returned to his desk and put the file containing
Father Michelon's letters back into one of the drawers.
Comte and Amurrat watched him in silence.


He glanced up at Amurrat: "How is Jack going?"
"He's a little slow, Albert.
I noticed that this
morning.
But he'll be back into his style tonight."
"You think so?"
"Yes. He's saving himself up perhaps."
"I expect you noticed that he was a sick ma n
this morning," Lorraine said. "He was trembling a little.
You must ha ve noticed that. I'm afraid, Benedict, tha t
he has got himself into a bit of trouble."
They looked a t him ideurprise, for he spoke
gravely.
"I'm very anxious about him, a nd I'm afraid tha t
a catastrophe tonight is possible. That's why I called
you up here.
I want you to arrange an alternative
programme." 11
Amurrat seemed baffled by this: "But he's down
there performing now, Albert.
Come at nd watch him y ourself.
He can't be so ill."
that
"I happen to know, Benedict, perratrvowurcolldatsarix
wganowtiane
1A a
N A Aa/Matott/Atram
there is someone in Paris - perhaps more than one person =
whose object is to break his will.
Believe me, he's not
saving himself up for tonight, he's using every bit of
strength in his body down on that stage a t this moment.
Na turally, he looks slow, but he'll be slower tonight.
I don't believe he will pull back into his old style,
Benedict."
Amurrat turned to Comte: "Have you heard about


downstairs?"
"No," Comte replied.
"Everyone knows he was
on the loose, of course."
Lorraine waited for them t o be silent, then went
on: "I want you to arrange an alternative programme which
can be used at a moment's notice.
But arrange it as
quietly as you can: I don't want to discourgge Jack, and
he'd never forgive me if he got word of it." He lowered
his eyes.
"All the others need be told is that the time
of his performance may be altered at nd that they must be
ready to play out of schedule.
I shall see Nidok myself
later this a fternoon, since he would be the mainstay of
any alternative programme." He paused a nd touched the
edge of his desk.
"I don't see why Kack, Bernard or the
Virgin should get to hear of this." He spoke quicker.
AYTAZ da A la cle
"Ly business rivals in Paris - and all over Europe - ha ve
a lot to gain if the show fails tonight.
A nd I ha ve ma ny 3
ma ny rivals.
Aveedlearopt
s à
a A
A sotidd LA
ACeb Aeught ant fibr
NONMINMIAI haven't always been on top of the,market
Lom
them s
and I haven't always been able to outbid
The
show tonight is the biggest I've ever a1 ttempted, a nd I'm
not prepared to take unnecessary risks.
If the show
goes down we all go down."
"But an alter nat tive programme wouldn't save the
show," Amurrat said quietly. "It means nothing without


"Yes, Benedict, but the leats we can do is to
save our faces, and an alternative programme would help
us to do that." He got up. I1 I won't keep you any
alonger because of the rehearsal. This will mean a very
busy two hours before the curtain goes up, I'm afraid."
Amurrat walked thoughtfully to the gallery-door,
then turned. .
"I hope you're wrong, Albert, # he said. "I've
put a lot of blood into this show."
Lorraine nodded and patted him on the shoulder.
They all went out into the gallery.
"I want you to visit me again at half-past four," It
he said.
"Me as well?" asked Comte.
Lorraine watched them descend the staircase towards
the stage: "Yes, both of you."
The orchestra was playing a bold and loud march.
Lorraine looked down at the stage.
Hellebore was now
performing on the steel wire.
He sprar ng higher and higher
to the tune of the music, then rolled head over heels in
the air and returned féet first to the wire; sprang
higher and higher again, and rolled head over heels a second
time. He now wore only his vest and combinations.
Lorraine returned to the office and closed the
gallery-door. He sa t behind his desk for several minutes,


his eyes closed. The music ceased, and there was a noise
from outside the gallery-door of ropse a nd pullies moving
in the flies.
Hellebore Jumped clear of the grand piano, which
the stageha nd s were wheeling offstage, and ran tawards the
pass-door.
He was dressed in his sequin costume, with
white stockings to his knee, and his face al nd hair were
saturated with sweat. He went straight to his dressing
room and began undressing behind the screen. A moment
later Francine Berger entered, carrying his giant's shoes,
his spotted cravat, his yellow shirt and his outsize tweed
suit. While Hellebore took a bath she laid out his
costumes side by side for the evening performance.
The orchestra was still rehearsing, but the stage
was once more bare, lit only by one arc-lamp in the wings.
None of the sceneshifters remained.
At ten minutes past four Hellebore left his dressing
room and went up to the Crimson Tower, ARAAMRADSA A wom
WMWWWA
a AA : A
He was now in
ordinary clothes.
The Crimson Tower was empty and once
more furnished as the circle lounge. He walked across
to one of the French windows, opened it a nd stepped down
onto tr balcony,ob
It was
no longer raining, al nd the sky was thick with white


cloud.
He went to the ddge of the balcony and looked
down into the street.
A hansom-cab and two motor-cars
were standing outside the theatre doors, but there were
no pedestraans near them.
He went down to the foyer, which was empty and dark:
none of the lustres. were yet alight. He walked slowly
down the wide carpeted staircase to the box office and
knocked twice on the side-door.
There wai S no reply.
He knocked again, waited for a moment, the n went to the
glass doors leading out into the street.
He tried them
one by one, an. found the last one open.
He walked out
onto the pavement, frowning and very pale.
He looked up
and down the street, which was a little less deserted than
before.
The hansom-cab and motor cars were still there.
He waited until a number of people had passed ntn by him,
than he went back inside. He walked down the steps to
the door leading into the pit.
The front curtain was
now down, and only a few of the footlights were on.
The
orchestra had departed, and nothing could be heard through-
out the auditorium.
The light of the street had blinded
him.
Francine turned and looked at him anxiously when
he came into the dressing room. He sighed and went to the
divan, where he lay down. She walked across to him and
looked down at him, then W iped the sweat from his nose
ar nd brow with a handkerchief.


"You're still ill, aren't you?" she asked.
He closed his eyes: "Ican't keep steady on my
feet.
It's no good, I'l1 never be able to do it tonight."
She sat down at his side: "But what's the
mat tter?
Tell me what's the matter!"
"I'11 come a cropper tonight; you see."
He opened his eyes drowsily and looked at her,
then touched her chin with his hand.
"Now you keep quiet about ahat, Judy," he murmured.
The telephone bell rang, and she answered it.
When she ha d put the receiver down again she told Hellebore,
"Albert Lorraine asks you to go up immédiately. You are
twenty minutes late."
He sighed at nd rubbed his eyes.
She brought over
a small cloth saturated with Eau de Cologne and rubbed it
over his brow and neck, then he got up and went to the


dressing-table.
He gazed at his face in the mirror,
first at his drowsy, bloodshot eyes, then at his mouth.
He raised his eyebrows and moved his mouth a little, 80
as to make his expression appear less gloomy. He was
still pale.
He went to the door a nd opened it.
Then
he stopped.
"Did anyone call while I was away just now?"
Francine kept her face at verted.
"No," she replied.
"And there wasn't a 'phone message?"
"How does the time sta nd?"
Francine looked at the alarm clock on the chest
of drawers behind the screen: "Twenty-five minutes past
four." Hellebore nodded sadly a nd left the room.
He walked up to Lorraine's office and went in
wibhout knocking. Bernard Charpentier sat behind the desk,
ar nd Lorraine himself was standing nervously by the window.
Char rpentier held an empty glass in his right hand.
"Come in, Jack Pudding," he said.
"We are
twenty-five minutes late, and I'm just off."
He gazed at Hellebore with a smile, his ey es
ha lf closed.
Lorraine turned to look at Hellebore: "He's been
at it since four o'clock, Jack."
"What, this time of the aftrenoon?" Hellebore asked,
sitting down.


"Yes," Charpentier replied, getting up and
pulling his cloak round his shoulders, "hell in the
belly, heaven in the head, my eternal bifurcation,
He swayed a little, then put his empty glass
on Lorraine's desk.
"My headlines violate, Jack.
They are a public
indecency. You look 111." He took a deep breath, and
became more thoughtful.
"Well, you are now a French
institution, like the Bourse.
The War has institutionalised
you. Men have died in the thick of battle with your
name on their lips. As for the survivors, or rather
those who ha ve managed to keep out of the mental homes, 1
some of them will be coming tonight.
It'll be a charm-
ing audience, a post-war audience, that is to say, an
audience suffering from chronic neurasthenia. And my job
1s to enc ourage them." He sat down, facing Hellebore.
"The point I want to know is, how far can I go?"
"How far do you want to go?" Hellebore asked him
in a low voice.
"I want to tell a few lies.
I want to make a lot
out of your son, I the young man who was killed in the
War. This will help the nearasthenia cases. They like
to think that other people have also made fools of
themselves."
"Keep him out of it.
Consider anything between


1914 and now dead."
"Oh, dear!" Charpentier oried. "Then y ou
reduce me to my worst prose style: 'It is not without
significance that Hellebore has chosen Paris as the scene
of his return to public life.
He knows with what warmth
he was always, ever since he left the circus in 1901,
received in Paris.
He remembers how, on one occasion in
1911, he received twelve curtains drom a first night
audienoe. And heremebers the welcome accorded him at the
opening of the new Cirque Blanc at Versailles.'
It's
Just as much a lie
Because you don't remember." He
smiled, staring down at the floor, musing to himself.
"I would so love to abandon the three unities and tell
a lie, a good, wholesome lie, white or black. For a lie
is timeless and spaceless.
It is a most luscious nothing.
You are different from the Duloi-Bordeau's, Jack.
They
love a lie about themselves. That is because they are
boring. But you tie me down to place, time and situation.
Very well, then, all I can do is to be a good physician."
"My job now is to heal.
I must heal the relations
between yourself and this church-cat sitting at the desk."
Both Lorraine and Hellebore seemed used to Charpentier's
aud
mild ridicule, for they both smiled e HR glanci T
at each other.
"I shall invent a promise. I shall
recall the time when Albert Lorraine promised the theatrical


world that one day Hellebore would return to a better
stage, a new Theatre IA
de la Fête, and I shall tell how
he kept that promise.
I shall talk about an old
friendship.
Is that allowed?"
The others nodded.
"You know the kind of thing," Charpentier went
on. "The fabulous gift waiting in the hotel suite:
'For the only clown', signed 'Lorry'. The talking over
dnad dying fires until the early hours.
The unforeseen
difficulty: blackmail? an old lover? But after some
dirty speculation on my part, a clean demouement. By
the way a 11
He leaned forward, peering at his file on
the edge of Lorraine's desk. # am I right in saying
that your run here is a send-off for a long continental
tour across Spain, Germany and perhaps Scandinavia, and
that you mean hope to come back here at the end of the
tour for a longer run?"
Hellebore half smiled: "The first lot's right.
But Albert hopes the second lot, not me."
"Albert asked me before you came into this room
to work in some reference to his alterations, - just to
show he loves you.
In fact, of course, he undertook
them because the theatre was falling down, a nd because
receipts would be doubled as a result of them. But
the point is that the stage could now take a circus.
There is a lot more flying space, the stage is twice as


deep now, and the traps are the best I've seen.
What about a full-blown circus next year?"
Hellebore turned his head away, frowning:
"I've finished with the circus. It never brought me
any good. A tent's the place for a circus, not the
stage." He looked at Lorraine: "What's the idea?"
"Hust that: an idea," Lorraine replied.
"But
we'll kill it if you won't come in."
"Yes, kill 1txx." Hellebore shook his head.
Charpentier got up: "I must rush. You were
late coming up, Jack."
He went towards the door, buckling the gold clasp
at his neck.
"You're quite certain, Jack," he asked,"that we
leave your son, out of this?" Hellebore did not reply,
Simbly looked at him,
w ith mock
but
sdlemnity.
and Charpentier nodded sartty
"I had such a lot of shameless lies to tell. They'bl
be told in time, of course, by other journalists."
ixtentaxlikax He turned to Lorraine. "I don't l1ke
Eiselheim, Albert. But I suppose I shall have to mention
those packed houses at Brussels.
I don't like these
thin, silent men.
They walk about like my conscience.
They shame the infidel in me, a pérhaps that's it."
"Well," Lorraine answred, "it could do with shaming." #f
"I shall be there tonight in the second row
of the stalls as usual, Jack, your acolyte.
Thank you


for the flames of hell, Albert." He thought for a
moment at the door, frowning. "I feel excited: a
good sign. #
He then bowed to each of them in turn.
"Yes, indeed," Lorraine said.
He held the
empty, green bottle up to the light of the window.
"My brandy bottle will ne ver forget your visit."
When Charpentier had gone, he glanced hesitantly
at Hellebore.
There was no sound from the stage below.
Hellebore seemed about to leave the room, but lingered.
He looked into Lorraine's eyes: "I'm glad we agreed with
each other in the end. You've been good to me, I think.
I won't let you down."
Lorraine looked at him wretchedly, his head bowed.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked.
"I811 take you back to the hotel in my car. I'll call
in at the dressing room before I leave. Shall I send
the nurse up to your rooms this evening?"
Hellebore was silent for a moment, then he went
close to him and said in a low voice:
"He didn't come."
Lorraine squinted guiltily, watching the park below.
"Sangson. I must see him again, w what shall I
do, Albert?"
"Tell me, Jack: what makes you want to see him


so badly?"
Hellebore spoke eagerly: "I feel dorry for him,
that's the trouble."
"Yes. We're all at our weakest in our moments
of compassion."
"Sometimes a look came into his eyes as if he
thought I was going to be cruel to him." He saw Lorraine
smile. "I Bhould have made a few sacrifices for Edgar,
at the right time."
"Why not make a sacrifice of your whole career,
now? It looks to me as if that's what your young fraend
wa nts."
Hellebore shook his head, as if this were too
absurd to think about.
"After a life like yours, Jack, failure is going
to be a very bitter thing. You could never survive it."
with knowing eyes.
He gazed at Hellebore for a moment tades -
"He was afraid to come.. He smelt a rat. I have had
experie ce of s uch people."
Hellebore looked at him sleepily : "When all is
sa id and done I did murder Edgar. Mou've never had a sono
You're too selfish.
You're too fussy to ha ve a child of
your own.
You don't understand the young. You ma ke
them feel awkward, you make them go silent and shy. I've
noticed it. All you think about is your basiness.
You
sit ong your money like an old black beetle."


"What a comfort your conversation is," Lorraine
murmured with a bitter smile.




The dining room of Les Anges was empty and all
the tables were laid for dinner.
There were no lights
apart from those which illuminated the plaster statues
in the niches.
Hellebore opened the door quietly.
He stood
still, growing accustomed to the darkness.
He walked to
the table on the higher tier where Sa ngson and he had sat
the previous evening.
He walked slowly, tapping his cane
against the table-legs like a blind ma n.
He la id his
ha t a nd cal ne down on the table al nd opened his overcoa t,
then walked back to the steps which led into the ba. llroom.
He peered down into the deserted bal llroom, listening.
snal pped his fingers at nd coughed, to make noise.
There
was silenee again, al nd nothing stirred among the tables.
A few minutes later Maria came in and looked about
her in the shadows.
Hellebore immediately went towards
her.
He took her arm and slowly guided her up to the
table on the second tier.
Near the minstrel's gallery she put her ha nd on
his a nd looked into his eyes: "I haven't kept you waiting?"
"Not at all."
He pulled a chair out for her a nd they sat down.
"We looked for you everywhere this morning," TI she


sa id quietly.
"Who did?"
"Henry and I.
We walked up to the Place Vendome,
and then we went back to the club."
Hellebore bowed his head: "I don't remember
leaving the club."
She was peering at him in the darkness.
"Is that a bruise on your chin?" she asked.
He nodded: "I fell on the side of the bath.
I just slipped."
"It hasn't swollen, luckily."
Hellebore gazed down into the dark ballroom.
He asked whehber she knew where Sangson was, and she told
him that he had come into the house an hour before, but
that they had not seen each other.
"I arranged to see him this afternoon," he sa id.
"He didn't come, and I thought perhaps you knew why."
"No, he went straight to his room."
They sat without speaking for some time.
"He is sometimes strange like that," she murmured.
Hellebore looked up at her.
His face was very
pale.
"He knows all about y ou, doesn't he?"
This startled her: "Did he tell you antthing
about me, then?"
"He told me you wanted a child."
He glanced down
a t the table.
aonsersssanorvaranorommawsernox


Is that true?"
She made a little gasp a nd answered, "Yes."
"And you've come here to ask me to give you a
child?"
She lowered her eyes and nodded: "But he had no
right to tell you ar nything."
"Well, he has sa ved y ou a lot of embarra ssment.
Asking me yourself would have taken some doing." He
spoke to her warmly, leaning forward across the table.
"I shall give you your baby, Maria, because I loved you
last night dancing round that floor."
She seemed to sob, and put her ha nd s to her eyes:
"Thank God, then!"
"But not in cold blood, only because we like each
other.
I want it to be natural.
It mustn't be too soon.
Dancing with you made me feel I'd known y ou a long time.
Da ncing always does that. But try and forget y ou a sked me e
Let it happen naturally."
"We must see each other very often.
You must be
a kind of husba nd to me.
Giordar nox will go away."
"Where was he last night?" Hellebore asked her.
"He went home."
"Will he mind?"
"He needs a child as much as I do, and we've waited
so long."
"But why ha ve you waited all this time, 1 a fine


beautiful W oman like you?"
"I wanted to wait until I chose someone
spontaneously," she replied.
"I don't want anybody's
child, you see.
I want a certain kind of child. And
I think you can give me that."
Hellebore was fascinated by this: "What made
you choose me, then?"
"Well, I simply chose you as soon as I saw you."
"Everybody knows who Hellebore is.
I only had
to see you in the flesh."
"Does Giordano agree?"
"Yes. He knew I had made up my mind before I
told him." She smiled.
"He was cleverer tha n he
normally is in these things."
"And you never thought of Sai ngson as a father?"
She shook her head shyly: "He is so young. He
is like my own son.
I love his compa ny of course."
"You are together a lot, I suppose."
"Yes, we see each other every day.
He is so
different from Giordano's friends.
He notices everything.
He's so quiet."
"And a wonderful talker," Hellebore said.
"He has been my refuge against all those commerc-
ial people since the War." She sighed.
"Well, I feel
ha ppier.' 1
She glanced at the clock in the wall on ner left,
but it was too dark to read the time.


"Shouldn't we be walking towards the theatre?"
she asked.
"I've sent the car away." She watched him
for a moment.
"You seem so calm, sitting there. Are
y ou always like this before you go on?"
"I was sick this morning and I nearly fell off
the trapeze.
I'm tired."
He put his hai nd to his brow.
"I'm not calm.
I'm tired.
Think of all those people
watthing me tonight."
He stared at her with a frown.
She got up sl owly
ar nd went to his side.
"You'll feel better in your dressing room," 11 she
told him.
"Don't forget your stick."
Francine Berger opened the door of Hellebore's
dressing room ar nd went across to his table.
She began
arranging his cream-pots, brushes, rouge-sticks, pouder-
puffs and scissors.
Beside them she put a large napkin
at nd an alarm clock.
Some minutes before eight o(clock Hellebore came
He smiled at her, and she helped him off with his
overcoat.
He went behind the screen and took off his
jacket, then he washed his face a nd hands.
He sat dowa


at the dressing-table and, with the napkin tucked round
his neck, began creaming his face.
There was a new fire
in the hearth, crackling.
The telephone bell rang, a nd Fra nc ine picked up
the receiver: "Yes, he has just this minute arrived.
He appears to be.
I shall ask him." She put her ha nd
over the mouthpiece ar nd turned to Hellebore. "It's
Albert Lorraine.
He wishes to know if you'd like the
nurse to come in and see you."
Hellebore al nswered her impatiently, still rubbing
his cheeks: "No."
She spoke into the mouthpiece aga in: "He says,
no, but thank you.
He is ma king up at the moment. Very
When she ha d finished Hellebore asked: "Wb ha t
else did he hat ve to say?"
"He asked wha t time it was when you arrived al nd
whether you seemed well."
"He'spse been a proper fidget-arse today.
has done nothing but worry."
"Well, do you wonder a t it?" she asked.
"You
were drunk last night ai nd this morning you were too ill
to move.
It would make any ma. nager in Europe worry:
especially when you always used to be so good a nd reliable."
The foyer wa S empty and dimly lit.
Two of the
entrance doors were sucdenly pushed open, and Jean and
Pierre Duloi-Bordeau ran in breathlessly from the street.


They ran down the centre gal ngaway of the stalls and made
for the dressing rooms. At the conductor's rostrum
Jean suddenly stopped and turned about: he called to
Pierre to go on, then he returned to the foyer. He
walked across to the box office and knocked on the side-
door.
Lorraine turned the key in the office door and
went back to his desk.
He sat down beside Eliza, his
own chair touching her's at the arm. She was dressed
for the street in a black cloche hat and a simple coat
with a collar of black fur. Nothing could be heard
from the corridor outside or from the stage.
Lorraine put his hand on her arm without turning
his. head.
He spoke almost in a whisper: "You aren't
contented with Eiselheim. You won't be young eternally.
You are thirty-four, my dear, and you want children.
You
do want children, you need them.
I'm so unbearably sad
when you're away from me. I love just to be with you,
simply to touch your arm like this. I wish I could be
worthy of you. I wish I was better-laoking. I wish
I was clyerer with my tongue." He now spoke eagerly:
"But you see, my dear Eliza, you'd change me. If you
took me you'd give me a new life a nd will, whereas now I
am helpless, I feel old, and I am always sad nowadays,
and it seems to me I have no future, nothing new or warm
for me between now a nd my death.
You have the power to


give me a future.
Without you I'm so miserable, I
enjoy nothing, except thinking about you.
I yearn for
you, Eliza, hour after hour, waking and sleeping, day
after day. All my dreams are about you.
I dream of
you lying in your bed and the dawn coming across the
room. But if you refuse me what y ou really do is to
condemn he to death, and I shall go through the rest of
my life like a corpse; I shall be alone, a batchelor
ministering to himself.
I want to offer everything I
have, for you to destroy if you wish."
He clasped her arm tighter, but still he did
not glance towards her: "Help mé, Eliza. I'm so deeply
in love with you."
All the time she had been staring sadly down at
the desk.
"I can't bear you to talk like tha t," she said.
"What good can it do?
Suppose I married you: you'd
hate me after a time, for having done it out of kindness.
I'm not one of those who sleeps with a man out of pity,
either. The number of times I've heard a woman say
that: 'I only did it out of pity'!" She threw her head
up in contempt. "Mine's a cheap sex. But you're not
getting me through pity."
"Do you pity me? I don't want your pity."
"Well, then, you shouldn't talk like that."
"But how do you know marriage would be wrong


for us? You might grow to love me, or does that sound
absurd to you?"
"Not absurd," she replied. "I don't think it's
possible."
"Perhaps a child would bring us love. You can't
tell unless you take the plunge."
"I can tell.
You must trust the woman to know."
He glanced at her: "Your mind is made up, isn't
He sighed wearily: "So I need never ask you aga in. 11
"No, my dear."
He was in hopeless gloom: "I thought you would
ha ve agreed.
I truly thought this time you'd agree.
Of course, you are in love with Jack still."
XTha asxxaaxaxazaaxdraamx*x*a


"That was a dream I had ten years ago.
Now
ar nd again it comes back.
I can't forget him, that's
true, but I have been without him so long that I take it
for granted al nd I no longer "worry him. The trouble he
had with me was exactly the trouble I am having with y ou.
He wanted to help me and couldn't, he loved me as a friend.
So I do know what it is like to be you at this moment,
and it's a torment for me knowing that I'm the cause of
it and can do nothing about it."
She bent her head forward and sobbed, then with
long, helpless cries she began to weep.
Lorraine moved
his hand down to hers and murmured: "Eliza, Eliza," his
eyes averted from her and narrowed to prevent tears.
Francine took a light wicker chair from behind
the sereen and sat by the dressing-table, facing Hellebore.
In her ha nd was a small appointment book.
"About tomorrow," she said. "When will you see
the masseur?"
He looked at himself in the mirrorm frowning.
"I won't," he replied.
She was surprised: "He is expecting to come."
"I don't need " He indicated the book in her
hand impatiently. Il - all that."
"But you usually have the masseur." #
"Not tomorrow, though, or the next day."
"Very well."
She glanced at her hook again.
"Also the doctor usally U,
called on the second morning."


"I don't need a doctor.
Cancel him."
Francine laid the book down on her knee and looked
at him with. a frown: "There are thirty appointments for
you in this book. Are y ou going to cancel every one of
them? What is the matter with you?"
Hellebore continued to powder his face.
"When I'm off the stage my time is my own," he
said.
"It did not use to be."
"I won't have a retinue of masseurs and doctors.
They ma. ke me feel dead, they make me feel a prisoner."
She closed her book and smiled: "Very well.
That will surprise some people."
"Yes, a few people are going to catch a cold over
"I thought a full appointment book made you feel
proud. .
"It used to, sweetheart. But t hat was bef ore
the War."
Francine went behind the screen a nd Hellebore
began painting in his immense red lips.
"Listen to me, Francine," he said. "I shan't
want to use this room again.
This is the. last time I
dress in 1t."
She came to the edge of the screen and looked at
him in silence for a moment: "Why is that?"
He leaned back from the mirror, studying his lips:


"I don't feel at home here; I don't feel myself.
gives me nasty feelings." He hunched his shoulders up
as if he were cold.
"That sort of feeling. So you
must tell Lorraine about my little fancy al nd then you
must find me another dressing room before tomorrow night's
perf ormal nee.
Otherwise I'll dress in the corridor."
"But this is such a beautiful room."
"Yes, it's like a mortuary "
"Lorraine will be hurgt."
"It will teach him not to build me a mortuary
and call it thn Le Salon Hellebore.' 1
She peered at him: "You have chan nged, you know." n
"I've had too much of it."
He toucl hed up his
1ips. "I built myself a gymnasium during the War, in
the gardens of my house. I think I'll burn it down when
I go back; that would give me pleasure, you know.
even had Japanese cherry trees planted along the sides of
the path leading down from the house. And at night there
were fairy lights ha nging from them. Fairy lights..."
"Do you regret it now?" she asked him.
"I no longer need it, so I say to hell with it.
I told Lorraine this morning I'd like to burn this room
down and I'd begin with the curtains."
"They are the loveliest things in the room."
"I'm going to travel from now on and I shall go
on travelling until I wear myself out.
But I'm not going


to be stuffed alive by Lorraine or anybody else."
She told him that his secretary had arrived
from England that very afternoon.
"What about her?"
she asked.
"I don't need her, sweetheart.
What's the use
of a secretary when there are no appointments to keep and
no letters to write?"
Someone knocked on the door of Lorraine's office,
but neither he nor Eliza moved.
"Who is it?" Lorraine called out.
A voice from the corridor answered: "Dulo1-Bor-
deau." Lorraine turned to Eliza and shrugged.
There
was still the trace of tears on her cheeks.
"I must go," she said, rising.
"We can't sit
here for ever.
I'll go down by the other door."
Lorraine looked ill and distraught, and he rose
heavily from his chair without a word.
He acc ompa nied
her to the door which led onto the wooden gallery.
Just
before she went out she leaned towards him and offered him
her cheek to be kissed. But he shook his head with a
sad smile and drew back a little, then took her hand in a
formal handshake.
He leaned on the gallery-bannisters and gazed
down at the stage.
The curtain was down, al nd only a
battery oraim russet lights was switched on at this
moment.
He returned to the room and admitted Duloi-
Bordeau.


For several moments he stood by his desk without
speaking.
Duloi-Bordeau was just about to tell his news,
but he stopped, hesitating to break this silence, which
seemed so sacred for the other man. At last he said:
"Well, Albertn we saw him." He waited, and then,
Lro 208.


as Lorraine made no reply, added humbly: "I've only ten
minutes to dress in, you see."
Lorraine watched him, his lips pursed: "Yes,
tell me about it as quickly as you can.
Where is he?"
Duloi-Bordeau spoke earnestly: "We let him go,
Albert."
"Why did you do that?"
Lorraine's eyes were suddenly sharp as he asked
this question.
"Well, if appearances are anything to go by he
was an honest young man. We asked him all the questions,
and we told him to keep clear of the theatre tonight. We
told him he was suspected of this and that, but we didn't
say who suspected him.
And what more could be done?
We couldn't las hands on a polite and : educated young man
like that."
"When you told him about my suspicions was he
alarmed?"
"No, he said it was ridiculous, and he laughed.
Then he said he could understand our point of view very
"Ours? Who are we?"
"Mine and Pierre's.
You told me not to mentions
your name.' #
"Was he well dressed?" Lorraine asked him.
"Most respectably.
He took us to his house
near the Bois de Boulogne for an aperitif."
"Does he own a house?"


"No, he shares house with Italian people called
Celida."
Lorraine gazed waerily out of the window, at
lamp over lis
the fluttering elm-leaves dimly lit by the Hightoofats
derh.
reen. Behind them was utter darkness.
"Oh, yes," he sighed, "the jewellery people."
"We couldn't lay hands on a young English
gentleman, could we? Where would that have ended?"
Lorraine suddenly became anxious: "But I don't
feel safe.
Suppose he came to the theatre tonight and
caused trouble?"
"We know what he looks like. Ar nd we know that
a box has been reserved in the name of Celida for tonight."
"Ah, you found that out, did you?"
Duloi-Bordeau looked up at him with pride: "Yes,
I looked in at the box-office on my way up."
"It might ha ve been better to hold him..."
"But that would have been a cfiminal offence."
Lorraine bit his lip: "Even so."
"No, there would have been hell to pay for that,"
Duloi-Bordeau said.
"He must know someone in this theatre."
"Oh, he does."
Lorraine looked at him swiftly. e
Instantly his
tiredness was gone: "Who?"
"Mademoiselle Berger.
They're lovers."
"Who told you that?"


Lorraine stared before him. But then he shrugged :
"Well, he told you that himself so perhaps it's all above
board.
That's the feeling you had in his presence, was
it not? that he was above board?"
"If appearances are anything to go by, yes."
"You'd better go down a nd change, then.
On your
way tell the attendants at the stagedoor not to admit any
personal visitors for Mr. Finstanley "
"I think you wopry too much, I Duloi-Bordeau sa: id
in a low voice, as if he were overstepping the mark.
"Goodbye."
Just as he left the room Lorraine picked up the
telephone receiver.
Jaques clapped his hands and ushered the girls of
the dancing chorus onto the stage. A powerful battery of
yellow lights in the flies was switched on, then two plain
arc-lamps in the wings. The girls formed two lines in
front of him, then, following his examplg, they began
taking up one dancing pos ture after another without piano
accompaniment. They were dressed in blouses and short
frilled skirts of black lace, with black stockings.
their right legs, just above their knee-caps, there was a
single silver garter two or three inches in width.
Some yards behind one of the arc-lamps in the
wings, Nidok, in a yellow, black-edged dressing-gown,
hal nded a stagehand his two doves. The attendant held them
over a basket; they flutterad down into it, and he closed


the lid. At that moment a call-boy ran down from the
Eiselherm
Eitelham
wooden staircase and handed Nidek a message. Nidok read
it, spoke a few words to the stagehand and went behind the
back-drop to the wooden staircase.
He went up to Lorraine's
office.
Lorraine was sitting behind his desk, huddled up,
Eiseldein
resigned and silent.
wwolt came across the room a nd
shook his hand, but he barely moved.
"They found Sangson, n he said, "and it appears
I only say it appears as if we made. a mistake."
Eivellain
"So you didn't detain him?" Mdok asked.
"No, they let him go."
"Wisely, I think. But why did we make a mistake?"
"It appears he behaved like any English gentlemen."
Eiselhain
Madok smiled: "But they are sometimes the worst
criminals, you know."
Lorraine peered up at him: "You aren't convinced,
"Convinced by what? You ha ven't told me anything.
You haven't told me, for instance, why he called on
Finstanley at such an odd hour last night."
"No, I forgot to ask Duloi-Bordeau about that."
"I've no doubt he convinced Duloi-Bordeau,
thought.
Evelhaim's
Maok's tone was ironical, and this seemed to
bring back all Lorraine's anxiety.
"I wonder 1f there is going to be any trouble?"


Lorraine asked. "I wish to God I knew what these people
were up to.
I've sent down a description of Sangson to
the attendants at the stagedoor. But perhaps we ought
to have held him, oriminal offence or no criminal offence."
He sighed and shifted in his chair. "Something is going
to happen.
It doesn't matter what Duloi-Bordeau says.
I can feel it.
MAAMMONAOOUA
90P
- banas
This is the worst
first night I have ever known in my life.
There is
something in the airANVaMAMBNAM -
I tell you,
Eiselheim, I'm terrified of tonight." He glanced at the
door, then he leaned forward and spoke in a lower voice.
"Jack's going, to get the bird."
Eiselhuin
stook turned away abruptly: "We can' tell that
before he goes on the stage."
"No." Lorraine smiled, remembering something.
"All I have are my premonitions." He spoke with sudden
remorse. "Why in the name of God am I letting him go on
tonight at all? He's a sick man.
I told him this
morning I was postponing the performance, = I had everything
ready: what has happened between this morning and now to
alter my plans? Why is he going on? I can't tell you.
It's so obvious that he shouldn't be going on. What has
happened during the day to alter my plans? I can't
remember, Eiselheim.
These last few hours have gone past
Eiselherm
like a sleep." He fixed Mdok with his eyes. "Can I
stop him now? Such things have been done before."
"How can you turn away two thousand people? No,


if Finstanley is about to end his career, let him do it
in good style. Let everybody see it, let everybody know
1t for certain,
that Hellebore is finished once and for
all. Then there'll be no farthar question of further
contracts.
There'll be no more worrying on fubure first
nights.
Take him off the programme tonight, and tomorrow
you'1l be blaming yourself for har ving done it: you will
feel that after all he may have done, well if you'd let
him go on.
I believe in letting a man go to his ruin
if that's what he wishes to do."
Eiselheim's lips were pursed as he spoke, and he
gazed at Lorraine with clear, knowing eyes.
Francine, standing behind Hellebore at the dressing-
table, fitted a wig carefully over his head.
It was a
wig with ample ginger tufts at each side and a white bald
patch between.
As she pressed the edges down the telephone
bell rang.
She leaned forward over Hellebore, keeping one
hand securely on his wig, while she took up the receiver.
She held a brief conversation, then replaced the receiver
slowly ar nd looked at Hellebore through the dressing-table
mirror.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Lorraine wants me to go up and see him at once."
"At once?" Hellbbore asked brusquely. He was
pouting. "No, you're needed here. What's he up to?"
"He said he wouldn't keep me from you more than
a few minutes, and it's urgent."
"Run along, then."


She took off her smock and tidied her hair in
his mirror, then left the room. He pressed at the wig
in the nape of his neck and got up.
He went behind the
screen and took off his shirt.
He sat down to undo his
shoes, then held his white pierrot's costume with the pom-
pom buttons up to the light.
There was a knock on the door and someone came
into the room.
Lorraine's voice called out, "Jack?2
behind him.
Hellebore recognised the voice, but did
not turn.
"Hullo," he said. "She's on the way up.
She
left just this minute."
"The Virgin."
"Oh, yes, but I thought I'd slip down and tell
you the news."
"You sound miserable."
Hellebore slipped the
costume over his head,
"What news is this?"
"The Virgin and your young friend Sangson are
lovers, Jack."
Hellebore stopped, surprised by this: "How do
you know?"
"Birds. It ma kes it all the more suspicious to
my mi ind."
Lorraine paused. He looked down at the powder
puff, rouge-stick and large ebony comb on Hellebore's
table. "I have never trusted that girl."
He walked
back to the door without glancing behind the screen at
XAXXXXRKE


Hellebore, in helpless misery. "I shall sack her."
Hellebore answred him in a quiet voice: "Don't
you sack that girl, Albert."
On his way back to the office Lorraine buttoned
up his jacket, re-arranged the carnation in hi s button-
hole and smoothed back his hair.
When he reached his
office-door he paused and drew himself up a little, then
went in.
Francine Berger wa s laready there, sitting between
his desk and the wind ow.
"Good evening," she murmured.
He spoke to her tersely, going straight to his
desk: "You happen to be a close friend of a young man
called Sangson. Do you mind telling. me why he called
on Jack Finstanley last night?"
Francine stared at
him as he sat down, her mouth a little open.
She seemed
about to reply, but said nothing. "You do know, don't
you, that he called on Jack Finstanley last night at the
hotel, and that Jack Finstanley was ill this morning
and perhape unfit to perform tonight a because of that
visit?"
He spoke al nd looked as 1f he were suffering pain.
He gazed not into her eyes but above her head at the wall
behind her.
She answered him in an awed whis per: "I knew
he went to the hotel,
But I don't know why he went."
"What was the point of visiting him at midnight?"
She was bewildered: "I don't know."


"And why talk to him about his son? Why make
him feel that he had murdered his own son? Wasn't there
a better time for all that?"
"I knew nothing about his visit until this
afternoon."
"But presumably his intention was to break the
man's heart, wasn't it?"
"I don't know," she replied coldly, her anger
rising. "I suppose he wanted to tell the truth,
wha t
he thought was the truth. But that's only my guess,
and my guess is no better than your's in this matter."
"And by what right does one man tell another man
the truth, by what right? Let him keep it to himself."
"Sangson is a friend of mine, but I'm not
responsible for what my friends do."
Lorraine was sweating.
His eyes were burning
into her's.
"But in a way, you see, you are responsible.
For instance, you told your friend where Jack Finstanley's
hotel was, and you told him what hours he kept, and you
told him when he would be arriving in Baris."
"I didn't think he's use what I told him."
"No, I'm not suggesting you did think. But I'm
suggesting you think now, and tell me by what right and
with what intention this young man decided to put his
nose into the affairs of this theatre."
"I know nothing about his intentions."
"What had Jack Finstanley done to deserve that
talk about murder? He never harmed any one during the War."


" Sangson and Jack are grown men," she replied.
"They can look after themselves.
You talk about them
as if they were children in need of protection."
"Hes, well, it strikes me that your young friend
1s a child and that other people like Jack Finstanley do
need protecting against him. Like a child he doesn't
know when to hold the tmth inside him as a secret, and
when to tell it. Like a child running to father he runs
to Finstanley with the news of his guilt.
Had he been a
religious child as I was a religious child a he would have
gone to confession, and that would have been the end of it.
Instead, he used Finstanley as his priest, - with consequ-
ences which I have to mend as best I can. And who was he
to judge another? A priest would have told him to cleanse
himself before he set about trying to cleanse other people."
She shrugged: "Oh, I don't understand it..."
"But I want you to understand this: that I dislike
the idea of any of my employees introducing meddlers
da ngerous medalers a to my best artistes.
I have been
thinking of asking you to leave this thea tre for that
reason."
She stared at him, shooked by these words: "I've
nowhere else to go. My parents are dead."
"Then it's all the more important that you under-
stand me: I won't have my artistes interfered with. As
xaaxknar


you know, I'm rather a suspicious man, I ha ve to be;
and I feel your young frienap is up to something, though
it isn't likely you'd tell me exactly what it is he's up
to." He spoke with sudden anger.
"Enormous fortunes
depend on these artistes of mine, enormous fortunes and
the careers of hundreds upon aundreds of people, and I
won't have these - these boy s coming forward and imputing
crimes to men with a thousand times their distinction.
That's all I have to say."
Francine rose, looked at him with curiosity for
a moment, then left the room. He stared after her, pale
and furious, and said between his teeth: "Des gosses,
The foyer and the wide balustrade behindthe dress
circle were now crowded.
Silver and crimson lights,
designed like five-pointed stars, shone from out of the
glass dome above the foyer. The noise of cars and hansom
cabs in the street could be heard whenever the entrance
doors were opened. .
Giordano and Maria Celida arrived ten minutes or
so before the curtain was due to go up. They followed
the attendant to the end of glong carpeted corridor
- ataath
and there they were
admitted to a box at the very edge of the stage.
She
was dressed in a long shining silk gown, silvery grey,
into
at nd across her black hair, drawn tightly back * a chignon,
she wore a tiara of diamonds and pearls. aifodano
slipped a few coins into the attendant's hand, then


followed his wife nervously to a seat. Maria Celida
gazed without embarrassment at the stalls, which were
now half full with people, but Giordano averted has eyes
and coughed into his hand awkwardly.
She watched a
group of people take their seats below in the pit, and
then she spoke to her husband without looking at him:
"You are beginning to stoop when nou walk,
Giordano.
I noticed it this evening for the first time."
Suddenly she turned and faced him.
"You are going to
bake it badly, aren't you?"
He lowered his eyes: "No, my dear. And even if
I do, it's my choice, I shall have to go through with it."
She was watching his mouth.
"Yes," she said, "but it doesn't make me feel any
more comfortable.
I would far rather you went away - Il
She glanced at him vehemently.
11 a right away for a
week, or a month, so that you could put y our mind to other
things."
"Well, I am going away. . "
"Yes, but you aren't anxiousto go away. You
want to stay with me till the last moment." She spoke
with warm pity for him. "My popr Giordano, it doesn't
do you any good to brood."
"I shan't brood once I am out of Paris."
"Are you really going?"
"of course I'm going.
I told y ou I was going.
I have booked my seat on the train. Don't you believe


She shrugged: "Oh, I thought you might find it
too hard to leave me."
"Well, I've booked, as I say. e
The train leaves
soon after eleven o'clock. I shall find it unpleasant,
but I shall go."
"You look 111, my dear." She laid her ha nd on
his. "Think of the child. Don't think of Hellebore."
Giordano withdrew his hand and nodded politely.
She continued to watch him: "Why do you torment yourself
by coming here at all?
There was no need. We shall see
each other when you come back to Paris.
We shall have a
lovely holiday and we'll go everywhere together from
morning to night. An hour or two makes no difference.
Why do you want to come here and torment y ourself with
the sight of him?"
"How do you know I shall be tormenting myself?"
She answered him in a low voice: "I think y ou
will be."
"Yes, I suppose so." He sighed.
"But I decided
to go about everything as usual. I didn't tell anyone at
the shop I'd be leaving. That's a job for you tomorrow. :1
"You are coming to the party in his dressing
room, then?"
"Yes. But I shall leave you there and go to the
station alone."
AMBAAAA MAAUVANAMAAA4 a * H WA-00/A00bmndh
pa/apdpatrnyaAonywv


She grasped his hand again: "If you want me
to I'l1 leave this theatre now and we'll pack our things
and go away from Paris and forget all about Hellebore
ar nd adopt a little child from an orpha anage."
"No," he replied. "I want the child to be
y our child."
He pushed her hands away lightly, as if to
discourage her gesticulations.
He turned half away
from her in his chair and looked at the audience below,
calmer now.
"You get yourself a child," he murmured.
look after myself."
"You won't blame me for anything?"
"No, of course not."
They gazed in silence_at the members of the
orchestra who were taking their places.
"Who'll be at the party?" he asked.
"Oh, theatre people."


"I've no right to ask fidelity of you, a at
any time, I've taught myself to think that, ever since
I married you. You're not obliged to be faithful to me
because I'm not really your husband."
"Yes, you are." She spoke in a low voice.
"My religion says you are."
Giordano glanced up at the gallery and then at
the chandelier over the auditorium.
"I shall worry about one thing while I'm away, I
he said.
"Suppose you no longer want me once you ha ve
slept with him?"
"That's impossible," she replied bitterly.
"I don't know why."
"I'l1 tell you why 1t's possible: because a
woman with any life in her at all feels a strong tie to
the man who last takes her to bed, 1 especially to the
man who gives her a child." He glanced at her cunningly.
"What do you think?"
"I shall be doing it for the child, a and nothing
"But the child will be a tie. You'll see the
father whenever you look at it."
She leaned back in her chair with a sigh: "Very
well, then, we'll leave Paris together and we'll forget


about him.
This was y our plan as well as mine,
remember."
"No, we must go through with 1t.
I only wanted
to know what you think."
"Well, I think y ou are talking nonsense. I
She took a programme from a chair next to her
and broke its paper seal. She opened it a nd laid it in
front of her.
"You seem to forget my religion," she added.
"My religion wouldn't allow me to forsake y ou, it wouldn't
allow me to stay with him, even if he wanted me to."
"Yes, but it's small comfort knowing you'd only
eome back to me out of a sense of duty towards God, or
His Euich glauca 3 AL
sly.
something."
Voragert A da
you be coming back to me out of a sense of love?"
She looked at him in surprise, then turned to
look at the curtain again.
"I want you to believe in me, Giordano.
Otherwise everythingis finished, isn't it?"
Bernard Charpentier took off his cloak in the
foyer and handed it to one of the attendants. He went
up to the balustrade behind the dress cirele and leaned
over the parapet.
He gazed down at the groups of people
in the foyer and watched the doors open and close. Koung
women in magnificent evening gowns came in on the arms of
men, and meanwhile, outside, cars and carriages were being
dismissed.


Hellebore was dressed in his white pierrot's
costume, and his feet were bare.
His nose was now
painted red; he had large red lips and thick semicircular
eyebrows, and the rest of his face was chalk-white.
He went to the mirror and pressed a tiny contrap-
tion under his costume at his left thigh: he watehed the
ginger hair on his wig stand up on end, quiver, then fall
back into place again.
He did this twice more, watching
his hair intently through the mirror.
He picked up his tweed suit from the table behind
the screen, then his sequin costume, then his outsize
shoes, then his morning suit with the detachable tails:
he peered closely at each of these articles in turn.
"What about the tear in the sequin?" he asked.
Francine came from the dressing-table and took
the sequing costume.
She showed him a place under the
left sleeve which had been perfec tly repaired.
Hellebore smiled: "How clever you are."
"Bhall I do the neck-frill?"
He nedded and sat down.
She took a needle and
white thread from a small mahogany work box behind him
ar nd began sewing up a little tear at the back of his
goffered neck-frill.
"He upset you, didn't he?" Hellebore asked
quietly.
She tossed the hair out of hera eyes: "He
frightened me. I have nowhere else to go. He knows


that. He knows he can frighten me."
"Don't worry, I wouldn't allow it. I could
employ you myself."
"But stili, it makes me feel unsafe.
I thought
he liked me."
Sha € a
PA e0 A - MOSARARAL - et * bent over the frill,
sewing quickly and delicately. e
"He'll come round to you again.
But you must
give him time.
Time is all he needs."
Hellebore bit
his lower lip and glanced sideways, avoiding her eyes in
the mirror.
"By the way 9 he sa: id you were Sangson's
lover: is that true?"
"Yes, but it must have been his own guess.' i
She did not seem in the least troubled by the
question.
"I don't want to interfere with y you," Hellebore
told her. "I only asked out of curiosity. Are you
going to marry him?"
He asked this quickly, running it into his other
sentence, and it caught her off her guard. She replied
without thinking, rushing Over her words: "We've never
spoken to each other about 1t." But then she paused,
with a frown. "No, we shall never marry We are drawn
to each other, but against ourwishes perhaps. We are
never really intimate together, we are too strange to
each other. We just explore each other."
"Would you like to marry, yourself?"


"No, I don't think so.
I think I am happy
alone. I have my work here, and I don't feel I need
children. I
"Are y ou sure?"
She flushed slightly: "Yes, quite sure."
Hellebore asked her how she had got to know
Sangson, and she told him that she had met him during
the War.
Sangson had come to her casualty station.
"Was he wounded, then?"
"No, his nerve had broken.
I remember when he
came in he was shivering and staring like a man with acute
frost-bite.
In peace-time we should never have got to
know each other: we are too different.
But soon after
he came the War ended and there was very little work for
the nurses, so we talked to each other and then travelled
to Paris together."
"Why did his nerve break?" Hellebore asked her.
She seemed unwilling to answer. But at last
she replied: "He put it down to your son's death."
She cut the white thread abd put back her thimble
and needle in the work-box. She had finished, and Hellebore
took from the table a pair of white socks and a pair of
white slippers with a pom-pom on each.
"He brought home Edgar's death to me last night,' "
Hellebore murmuredt "His words frightened me. He
made me feel like a murderer.
Well, I told Lorraine
this evening: I am a murderer, I did kill my son.


* 1E Mn :
Until Sangson spoke to me last night I hardly realised
I had a son." He turned suddenly to look at her.
"Do you think he's a clever young man?"
She smiled when she saw Hellebore's expression,
like that of a child.
"Yes, I think he's clever.
Why
do you ask?"
He ar nswered her thoughtrully: "I ask because
I think anfducated ma n - as I am uneducated - can sometimes
ha ve the wool pulled over his eyes. I have to be careful,
you see; I meet so many educated people."
Eiselheim glanced through a peep-hole in the curtain
at the audience and watched Bernard Charpentier take his
place in the second row of the stalls.
He smiled
ironically ar nd murmured to himself:
"Voilà Monsieur Gobe-mouches!"
He touched Helen Eugenie's arm al nd pointed
Charpentier out to her; she smiled, then mimicked
Charpentier's frown, drawing herself up imperiously.
A red light above the switch-boards went on and
off, al nd the orchestra struck up into a quick waltz.
Two stage-hands began sweeping the stage, and as they
passed behind them Eiselheim and Helen walked slowly back
into the wings. Four flats descended onto the stage,
two of either side, and were pushed into position.
A backdrop curtain coloured plain yellow was then lowered
from the flies. Several sceneshifters stood waiting for


it, then steadied it as it apporached the boards.
Two
cables were drawn out of sight, and a step-ladder wai S
taken back-stage.
Louis Comte, standing under the
switchboard, ordered the stage to be cleared.
Hellebore heard the orahestra strike up.
started: # 'Blige me, what's the time?"
Francine pointed to the alarm clock on his
table, and he saw that the time was fifteen minutes
past eight.
"That band gave me a turn.
I thought it was
earlier.' 1
She asked him how he felt now, a nd he half rose
from his chair to lay his hand on her cheek: "Feel that."
She drew back: "But they're so cold!"
"Well, I can feel nothing."
"And it's so hot in here."
"Lorraine and Charpentier designed this room,' I
he said. "But they forgot a simple thing like a clock.
They could have had one fixed onto this table of mine.
That would have been just the 1dea. I had a clock with
green hands in my old room, - d'you remember? I used to
have a round table covered with signed photographs and old
programmes pasted on the wall, if you remember.
What
happened to those things,
do you happen to know?"
"I think they were burned when the old dressing
rooms were demolished. But perhaps thay are downstairs


among the old junk."
For a moment the stage was empty.
Jaques
entered from the right hand side.
He turned and impatient-
ly clapped his hands to hurry his chorus girls forward
from the wings. They came on laughing and talking,
passing Jaques without looking in his direction.
They
took up their places in two rows, and Jaques went among
them tidying their frilled skirts.
He then walked into
the wings and nodded to Benedict Amurrat. The girls waited,
patting their hair and talking to each other.
The orchestra ended itss waltz.
The chandelier
in the auditorium faded out and the footlights were switched
on. The audience stirred, and those who had been standing
in the gangways took their seats. The wall lights, then
the smaller single lights in the roof, faded out.
Louis Comte looked at his watch and turned to the
electrician at his side. A long battery of red lights in
the flies were switched on, so that the backdrop curtain
instantly turned from yellow toa deep orat nge. Two arc-
lamps shone from the wings. The electriclan pressed a
switch at his side a nd the ordhestra struck up into a
quick ragtime tune. The red light above the switchboard
went on and off three times. The chorus girls stood
ready, their hands lifted high.
Jaques went forward from
the wings and raised his hand.
The moment he lowered it
they joined arms and began the first da nce, with smiles
on their faces.


The curtain slowly rose and the chorus girls were
dancing in two rows, their frilled skirts rising and falling
as they kieked out their legs.
Jean and Pierre Duloi-Bordeau hurried down to the
wings in their black dressing-gowns. The rest of their
acrobatic troupe two women and a young boy came close
behind them. They talked loudly to each other as they
hurried along the stone corridor.
The dance ended a few minutes afterwards and the
curtain dropped rapidly to the boards.
During the applause
the orchestra struck up into a military march.
Jaques ushered the girls off the stage, smiling
and patting their shoulders as they passed.
The yellow
backdrop curtian rose swiftly up into the flies: the
ladders, cables and chains behind it were cleared away.
Again the stage was swept. Two trapezes were lowered to
the level of the stage, and a ladder, a jumping box, a
steel see-saw and a tall structure with cross-bars and
platforms for the acrobatic tableaux were brought on.
A long mat was unrolled and a white backdrop, much further
back than the previous one, was lowered.
The Duloi-Bordeau acrobatic troupe har nded the ir
black dressing-gowns to the attendants and ran together
onto the stage.
They cartwheeled, somersaulted and ha nd-
walked along the mat, while the two women went straight to
the trapeze and were lifted, seated on the cross-bars, to
places just short of the proscenium arch.


The red light above the switchboard went on and
off three times. Jean, Pierre and the boy stood ready on
the mat, the women on their trapezes, smiling.
The
orchestra struck up again, and the curtain rose.
Hellebore put on his white slippers.
"He promised to be in the Crimson Tower at four
o'clock this afternoon," he told Francine quietly.
"But
he didn't come."
"You invited him?"
"Yes, at the club last. night. - "
"He said nothing to me about it. Perhaps he knew
I would have forbidden it."
Helleboreglanced up at her sharply.
"Well, I thought he upset you last night. And
he might have done the same again just before your perform-
anee. You can't deny that he did upset you."
"Oh, yes, he upset me." He spoke eagerly.
"But
I wanted another talk with him, Francine.
I had a lot to
tell him. He's a fine talker, you know. When did you
last see him?"
She hesitated: "This afternoon.
He left my room
about half-past two or three."
"Where did he go?"
"To Signor Celida's shop in the Concorde." She
gazed at him calmly. "Why are you so anxious about it?"
"oh, he's just the sort of young man who gets


himself into harm."
"But what sort of harm?"
"Well, an accident ob a I don't know exactly
what a e He has a frightened look sometimes, don't you
think 80?" Hellebore was puzzled. "I feel responsible
for him, more than I ever did for Edgar.
He needs
someone to look after him. Do you take enough care of
She began needlessly rearranging his costumes.
She spoke bitterly: "He has enough care taken of him.
He has me, and Signora Celida, and now you."
"Is he in the audience tonight?"
She shhkk her head, al nd he murmured, "Good." #
"Why good?"
But he did not answer.
"You're calm now," she said, looking at him,
"1ike you used to be before the War."
"That's because I know I'm going to make a mess
of it. Another talk with Sangson tonig ht might have made
me feel better.
It was my fault Edgar died, you see!
I wish I could go back into the past.
I'm alone, Francine.
There's nobody to help me. Things were different before
the War.
I could depend on other people.
I trusted
Lorraine. Everybody laughed more, they weren't so selfish
and suspicious." He turned from the dressing-table and
stated at Francine.
"Everybody's waiting for me to do
something wrong. They're all watching me. That's wha t


it feels like.
I've got no real friends."
"You've only been in Paris a few hours, so how
can you tell?"
A muffled sound of applause came from the
auditorium.
"Listen to that," she said. "They aren't
unfriendly.
It's a good house tonight."
"Well, if I get the bird I shan't try aga in.
Once is enough for me."
There was a hushed roll of drums as Pierre
Duloi-Bordeau put his hands on the soles of Jean's feet,
leaned forward and then Jumped swiftly up into a hand-stand.
Jean was lying underneath him on his back, with his knees
fully bent over his chest. When Plerre was quite.steady
the boy came forward with a short steel ladder. At its
base were shoe-like attachments.
Carrying the ladder, he
put his right foot on one of Jean's knees and climbed slowly
onto Pierre's shoulders. He then lfted the ladder so that
Pierre could fit his feet into the shoes.
When it was
balanced at a slight angle he climbed further up until he
had his foot on the first rung.
The drum-roll ceased.
There was silence, and the group remained quite still.
Jean called out, "Allez!" and the boy began very slowly
to climb the ladder.
He reached the toprung and gripped
it with both hands.
There was another cry from Jean, and
the boy raised himself slowly into a hand-stand.
The
bass-drum sounded out and amid the appaause the orchestra


started up again.
The trapaze-girls swung to the floor by means
of ropes.
The boy came down from the ladder, and Jean
and Pierre jumped to their feet.
The troupe bowed low
and the curtain fell.
Hellebore sat before his mirror again and put the
finishing touches to his face.
There was a knock on the door and Lorraine entered
the room, neater than before and in evening clothes.
His
11ps were pursed and white with nervousness. Francine
came from behindthe screen, then immédiately withdrew
when she saw who it was. Hellebore had lowered his head
and glanced throught the mbrror behind him. He laughed.
"Look at this, Francine!" he called out.
call-boy in tails!"
Francine went to the fireplace at the opposite
end of the room, and as she passed him Lorraine turned
away, deliberately showing her his back.
He asked
Hellebore how he felt now.
Hellebore was powdering his forehead wher e the
wig was fixed: "Better than you do, I dare say ."
Lorraine sat down on the divan and sighed, while
Francine put fresh logs on the fire.
A muted bell in the wall behind the screen rang
three times, and Francine went hurriedly to the door and
held it open for Hellebore. As she did so an immense
roar of applause sounded down the corridor from the


wings above.
Hellebore had a last look at his face,
then rose.
A call-boy ran down from the stage to the dressing
room and was just about to call out to Hellebore when
Lorraine got up from the divan and, without looking
directly at him, waved to him to go away.
The boy stood
still in the corridor for a moment, daunted and frightened,
then ran back to the stage.
Hellebore left the dressing room followed by
both Lorraine and Francine.
The bell behind the sereen
rang again as they feached the stone steps leading to the
pass-door.
Hellebore walked slowly, his eyes on the
ground: Lorraine seemed in pain, and there were large
beads of sweat all over his brow. As Francine pushed
open the pass-door a great hot breath of air rushed out to
them from the wings.
The orchestra was playing again, and sceneshifters
were running noisily to and fro, across the stage.
One of
the two trapezes used by the acrobatic troupe had been
raised out of sight and the other moved a little more to
the centre.
The mat was rolled up, and the steel see-saw,
the ladders and the jumping-box were quic kly taken off into
the wings. When the stage was clear the garlanded stair-
case for Hellebore's turn was brought on and a section of
the stage raised above it to form a balustrade.
Hellebore's
backdrop was slowly lowered in front of it.
This backdrop curtain was black, and diagonally


across it, from corner to corner, there wa s a huge
Christmas rose with dark green mottled leaves and a very
deep red bloom.
As Hellebore came into the wings the stagehands
and electricians drew back to make way for him. They
watcl hed him as he walked towards the ewitahboard and
stood there alone.
Benedict Amurrat ran from the other
side of the stage and shaok hands with him.
Hellebore
smiled at him calmly, then looked about him, at the
stagehands in the wings, then at the stage, as if the
scene-chaning deeply interested him. He stood quite still
and spoke to no one e
The ramshackle piano wa S now wheeled an, and the
wire was made taut between its stays on either side.
Two
stagehands brought on a chest-of-drawers, and the tiny
bowler-hat was-lowered from the flied.
The red light above the switchboard shone three
times, and the orchestra played the final chords of its
waltz.
The last sceneshifters ran off the stage, and a
great battery of lights up above was switched on, then
the two arc-lamps on either side.
The a udience grew
quiet, and the red light above the switchboard shone once
more.
The stage was now empty and Amurrat turned with
a smile to Hellebore.
Throughout the auditorium there
was utter silence, and the curtain slowly rose.
Hellebore continued to gaze at the stage, lost


and half-smiling. A few seconds passed, and he remained
there. Amurrat ran to his side and said in an urgent
whisper: "The tabs are up, Jack."
Hellebore turned and atared at him. sternly, as
if he were trying to recognise his face. Then he nodded
a little drowsily and went to the edge of one of the
flats at the side of the stage.
He carefully put his
ha nd round its edge so that his fingers would be visible
to the audience.
Then he leaned forward and peered round
the flat at the auditorium, so that now the fingers of his
right hand, and the whole of his head, were visible.
There was a long sighing noise from the audience.
started, his ginger ha: ir rose and fell quickly, and in
an instant he withdrew his head and hand. Lau ughter went
across the auditorium, from the stalls to the gallery,
and died away e
Hellebore walked slowly onto the stage in his
white pierrot's costume. The audience clapped this
entrance, but he did not look in their direction.
silence fell again he began strolling about the stage,
staring casually at its furniture, a first at the piano,
then up at the trapeze and the taut wire, then at the
huge Christmas rose across the backdrop curtain, then at
the chest-of-drawers andthe bowler-hat.
He stared at
them inquisitively, but he seemed afraid to touch anything.
The audience was watching him very closely.
He went towards the piano and bent down to have


a look at its legs. But in the act of doing this hea
seemed to become aware of the audience for the first time.
He slowly raised himself up again and cast a quick side-glance
at them.
Then he turned his face in their direction, his
jaw fell, his hair again rose and fell; he became rigid
with panic and looked wildly behind him. He was just
about to flee towards the black curtain when he seemed to
grow calm again: he came towards the footlights with his
former casual walk, staring down into the pit. Just
short of the footlights he seemed to reel, and a light laugh
came from the auditorium. He stood quite still, and the
theatre was again in utter silence. For many seconds
he did nothing, then seemed about to topple forward into
the ecorching footlights, but held himself back in time.
The audience was not certain what he meant by this and
continued to watch him closely, waiting for the la ugh.
He stood still again, legs astride, looking down
into the pit.
He peered into it as 1f he were try ing to
make out the faces. Then he seemed to shudder.
There
was the sound of whispering in thewings,
Someone backstage
shouted.
Hellebore turned quickly to the left.
The
moment he did so he lost his balance. He began toppling
forward.
Suddenly his eyes closed and tears poured down
his face.
He collapsed onto his left shoulder, then turned
over onto his back.
The audience was just about to laugh
when the curtain fell rapidly and the orchestra struck up
into loud, gay music.


The bottomm of the curtain struck the boards
with a heavy thump only a few inches from Hellebore's
head. Stagehands and electricians ran onto the stage.
Two of them lifted Hellebore clear of the drop-c surtain,
and Amurrat shouted for a stretcher. Hellebore was not
une onscious. He leaned forward on his right elbow, weep-
ing and shuddering.
Amurrat tried to lift his head to
looka at his eyes, but he pushed him away. A stretcher
was brought, and one of the men clasped him under the arm-
pits. At this moment Hellebore opened his eyes aga inz
and, looking down, saw one of the hands at the side of
his chest.
He watched it with an expression of terror.
Then he looked up at the man's face.
"There's blood on your fingers,' # he said AAMMMNAAA
as he was laid on the stretcher.
The man he had spoken to let go of his shoulders.
He stared down at his own hand, then at Hellebore suspicious-
"It's all right," Louis Comte told him, "he's
delirious."
The stageha nd s were about to carry him backstage
when Lorraine ran in from the wings. He was in his shirt-
sleeves.
His arm-pits and the greater part of his sleeves
were drenc hed with sweat. He pushed the stagehands aside
and went to the stretcher.
Hellebore lay there with his
eyes closed, breathing heavily.
Hls powder was smudged,
and there were red marks across his forehead.
There were


also stains on his neck-frill, and one of the pom-pom
buttons on his costume was missing.
"What happened?" Lorraine cried, frowning at
Amurrat.
"Nobody knows : He isn't hurt!"
Lorraine turned to one of the stagehar nds: "Call
the nurse!" And to Comte he said, "Get on with the
other programme. - I
Comte ran into the wings, and once more the
sceneshifters began clearing the stage.
The stretcher
was laid down behind one of the flats on the left-ha nd
side. Lorraine walked over to the stretcher-bearers,
shouting to them as he came:
"No, no! Take him straight down to the dressing
But at this moment the nurse came onto the stage.
She bent down and put smelling salts under Hellebore's nose,
and laid a cold towel across his forehead. He was still
sobbing and shuddering a little as he lay on the stretcher.
The trapeze was daawn out of sight, and the stage
was almost clear.
The chorus girls crowded together bel hind
a flat on the other side of the stage, waiting to go on,
and a few yards in front of Hellebore the stagehands were
dismantling the steel-wire.
The cold towel revived Hellebore, and he suddenly
started forward in the nurses arms. Amurrat bent down
to him immediately.


"What happened, Jack?"
The backdrop curtain with the Christmas rose
left the stage and ascended slowly into the flies, and
behind it Hellebore's garlanded staircase was being
dismantled.
He looked aghast at the rising backdrop,
the n at the chorus-giris and his stripped staircase.
He spoke to Amurrat in horrified assonishment:
"Stop them doing that.
Stop those girls coming on."
But the ramshackle piano men :
was
now out of sight, and he watched the backdrop come
to rest in the flies high above them. The staircase,
beiuy
now dismantled, was/pushed back behind one of the flats.
"It's the other programme," Amurrat told him.
"We mustn't waste time, Jack."
Hellebore's chin was thrust forward, and he
star red wildly at Amurrat. He pushed the nurse's arm
away roughly and jumped up.
"What happened?" he asked.
"You just fell down."
He had his fists clenched, as if he would fight
the other man. But he simply murmured: "Get my stuff
on the stage again."
Lorraine came forward from behind the strete her
and took Hellebore's arme
Hellebore looked from one to
the other: "Who's running another programme?"
"You're ill, Jack," Lorraine said.
"Look at
you." He was hardly able to speak. "I knew
you'd do


"I'm not 111." He shook his head violently.
"I don't know what happened, I don't know what happened!"
He grasped the lapel of Lorraine's waistcoat. "Stop
"No, I'm powerless to do that now. I
"Stop them."
Lorraine shook his head mutely.
Hellebore
wa tel hed his steel wire go loose and fall to the ground,
thenwwwyatamwvaVaMWWMA WAAWPAN * wand he strode across to
the other side of the stage a nd shouted something to
Jaques in English.
Jaques drew back in fear, not
understanding the English. His chorus-giris were waiting
together behind him, and the yellow backdrop for their
turn was just about to be lowered.
Hellebore pushed at
Jaques wildly, and Jaques fell fexxard against one of the
flats with a shrill cry.
"Allee, allee!" Hellebore shouted to the girls.
He stretched out his arms and pushed agains t them, so that
they moved back as a erowd.
They screamed and shouted to
Amurrat, and some of them fled through the pass-door.
Lorraine and Amurrat ran up behind him and pulled him
back.
Most of the sceneshifbers were now standing still
wa tching the group.
"I'm going on again," Hellebore told them.
"You've made that impossible, Jack," replied
Lorraine.
"Listen to me. I'm not leaving this stage


tonight until I've done my turn. You can run anot her
programme if you like, but I'm not leaving this stage.
I'l1 go out in front of that curtain and do my turn in
the pit, if you like." He shouted to Comte, who was
now standing in the wings: "Call the Virgin!"
He turned and faced the stage.
He looked at
the sceneshifters who were at the top of the garla nd ed
staircase and shouted up at them, tapping his own chest:
"Hellebore!
Hellebore!"
Then he pointed to the chorus
girls near the pass-door and cried: "Non la danse!"
Amurrat glanced at Lorraine hesitantly:
"Are you going to let him try?" he asked.
The sceneshifters watched Hnii Lorraine, waiting
gor a decishon.
The sweat was still pouring from his
brow. He looked sad and troubled, rather than angry.
At last he nodded.
Some of the sceneshifters groaned
with annoyance, and Lorraine walked back into the wings
with Amurrat, shaking his head sadly: "We're finished,
Bened ict.
I knew he'd do this."
"Suppose it goes wrong again?"
"Oh, it will go wrong." He no longer seemed
interested.
"But I'm going to let everybody see for
themselves he's finished. I don't care what it costs me
now, but no one is going to tell me after this that I
stopped him going on.
If he wants to ruin himself in front
of two thousand people, let him.
Not a mal nager in
Europe is going to touch him after this.
That Was


Eiselheim's advice to me this morning: let everybody
see for themselves he's finished. And it's going to
cost me six hundred thousand franes."
Francine ran through the pass-door carrying
rouge, a powder-puff, a brush and a mirror. Onee more
Hellebore's backdrop was lowered to the stage and the
stays for hes steel wire erected. A stagehand brought
him a chair and placed it near the switchboard.
He sat
down and smiled, watching his scenery return. Francine
quickly powdered and rouged his face again, too nervous
to speak.
She painted in his thick eyebrows and rubbed
white powder into the s ta ins on his neck-frill.
Lorraine left Amurrat and walked behind the
SC enery up the stairs leading to his office.
He climbed
slowly, in resigned despair. He stood still on the
gallery for a moment, panting heavily after his climb,
then he went into the office and alammed the door.
sat down at his desk.
He wiped his brow and closed his
eyes.
Hellebore's sc ene was once more in place.
The
last stagehands ran off the stage, and the musie came to
an end as the red light shone three times.
Hellebore
stood behind one ofthe flats as before.
The thea tre
was in silence again, after the melancholy tune, and
slowly the curtain rsoe.
Hellebore entered from theright a nd walked
drowsily across the stage without looking at the audience.


He strolled to the piano and deftly played a little tune
with his right hand.
Suddenly the lid fell smartly down
on his fingers and he gave a terrified jump in the air.
There was loud laughter, as if with relief.
He ran to
the centre of the stage sucking his fingers. Then he
uttered a long, wild yell of pain.
He stopped, and
seemed surprised at his own voice.
He yelled aga in,
ex perimen tally, and again listened to his own voice.
Then he began to weep.
The tears poured down onto his
gew pierrot's costume.
They greu, until they were two thin
sprays of water from the corner of his eyes. He stood
still for a moment, and again there wa's utter silence
throughout the theatre.
Suddenly he ran back to the piano, flung the lid
up, and began playing furiously, jumping up and down as
he played.
Then there was a deafening explosion, the
piano-playing ceased, and neither he nor the piano could
be seen for a great cloud of white smoke.
This cloud went slowly upwards, a nd after a few
seconds he became visible at its edge, reeling and
stumblingg his pierrot's costume in rags -
One tuft of
ginger ha ir hung down over his right ear, his slippers
with the pom-pom buttons were missing, and beneath the
rags of his dress, a red and yellow striped vest a nd yellow
pants were now visible.
Slowly he recovered his balance,
al nd the smoke cleared away.
He glanced malevolently at the piano, then caught


sight of the chest-of-drawers on the right hai nd side.
Itsatop drawer was slightly open.
He went toward s it
self-righteously and pushed the top drawer home, but
at once the lower drawer came out.
He stared down at
it, and his one tuft of. ginger hair rose and fell.
bent down, pushed the lower drawer home, and this time
the sedond drawer struck him a blow on the head and he
somersaulted backwards.
He jumped up again and stood
looking at the chest from a distance.
He went towards
it, kicked the middle drawer home with his foot and then
ran wildly to the other side of the stage. There, be hind
the piano, he turned and looked back. All the drawers
were now shut.
He walked back again.
He smiled, and pointed
to the tiny bowler-hat.
He took it and tried it on.
He grinned shyly at the audience, then huddled up his
shoulders a nd giggled. An idea struck him.
He la id
the hat down again a nd ran over to the pia no. He opened
the main lid and brought out a huge hand-mirror two or
three feet in length.
This he took over to the chest-
of-drawers. He put the bowler ha t on again, leaned
against the top drawer and simpered in front of the mirror.
Suddenly the top drawer came out and struck him smartly
on the shoulder.
He yelled out with pain and fell straight
on his back.
The huge hand-mirror toppledto the ground
as the bass-drum sounded out.
He lay rigid for some time,
then slowly, daunted al nd frightened, he got up. He


looked about disconsolately for his hat and found it
immediately in front of the lower drawer.
He went to
the side of the chest, with his back to the audience,
at nd kicked the hat towards the back of the stage.
Then
he walked round behind the chest.
Just as he was about
to pick the hat up, it moved a little further towards
the centre of the stage.
He stared at it, his head on
one side.
Again he bent down, and again it moved away.
He pondered, chin in hand. Then he walked round to the
other side of the hat and again bent down.
This time
it came towards him, he chuckled and gathered it like a
hen into his hands. He put it back on his head and
began strutting about the stage. But as he walked
towards the footlights it rose into the air slowly and
remained stationary three or four feet above his head.
He continued to struat about, unaware of this.
walked round the chest-of-drawers and struck it vehemently
with his foot as he apassed. The more the audience laughed,
the prouder he became. He bowed. He walked to the
back of the stage, studied the Christmas rose on the
backdrop, then returned to the footligets. As he came
down the stage he caught sight of the bowler-hat in mid-
air.
He stopped short al nd again his one tuft of ginger
hair rose and fell.
Slowly he raaised his hand to his
head and found nothing there.
He gazed bitterly at the
hanging hat, then made an absurd effort to reach 1t by
standing on his toes.
He stamped his foot impatiently


and turned his back on the audience.
He walked away
from the footlights, sighing deeply.
As he did so he caught sight of the steel wire.
He stopped and gazed upwards.
He turned to the audience
again with a smile.
He came to the footlights aga in.
He pointed to himself, then to the steel wire, his eyebrows
raised.
He walked to one side of the proscenium arch
and began taking off his torn costume fragmei nt by fragment.
He folded each piece and carefully laid it down in front
of the footlights, and at last he stood in his striped
vest and long yellow pants. He went into the wings,
and silence gradually fell on the theatre again.
The orchestra began playing quietly. Hellebore
appeared on the wire at the right of the stage. He
stepped forward, lost his footing, almost fell and ran back
to his little platform with a loud cry.
He stepped onto
the wire again, and this time he ran precipitately to the
middle.
He jumped in the air and turned about, his feet
turned slightly outwards.
He jumped higher and higher
in the air as the wire bounced up and down, and the
orchestra took up his rhythm. He somersaulted forwards
in the air, holding his knees. When he had reached a
sufficmient height he took two forward somersaults in
the air above the wire.
He jumped with reckless confidence,
crying out at the top of his voice, his arms strete hed
sideways.
Sometimes he landed on his feet, sometimes
he landed at a sitting position. He moved his limbs in


the air with a wonderful swiftness and ease.
He took
a backward somersault in the air, pretended to miss his
footing on the wire and seemed about to fall straight
down to the atage. The orchestra stopped playing
instantly, there was a crash on the bass-drum, and Hellebore
hung by his left arm on the wire, his confidence gone,
tears pouring daxs from his eyes, yelling out mourl nfully,
his legs kicking wildly in space. He tried several time s
to reach the wire with his right foot, but fa iled. . He
hung there by both hands, and at last he ma naged by swinging
his body upwards to grip it between his feet.
He pulled
himself up, lay along the wire on his stomach, steadied
himself, then lost his balance again and twisted round
undernea th it. Again he dangled in spde. But this time
he looked down and saw that he had no more than three feet
or so to drop. He jumped lightly down and aatrad stared
sulkily at the audience as they applauded him. He
walked to the footlights and lifted his chin defiantly.
He had lost his self-assurance. With sudden revengeful
fury he threw himself over into a forward somersault.
He threw himself onto his hands, then back onto his feet
again, so that he seemed momentarily to be nd like a rubber
d ummy. e He hal nd-walked round the stage, taking long,
stnides/ rapid strbles, and jumped to his feet with the orchestra's
final chords. He bowed proudly, showing himself off.
Quietly confident again, his lips pursed, he began putting
on his pierrat's dress. He put on his left sleeve, then


one of his trouser legs, He dressed himself with
dignity, caring for every little torn fragment. A
spotlight rested on him at the side of the stage as he
delicately fingered his dress.
With grotesque dignity he walked back across
the stage. As he came towards it the tiny bonmer-hat
which had remained in the air a fell a little lower
and came to rest immediately in front of his head.
He stopped and stared at 1t. He stepped to the right,
but it moved with him.
He ran a few paces, and it was
still there. He looked into the auditorium and smiled
shrewdly. The curtain fell.
When it rose again the piano and the chest-of-
drawers were no longer on the stage.
There was now a
card-table near the footlights, and on it were a top hat,
a small beer barrel, a saw, a wand and an immense pack
of cards.
Hellebore entered dressed in evening clothes
that were stained and many aizes too big for him.
had a starched front, and there was a red flower dangling
from his button-hole.
He walked briskly to the table.
He coughed into his ha nd. He picked up the immense
paçk of cards a nd began shuffling them with astonishing
swiftness, throwing them up with one ha nd and catching
them with the other.
He put them together again and
ran his thumb along the top of the pack, so that they made
a loud smacking noise.
He showed the Queen of Hearts


to the audience and then leaned it against hhe beer
barrel with its blank side showing.
He brought the
rest of the pack to the footlights and smmaty solemnly
bent down.
He crouched over the pack, raised himself,
stretched out his arms, and the pack was gone * He turned
round and walked back to the table. As he did so the
cards fell loudly one after another from the tail of his
jacket onto the floor. He stared down at them with
horror, petrified in his tracks.
He unhooked the tails
of his jacket and began inspecting the pocket inside them
for holes.
Then he shrugged and threw them with the
cards into the wings. He returned to the table a little
gl umly. An idea occurred to him, and he smiled.
picked up the eard which was leaning against the barrel
and showed it to the al udience.
It had char nged to the
King of Spades. He nodded persuasively as he sl howed it
to them, and giggled.
He struck a match and lit a serap of paper. He
put this lighted paper into a small box a nd wrapped it
round with a silk kerchief.
He touched it lightly with
his wand.
He was about to untie the kerchief, fingering
it gingerly, when thick smoke began to pour out of it.
He hopped about, hollering and throwing the box from one
ha nd to anethar the other, then he ran to the side of
the stage al nd threw it into the wings. He hastened
back to the middle sucking his fingers.
He bowed
austerely.


He opened a small lid in the barrel and pulled
out one coloured silk after another. He turned on the
tap, and nothing came forth.
He held up his finger
shrewdly to the audience and took his wand from the table.
He tapped the barrel twice with this wand. He turned
the tap on again, and thistime a red liquid flowed out.
He took a large tumbler from one of his bulging pockets
ar nd held it for a moment under the tapt He raised it
against the light and stared at it. He took a sip and
immediately, with a contorted face, spat it out.
looked at the tumbler defiantly but took another sip.
This time he nodded with a smile and swallowed the liquid.
He drew an egg from his left sleeve, held it up
before him between his fingertips and then placed it on
the table.
He drew another from his right sleeve.
Nonchalantly he drew a number of eggs from his hair, his
pocket and the seat of his trousers.
He hiceoughed. The hiccough threw him forward
a little, and another egg rolled out from under one of
his trouser-legs.
He stood still, gazing down at the
egg with horror. He tried to smile at the audience.
He waited, seeming to listen apprehensively, and there
was silence. Again he aiccoughed, and this time three
or four eggs fell noisily from his collar, the cuff of
his sleeve and one of his pockets.
He remained standing
in the same position, with a troubled, pleading look.
Again he waited, and again there was silence. He had


his head be nt sideways, listening.
The moments passed
and the hiccough did not come. He sighed with relief
and smiled graciously.
He returned to the table a nd
drew himself up. But just as he was about to pick up
his wand he hiccoughed again, and this time a huge spotted
ostrich egg rolled quietly out of his trouser leg and
came to rest a few feet from him.
He first looked defiant, then wept. He walked
furiously to the centre of the stage.
Then he turned
suddenly.
He went back to the table a nd began throwing
his properties into the wings with an tmmense clatter.
He pushed the barrel onto the floor, rolled it into the
wings and then sent the table after it.
He dusted his
hands off and strolled to the other side of the stage.
He whistled crudely, his hands in his pockets. As he
strolled about, bored and pondering, the lights began to
fade, and in a few moments the stage was in utter darkness.
His whistling gradually became less forthright, then
ceased altogether.
The orchestra began softly playing a polka, and
slowly the lights came on. He was standing in the same
position as before, but the stage had now been transformed.
There were now tall pillars on either side, and where the
black curtain with the Christmas rose had been there was
now the wall of a large ballroom, with gilt tables and
chairs.
He stared all about him, turning round on his
heels like a wondering child.


Infvisble guests came to being on the stage,
and he moved respectfully among them.
He rearranged
the red flower in his button-hole and tried to smooth
down the tufts of ginger hair with the tips of his
fingers.
He wiped the toes of his shoes SU urrepitiously
on his trouser-legs as he walked, smiling to someone
whenever he did so.
He listened to a group of people
gossiping, then he himself joined in. He gabbled
silently, his head thrust forward, his 1ips moving with
an extraordinary rapidity, his eyes darting this way and
that. He found a partner, smiled to her and bowed.
They began dancing together, and he became portly and
sole emn. He took rigid little ju umps up and down in the
polka, holding her har nds high. A waltz followed,and
this he danced alone.
The music ananad seemed to draw
his limbs into movement, swooning and dying away, then
lighting up again.
He moved with wonderful sureness,
delivered helplessly into the music. He da need the
Lancers, taking long, soft strides round a nd round the
stage, narrowly avoiding the other guests.
The orchestra stopped suddenly in the middle of
a chord, and he was struck still.
He looked about him,
the spell broken.
The guests seemed to draw away e He
became panic-stricken at the thought of their leaving him.
He ran to the side of the stage to block their exit.
He snapped his fingers at them, blew kisses at them,
clapped his hands and pointed with pathetic gaiety onto


the stage. But the orchestra remained silent.
The
pillars on either side rose slowly back into the flies.
The ballroom wall gave place to the black curtain again,
and the gilt chairs and tables sank underneath the stage
by traps.
Forlorn and sad, he walked back to the
footlights.
He took an invisible apple from his pocket and
polished it on his sleeve. He took one bite, chewed
it, then ate the whole apple with fierce voracity,
twirling it round and round in his fingers.
He put his hand in his pockets again and walked
to the middle of the stage, staring at the floor. There
was silence. He whistled a snatch of one of the tunes
to which he had danced. He danced a few steps and smiled
to himself.
He sighed nostalgically, and there were two
or three very quick spurts of water from his eyes.
From somewhere behind him came the sound of soft
idyll music, full of bird-notes.
He stopped and listened.
He turned and as he did so the backdrop curtain rose into
the air.
Behind it was a sunlit balaatrade with a narrow
flight of stairs leading up to it. There were three
arches in the Gothia style, and these were covered with
wild climbing roses and other blossoms in profusion.
Above the three arches were written the words: "Le Berceau
de Verdure Enchante."
The branches of a willow-tree hung
down onto the balustrade, behind the arches.
He walked slowly up the staircase, gazing at
everything with his mouth open. At the top he be gai n


smelling the blossoms.
He smelt them like a giraffe,
long-necked, slender and inquisitive.
He stood on tip-toe
to smell a particularly full flower. The idyll music
ceased.
He smelt the flower, then wanted tp pull it
down. He grasped hold of it, then pulled. A flood of
water instantly poured down all over him.
He yelled out.
It became a continuous down-pour. He tried to struggle
back down the staircase but became entangled in the branches
of the willow-tree. At last, drenched to the skin, he
threw himself out of one of the arahes, a nd in doing this
he brought down with him to the stage all the wild climbing
poses.
He stood weeping and yelling among them, and the
curtain fell.
There was a great roar of applause.
Hellebore
chal nged quickly into his sequin costume at the side of the
stage. The trapeze was lowered, and he sat on the cross-
bar. He was lifted up into the flies, and the curtain
rose again.
There was a pause during which the stage
was empty, then Hellebore came d own from the flies on
the trapeze in his sparkling sequin suit.
The applause
grew louder, and he waved his hand.
Lorraine opened his eyes al nd started in his
chair when he heard the noide fr om below.
He pic ked up
the telephone:
"Get me the stage... What the hell's that?...
He put the receiver back and stared bef ore him.


He got up and went to. the gallery-door, ar nd as he opened
it the applause grew louder. He looked down at the stage.
The curtain was at that m oment up, and the stage was empty.
Then Hellebore came cartwheeling from the wings in his
sequin suit.
He jumped to his feet just short of the
footlights and bowed.
The curtain came down again and
Hellebore strolled to the side of the stage. He dabbed
his neck with a handkerchief. Amurrat ral n forward and
shook him by the hand.
Lorraine went back to his desk and put his jacket
on. Then he went down to the stage by the wooden staircase.
Hellebore took off his wig and slipped between
the folds of the curtain which two attendants were holding
back for him. The applause grew into a huge roar as he
appeared under the yellow spotlight in his sparkling sequin
dress. He bowed low with the wig in his right hand.
Behindthe curtain sceneshifters were putting up
the cage for Eiselheim's act.
Its walls were about ten
feet high, with spikes at the top curving inwards.
Heinric h
Eiselheim stood at the side in evening clothes and a top
hat. He stood very still, watching the sceneshifters at
work.
Behind him stood Eliza and Helen in long Chinese
tea-gowns and sandals, their hair shining with oil and
gathered at the back into buns o
Their eyes were painted
to give the appearance of being narrow and slanted.
When the walls were up they were connected with
a wire corridor in the wings along which the tigers would


come. Eiselheim's table was taken into the eage, then
his other properties, a a black chest, a number of
coloured silk kerchiefs, two top hats, a large dice, a
wand decorated with tinsel, a tiny barrel with a golden
tap, a saw, a pack of cards, two chairs, a number of
hoops and an imitation bass-drum.
After the eighth curtain Hellebore took his last
bow.
The yellow spotlight went out and the orchestra
played again.
Eiselheim, Eliza and Helen went into the cage,
and the door was locked behind them. At a signal from
Eiselheim two sceneshifters raised the grating over the
shasd
wire corridor by means of a chain, and others ataning in
in the wings goaded the animals along with their pikes.
The first tiger stopped two or three feet from the entrance
and yawned.
It looked about sleepily, then stared at
the stage.
It growled at an attendant's pike, then
walked slowly forward, its teeth a little bared.
Eliza
waited at the entrance with a trainer's whip. Eiselheim
called to the tiger and showed it a stool, while Eliza
trailed her whip along the floor towards the stool, coaxing
it. The tiger stopped again.
It stared first at
Eiselheim, then at her.
It walked past her whip and
leapt softly onto the box, turning to growl at her as
she went towards the entrance again.
When all five tigers were on their boxes the
sceneshifters lowered the grating again, and the red light


came on.
Eiselheim stood behind his table, with Eliza
and Helen on either side. Behind them the tigers waited
on their boxes, watchful and drowsy. The curtain rose.
Lorraine shook hands with Hellebore fervently.
He gazed into his eyes, nodding all the time, but saying
nothing.
He put his arm round his shoulder, and together
they went towards the pass-door hetween an avenue of
jostling people, all of whom were try ing to congratulate
Hellebore or present him with flowers.
The dressing room door was open.
Waiting inside
were Bernard Charpentier, Francine Berger and Jean and
Pierre Duloi-Bordeau.
On the right as Hellebore came in
there was now a great bank of roses shaped like a horse
ahoe and as high as a man, with the letter H in white
roses against a red background.
He pointed to it with
astonishment as he came in, and laughed. The men shook
hands with him, and Francinen, with tears in her eyes,
came forward and kissed him on the cheek.
Lorraine took Charpentier aside just by the door
and said to him in a low voice: "Rake care of him, Bernard.
I must slip upstairs for a minute or two."
Caarpentier nodded, and Lorraine quietly left
the room, closing the door behind him.
"Where's he off to?" Hellebore asked.
Charpentier shrugged his shoulders and smiled with
a little wink.
Lorraine returned to his office.
He sat down


at nd lowered his head to the desk, his eyes closed.
Eiselheim was watching Eliza closely as he
took out one of the sides of the bass-drum and held
it aloft. For a moment it seemed that he might ha ve
forgotten the audience, so closely did he stare into her
eye es. She whispered to him urgently: "Heinrich!"
and his mouth fell open a little as he turned back,
dazed, towards the audience again.
There wai S a
distinct pause in the act, andthe audience wa S quick,
after Hellebore's perf ormance, to perceive it. Eliza
bent down and curled herself up inside the drum, and
still he could not take his eyes from her. Then he
put the side of the drum back into place, so that she
could no longer be seen.
His lips were drawn tight
together, and he was frowning painfully, as if, no matter
how he tried, he could not become master of the stage
again. Helen was unavare of this.
He rolled the drum slowly from one side of the
stage to the other, then he touched it with his wand
several times.
He again removed one of the sides, and
Helen removed the other.
The drum was now empty.
lifted up the drum-girdle and showed it to the audience.
He held it over one of the tigers for taxiexiaap the
beast to leap through, but at such an angle that it
struck its head against the wood and almost tumbled to
the floor.
Helen gasped, and seemed suddenly to realise


the situation.
She took control and beckoned one of the animals
down from its box.
She followed it with a smile, trying
to make amends for Eiselheim, as it prowled to and fro
across the stage, smelling for Eliza. She followed it
to a black chest, where it stopped and growled, rubbing
the silver lock with its paw.
She pulled open ahe lid,
and Eliza stepped out.
Eiselheim was standing quite
motionless on the other side of the stage, dangerously
near to the tiger who had hurt its head.
Charpentier lay on the divan with his head
against the eushions, while the others sat round the
fire.
Brancine's hai ir was now brushed straight down to
her shoulders, and she was dressed in a white silk evening
gown.
She sat on the floor close to Hellebore, leaning
against his armchair.
Thad duexing table..


The dressing table had been cleared of Hellebore's
paints and creams, and was covered from end to end with
some fifty or sixty champagne glasses.
"Well, what did you think was up, then?" Hellebore
asked Charpentier.
"I was puzzled, Jack, like everybody else.
All
your reeling about looked to me part of the act.
So did
your collapse. I was just going to burst out laughing
and the curtain fell.
It was like having the door closed
in one's face."
"Did the lights go up?"
Hellebore shook his head, staring into the fire:
"I can't understand it. I went on that stage with real
first night nerves, but the minute I got near the piano
I felt all right.
I was just steaming up nicely, then
my legs went weak. No, first of all something seemed to
get hold of me in the belly, then I felt my legs go.
I tried to stand still, but I panicked." The room was
still and silent.
"Everything went black for a few
minutes.
When I saw that curtain come down I could have
"You did weep, so Louis told me," Charpentier said.
"And you told a stagehal nd that he had blood on his fingers."
He laughed.
"I should like to have seen his face."
Hellebore smiled in a tired fashion: "Now I
looked down at that hand and I could have sworn there was


blood all over the fingers."
"It will make a lovely story in tomorrow
morning's edition."
A hushed sigh of surprise came from the auditor-
ium. Charpentier yawned, and Jean Duloi-Bordeau looked
up at Francine.
"What was so dangerous about your friend Henry
Sa ngson?" he asked her.
Jean's question took them by surprise.
Francine
started and glanced at Hellebore, who was lying back in
his armchair, gazing at Jean through half-closed eyes.
There was silence until he asked Jean what he knew about
Sar ngson.
"We met him in the foyer this afternoon, # Jean
replied.
"Lorraine told us to.
He wanted him kept away
from you this afternoon."
Hellebore was astonished. He looked from Franeine
to Jean: "Where is he now, then?"
"Oh, we didn't do him any harm."
Charpentier raised his head and asked Hellebore:
"Is this the young man who called on you last night? The
friend of Francine's?"
Hellebore nodded and turned to Jean again: "What
was Lorraine's idea?"
"He thought Sa ngson might be a blackmailer.


He asked us to protect you against him, as of course
we said yes right away." He paused, then asked: "Was
he right?"
Hellebore shook his head.
"Are you certain about that?" Charpentier asked.
He chuckled: "Perhaps Lorraine was right."
"But he was such a polite young man," " Jean said,
"and he told us he knew Francine."
Charpentier raised his eyebrows ironically: "What
is friendship with Francine a passport to?"
Hellebore put his hand over his brow: "I can't
decide about that young man.
If I could remember something
about last night it would be better." He looked at Jean
again: "What happened in the foyer, then?"
"We told him your rehearsal had been cancelled
and would he wait for you at the hotel.
So we took him
along to your hotel."
"And there was I running all over this theatre
trying to find him."
"We're sorry, Jack."
There was silence for some time.
Then Francine
sa: id bitterly: "Lorraine threatened to throw me out for
enc ouraging intruders.' #
"Oh, you mustn't take that to heart," Charpentier
told her. "You ought to know him by now, Francine.
Nothing can be done about his little nightmares. Only
afterwards does he realise the truth, and then he suffers


the most terrible remorse." He gazed up at the ceiling.
"And it's possible, Jack, that without this nightmare of
his about your young friend we wouldn't be sitting here
now waiting for your guests to come in and toast your
health.
Perhaps your young friend was up to some mis-
chief. Perhaps his intentions were a little e #
raised his head and looked firmly at Franaine, who at once
turned away her head. I A sinister."
"I liked the boy's face," Hellebore murmured.
"Do you know," Charpentier added, # I believe
Lorraine has suddenly become an old man, quite suddenly,
in the last few days!
He needs our sympa thy "
Hellebore lau ughed: "Yes, we'll ha ve an appeal
fund. My Triends are my friends, and I won't have him
or anybody else interfering with them.
First he runs
a second programme, then he sets Jean and Pierre on
a visitor of mine. One of these days he'll get himself
into bad trouble.
He'll end in the law-courts, as sure
as I'm sitting here.
I know a thing or two about Lorraine
that might interest the police. I met him before you
did, Bernard, and I'l1 give y ou a word of advice: when he
looks old and sad, watch out for yourself, he's up to
something."
"i won't deny that." Charpentier looked at
Francine again: "What was your friend's idea in calling
on Jack last night, then? I acquit him of celebrity-
hunting."


Francine looked back at him coldly: "Lorraine
asked me that.
How am I to know?
I'm not repponsible
for what my friends do. Perhaps he called on Jack to
see the father of someone he had served with during the
War - and whom he buried."
Charpentier nodded politely: "I see." He smiled
at her and got up from the divan. "Whenever you mention
the War tà me you sound a little bitter, Francine." He
walked towards her.
"Do you know wha t I did during
your War?"
She stared at his shoes: "No."
"I kept my head well down." He ducked his head
with a chuckle. "Whereas you were positively up to your
eyes in blood, weren't you? And by the look on your face
you are going to ask me why I S hould have cO nsidered
myself different from anybody else. But I won't let you
say it, because it would be so boring. That's the trouble
with heroes and heroines, isn't it a they're so boring."
He teased her with a smile and she lowered her
eyes.
"I wasn't going to say that, as a matter of fact,"
she replied.
"By the grace of God; then, we were spared it."
He turned al nd went towards the door. "I shall go up and
see the old gentleman now." He glanced at Francine again.
"Try and pretend you're a human being, my dear. The'
results might be interesting."


Hellebore laughed and patted Francine's arm,
ar nd Charpentier left the room.
The blood was dripping from Eiselhein's hal nd
where one of the tigers had suddenly cau ught him with its
claw, making a long, deep wound as far as his wrist, and
the audience were talking among themselves, not under-
st tai nding.
He had mar naged to conceal the attack from
everyone in the theatre except Helen and Eliza, a nd
there was a danger that the scent of human blood would
excite tha animals bey ond control.
Helen had run towards
him with a scarf, to staunah the wound, but he waved her
away fiercely.
He cast a quick, resentful glance at
Eliza, as if to blame her for_what had happened, a nd she
was now almost in tears, standing quite apart from the
others, close to the cage-wall, no longer making any
effort to aet her part as Helen was doing.
Two of the tigers were out of hand, and Eiselheim,
his anger up, was advanaing on them slowly with his whip
as they snarled at him, their teeth bared and their ears
flat. At first they would not go back to their boxes.
He shrieked out their names and beat his whip furiously
on the floor, as if. he were quite unaware of the audience.
His back was turned to the footlights. He was trembling
with rage, while the blood ran slowly down his whip-hai ndle.
It seemed impossible now that he should regain his hold on
the audience. Eliza moved cautiously towards the door
of the cage, as if she would leave.
She kept her eyes
on the tigers as she did so, with her hand held up to her
cheek, covering her scar, and it was clear from the


auditorium that she wa S terrified. But no stage ha nd
came forward from the wings to unlock the door.
Charpentier went into Lorraine's office.
The
latter indicated a chair and yawned.
"You ought to be downstairs with Jack,"Charpentier
told him. "He has just taken eight curtains and there
you are sitting with y our head in your ha nds. Did you
even see the turn?"
Ebbrut. 267(a)


"No, Bernard."
The rain had stopped, though there were still
gusts of wind which blew the elm-leaves against the
window.
Only on e light was shining in the room, of
a soft amber colour, at the edge of Lorraine's desk.
They were sitting in the shadows, and could only make
each other out dumly.
Charpentier sighed: "I've been hearing a
strange account of how you sent the Duloi-Bordeau's to
waylay a y oung friend of Francine's."
"I wasn't to know he was harmless.
Do I know
now? Ah, I'm confused.
Everything seemed different
before the show. I felt feverish."
"But that sort of bahviour can get you into the
law-courts."
Lorraine smiled in a friendly way: "It wouldn't
be for the first time."
"You threatened Francine with dismissal, I
believe."
"You know, Bernard, I thought that was the end
of my career when I saw him lying on that stage.
thought it was the end of all of us." He yawned again.
"I feel so tired I could sleep the eternal sleep.
How
quiet everything is.
Who's on?"
"Eiselheim."
"Ah, that explains it."
He got up and went to the door leading out ont o


the gallery.
Charpentier followed him, a nd together
they looked down at the stage.
Helen wa S trying to
coax one of the tigers back to its box.
She was trailing
her whip along the floor in front of the animal, her
head and shoulders bent forward. The tiger watched her,
its long body stretched out, and grolwed at the whip.
Eiselheim was holding two doves in a purple kerchief
and trying to prevent them fluttering about, so that he copl
wrap them up. Ebacacaoadacacacheasaeacarasaencacan Throughout
the theatre there was utter silence, apart from the tiger's
low growling.
Eliza could not be seen from above.
They went back into the office at nd closed the
door.
Hellebore leaned forward and warmed his hands at
the fire: "What annoys me is when people try and stuff me
alive. That's why I hate this room." He took Francine's
chin gently and pulled her face round so that he could look
into her eyes. "Havd pou told Lorraine about that?"
"No. I thimit's a lovely room."
Hellebore looked about him and smiled.
He glanc ed
back at the dressing table, at the champagne glasses
reflecting the white flames from the hearth, and the dark
CU urtains behind.
"#elll" he said, "it looks better than it did an
hour ago.
I grant you that."
"It only needs to be lived in."
Hellebore spoke to Jean again: "Who was he to


protéct me, as if I hadn't got a mind of my own.
If I want to be robbed or kidnapped or blackmailed, that's
my own business.
I'm free. I could leave the stage
tomorrow if I wanted to. I like being alone, standing
on my own two feet.
You never got a minute to yourself
in the circus, but at least your boss never interfered
with your friends."
There was a sudden hushed sound of applause
from the auditorium below, and Lorraine's telephone rang.
He had a brief conversation, and when he put the receiver
down he looked across at Charpentier sternly.
"The boot's on the other foot," he said.
"The
audience went dead on Eiselheim.
I thought it looked
slow, didn't you? Well, one can never account for these
things."
"Were there cat-calls?"
"NO, they just went dead on him. He'll take it
to heart, of course.
He takes everything to heart."
Lorraine left the office by the gallery-door,
caarpentier by the other one e
Lorraine hurtied down to
the stage; h e slipped between the running stageha ands,
ju umped over one of Eiselheim's coloured boxes, bent to
avoid a swinging flat and made for the right of the stage.
Eliza cracked her whip at one of the tigers who
had stopped on its way back along the wire passage. There
were tears in her eyes. Lorraine called to her and she
turned.


He took her hand: "What went wrong, my dear?"
She could hardly speak through her sobs, wishing
at the same time to hide her tears from the stageha nd S
who kept passing to a nd fro with pieces of scenery a nd
the wire walls of the tiger-cage: "One of the animals
turned on him. That little swine." She thrust her
stick between the bars at the ribs of the last tiger,
who turned at nd growled up at her.
"I've ne ver liked
that one."
"Is he hurst?"
"Just across the back of his hand. And it was
my fault."
He drew her a way from the wire passage: "Why
your fault, Eliza?"
"Oh, I don't know!" She shook her head a ngrily.
"It's a beauftiful act, Albert.
He did the same turn in
Brussels a fortnight ago and they wouldn't let him go off
the stage.
He seemed to hand fire tonight.
He's broken-
hearted about it. He's going to ask you to cancel his
contract: you won't do it, will you?"
Lorraine averted his eyes from her: "Well,
perhaps he does need a rest."
She shook his arm: "No, Albert!
Once you cancel
his contract he'll never try again. Look at me, dear.
You won't cancel his contract, even if he pleads with
you, will you?"


He looked at her tenderly for a moment, then
murmured: "Very well, then."
The arc-lamps came on, a nd the stage was cleared
for the chorus.
The orchestra struck up a ga in.
Eliza
at nd Lorraine walked behind the backdrop towards the wooden
staircase.
"Come up to the office, Eliza."
"No, I want to change now. I'11 see you at
Jack's,
Eparty.


party -
Lorraine looked about him and saw that they were
hidden from the stagehands and the girls of the chorus by
a flat. He gripped her arm and pulled her closer to
him:
"Leave him, Eliza! Let Helen look after him
for a little while. Don't go away so soon.
Stay here
on whatever terms you like to make. I shall agree to
anything.
Will you?"
She stood there helplessly, her head bowed, and
she spoke as if there were no strength left in her: "No.
My answer will always be no." There was a terrible weariness
in her voice. "Always no, no.
Even if yd ou cancel his
contract I shall go away just the same. I don't know
where I shall go, but I shan't stay here."
Slowly Lorraine withdrew his hand and murmured:
"Forgive me for asking you, then.
Say you forgive me."
She was about to reply when she glanced up and
saw with horror the expression on his face.
She gasped
and seized his hand, gazing into his eyes:
"Yes, my dear, I forgive you.
But I am the one
who needs to be forgiven."
The lights in the auditorium were put out, and the


front doors were closed as the last cabs drove away.
Hellebore tidied the divan cover and patted down the
cushions where Charpentier had been lying.
Only he
and Francine were now in the room.
"Will you help me unbutton?" he asked her.
She followed him behind the screen, where he sat
down on a stool, and began unbuttoning the back of his
sequin dress. Nothing could be heard from the rest of
the theatre. But suddenly there was a knock on the
door and someone came into the room. Francine looked
round the screen and said, "Good evening" in a surprised
voice.
Hellebore turned and asked, "Who isit?"
"Mr. Eiselheim."
He stared at her in astonishment.
"Tell him to come through."
He stood up, and Eiselheim came to the edge of
the screen.
He wore his overcoat and was carrying a hat
and cane.
For a few seconds he stood quite rigid and
pale gazing at Hellebore, then said: "I shall take very
little of your time."
"Won't you sit down?" Hellebore asked.
Francine Berger went across the room to the hearth
and began putting logs on the fire, aware of the embarrass-
ment between the two men. Eiselheim was wat tehing Hellebore
nervously:
"No, thank you. I must go immediately.' #1
Hellebore-etood awkwandly
eel it


Hellebore stood awkwardly by his stool with
his sequin sostume open at the back.
"What have you done there?" he asked, pointing
to the bai ndage.
"One of my al nimals attacked me," Eiselheim
replied in a low voice. "And the audience died on me."
Hellebore looked at him quickly: "You got the
"Not exactly.
But it amounts to the same thing."
"Well, it won't happen tomorrow night."
"I've come to tell y ou that I shall be leaving
Paris tonight."
It had been clear that he would say sonething
like this.
But Hellebore frowned, as if taken by surprise,
and asked: "Why?"
"Beeause I am not fit for a stage, and I haven't
had a rest for twelve years. So just now I asked Lorraine
to cancel my contract."
"And what did he say?"
"He agreed it was wise."
Hellebore nodded al nd said with disgust: "He
drops a mai n just like that, 1 11 He snapped his fingers.
It and it might be me one day."
"Yes, it might be you." Eiselhe im came closer
to the screen, never for an instant ceasing to stare him
in the eyes.
"There has been nothing but trouble for
me since you arrived in Paris.
Eliza ha S never been
like this before. And she changed the moment you came
into this city. You turn her into a rebel, i a rebel


with a nasty tongue, = you and Lorraine, between the
two of you!"
"Eliza's got a mind of her own." Hellebore
answered him calmly, with a glance across the room at
Francine.
"Is that all you've come here to tell me?"
"I'm not here for my own sake.
I'm no friend
of y ours, and I don't want to be. I only want a promise
from you: that while she is away:from me you will always
keep an eye on her."
"Why not take her with you, and see to it your-
"I shall be taking Helen, no one else.
Helen
and I are like brother and sister."
There was the faintest
smile on his lips as he said these words. "She sries to
turn me into a dear, gentle old man. But Eliza really
knows me, - and perha ps loves me, for all your schemes and
Lorra ine's S schemes to take her away from me and encourage
her rudeness a nd then make her the instrument of my downfall,
as she was tonight.
My mind was full of her tonight "
He looked away from Hellebore for thef first time,
remembering.
II i and that should never ha ve been so, on
a first night."
"I've never tried to take her away from you."
"Oh, she'll come to me at last.
One day she'll
give in. You haven't won her." He spoke proudly.
"Because just now she pleaded with me to take her away
tonight."
"But at present I am her excuse for not being


haj ppy. I shall remove that excuse. She'll come
after me if the need is really there.
She is too
proud to take advice or help from me, and I don't like
the idea of her being alone in Paris with Lorraine:
that's why I'm here."
Hellebore half turned away from him: - "I can
look after my friends.
I don't need advice from you."
"Then I'm very happy." He nodded ironically.
"It was really y ou who broke up our little trio. We
were perfectly happy before you came: no, not perfectly,
but we were -happy enough, though there were always
quarrels between Eliza and Helen.
It isn't that there
have been more grrels since yesterday, but that for the
first time since I met her fifteen years ago Eliza has
been sneering at me."
"And that's my fault?
Shall I cancel my tour
and go back to my cows, just to keep your name on the
bills?"
"I'm down now, but that won't be for all eternity.
You thought you'd ridicule me tonight, didn't you: in
tha t little conjuring act of yours?"
"Ridicule you?"
"You know wha t I mean."
"There was nothing deliberate in that."
Hellebore
answered him in a - tired way. "I worked out that skit
before Lorraine put you on the bill.
I worked it out
in England."
"Yes, but it's easy to see where her sneering


comes from.
I've done nothing to interfere with her
freedom as long as we've been together.
I have always
known that Lorraine wanted to marry her.
I never tried
to alter her mind one way or the other. Ar nd this is
the result.
Well, we can at least part on good terms
for her sake."
"You may see things clearer out of Paris."
Hellebore looked down, avoiding Eiselheim's cold gaze.
"Where are y ou going?"
"I shall be taking Helen to Germany, or perhaps
Poland." He held out his hand, and Hellebore looked a t
it without moving.
They stood close together, while
Francine was still bending at the hearth, waiting for the
conversation to end.
"Good bye."
At last Hellebore took his hand firmly, al nd
Eiselheim left the room. Hellebore went to the edge of
the screen a nd stared after him.
He took a white flower
from the bank of roses al nd put it to his nose.


A log fire was burning in Maria Celida's
bedroom.
Close to it there was a table laid for two,
with two bottles of champagne, several covered dishes
and a lighted candelabra in the middle.
On the other
side of this dark, warm room there was a wide four-poster
bed enclosed by heavy damask curtains.
These curtains
hung down from a dome of carved wood fixed to the ceiling,
and were drawn back with tasseled ropes of silk to show
the bed.
The only light was from the candelabra.
Not
a sound could be heard from outside, for the Casa Celida
was hidden from the Rue du Bois de Boulogne by trees.
Hellebore sat on one of the chairs by the table,
while Maria lay on the bed, still in her silvery grey
gown.
She had taken off her tiara and had loosened her
long, black hair.
It was inng past midnight, and they
were both tired. He gazed into the fire, his legs
stretched out before him.
"I shall never forget your dances," she said.
She opened her eyes and looked across at him. "You were
quite near our box when you ate the apple."
"I could have given you a little wink."


He got up and went towards the bed. He sat
down at her side, and they kissed.
She drew him
further towards her, whispering: "Come closer."
He spoke into her ear: "I feel dr unk after
that t champagne, but not like last night."
"Open one of these bottles if you want to."
"Later. We've got the night all to ourselves."
Suddenly she lifted his head and looked into
his eyes: "I feel happy."
"Shall we go for a walk at dawn?"
"No, you must sleep," she replied.
"I love dawns. I remember..." He turned his
head and stared down at the carpet, lost, his mouth open.
He smiled and said: "I don't feel tired any
longer. - "
She pulled his arms underneath her shoulders,
ar nd again he kissed her. Footsteps sounded from above
tham, and at once Maria raised herself on her elbows.
She listened.
"Who is that?" she asked him in a whasper.
The footsteps left the room above and came down
the stairs at the far end of the corridor leading to the
bedroom. They slowly came nearer the bedroom and stopped
just outside.
There was a light knock on the door, and
Maria gripped Hellebore's arm. They waited in silence,
and there was another louder knock.


Sangson spoke from outside, in a soft voice:
"Maria, did Giordano C ome back with you?"
Neither of them moved.
Hellebore stared into
the fire, bent forward.
"Maria, is Giordano in the house? Are you
there, Maria a?"
Maria tried to get up. She whispered to
Hellebore: "He needs somebody.
Call him in. Please
call him in."
But he held her shoulders down.
"What can you do for him?" he asked. "Leave
him alone."
Sangson walked away, and after a few moments
a door at the other end of the corridor closed quietly.
They lay together again in silence, his head sunk down
on her shoulder.
"What did you mean," # he whispered, "when you
said he needed somebody?"
"Oh, I don't know,
he needs our help."
"We must forget about him. Let him suffer if
he's got to. Let him suffer."
He went to the door and quietly turned the key
in the lock, then returned to the bed and sat down at her
side. He touched her brow, then her hair.
"Forget about him, Maria," he said.