Anthony The Absolute. Merwin Samuel

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Railways, through Fusan, Mukden, and Shanhaikwan.

      However, he perhaps did me a service by telling me of a pleasant little French hotel at Peking, on the Italian glacis, whatever that is. The big hotel in the Legation Quarter, he says, is rather expensive and at this time of year will be swarming with tourists. The little Hôtel de Chine, on the other hand, is frequented only by queer types of the Coast, and is really very cheap.

      “The cuisine,” said Sir Robert, “is atrocious. But, being French, they serve excellent coffee, which does for breakfast and one can, in a pinch, put together a fair luncheon there. For dinner, the Wagon-lits, of course. Above all, make no experiments with the cellar of the Hôtel de Chine. They will show you an imposing wine-card. Shun it!”

      I merely bowed at this. It was no use telling Sir Robert that I should certainly not know one alleged vintage from another.

      There is one difficulty. Sir Robert himself, affecting a taste for the quaint, will be stopping at our less pretentious hostelry; again, with my eyes closed at night, I shall see that bad old face with the one drooping eyelid; again that loose voice will sound in my ears. But then, I shall be very busy.

      Some one is knocking at my door. Crocker is calling.

      Midnight – Still the 30th

      CROCKER was in the worst shape I have seen him in so far. His eyes were red. And when he dropped on my couch, the first thing he did was to stretch out his right hand and watch it critically. It was decidedly unsteady.

      “Ring up a boy, old chap, will you?” he said. I did so. He ordered a quart bottle of whisky and a half-dozen bottles of Tan San.

      “Steady my nerves,” he observed, half to himself. “It’s that dam’ saké. Gets to me like absinthe.” He chuckled. “I must have a quart of the stuff in me. Some night, my boy!”

      Curiously, a few drinks of the whisky did seem to steady his nerves. After a while he came over to the table, sat down opposite me, and lighted a cigar. We talked for an hour or two – until I finally explained that I really had to get at my work. Then he returned to the sofa, stretched out comfortably, with the whisky and an ash-tray on a chair beside him, and watched me, with only an occasional good-natured interruption.

      He seemed greatly interested in my method of musical notation. Of course, the ordinary staff of five lines would not serve me at all, since I find it necessary to indicate intervals much closer ===than the usual half-step. I use large sheets of paper, ruled from top to bottom with fine lines, every sixteenth line being heavier. Thus I can record intervals as fine as the sixteenth of a tone. In fact, as I told Crocker, and as Rameau and von Stumbostel both recognize, I have actually done so! I undoubtedly possess the most delicate aural perception of any scientist that has ever investigated the so-called primitive music. My ears are to me what the eyes of the great astronomer are to him. This is why all my contemporaries, particularly the great von Stumbostel, are following my present inquiry with such extraordinary interest.

      It was six o’clock before I finished noting down the songs and koto melodies from my records of the preceding evening. Crocker sipped continuously at his whisky and Tan San– to my surprise, without the slightest apparent ill effect. Perhaps he grew a little mellower, a little more human, as the phrase runs, but that was all. When my work was done, I drew a chair to the sofa, put my feet up, and encouraged him to talk.

      At a little after seven he went to his room to dress for dinner. I scrubbed some of the ink off my fingers and slipped into my dinner-jacket, then knocked at his door.

      As we descended the wide stairs, I observed that Crocker was walking down very rigidly, placing his foot squarely in the middle of each step. On the landing he paused, and turned to me with a slight smile.

      “Am I acting all right?” he asked.

      “Perfectly. Why?”

      “My boy,” – he lowered his voice, – “I’m drunk as a lord. But I reckon I can get away with it. Come along.”

      He really handled himself surprisingly well. I am not an expert, of course, in the various psychological reactions from drink. I should have said he was a little over-stimulated, nothing more. He kept away from the bar, and at the table in the big dining-room drank very little – only a cocktail and a light wine with the roast. And he discussed this with me at the start, finally deciding that it would not be wise for him to stop abruptly.

      All went well until the dessert. There was quite a choice of items on the bill. I ordered vanilla ice cream. I distinctly heard him order the same. I recall wondering a little, at the moment; for surely vanilla ice cream was not the most desirable addition to the various substances already on his alcohol-poisoned stomach.

      When the waiter set the dish before him, he astonished me with a sudden outburst of anger.

      “Good God!” he cried, quite loud, “am I to be treated like this! Has nobody any regard for my feelings!”

      I began to feel unpleasantly conspicuous.

      “This is past all endurance!” he shouted, pushing back his chair.

      The Chinese waiter had turned back, by this time, and stood, bowing respectfully by his chair.

      Crocker swore under his breath, sprang to his feet, and with a short, hard swing of his right hand struck the unsuspecting Chinaman on the jaw.

      I never before saw a man fall in precisely that way. Indeed, it was not a fall in the ordinary sense of the word. It was more like a sudden paralysis. His knees appeared to give, and he sank to the floor without the slightest sound that I was conscious of.

      There was a good deal of confusion, of course. Women made sounds. One or two, I think, ran from the room. There was much scraping of chairs as men got up and made for us. The manager of the hotel appeared, crowding through toward us.

      The Chinaman did not stir; he was now merely a heap of blue clothing at our feet, huddled against the table-leg.

      Crocker stood beside the table, steadying himself by gripping the back of his chair, and smiling with an air of rather self-conscious distinction. He bowed slightly to the breathless manager.

      “It was quite unavoidable,” he said. “As a gentleman you will readily see that.” His tongue was thicker now. “Nobody regrets it more’n I – nobody more’n I.”

      The manager gave me a look and caught him by one arm. I took the other. Crocker hung back.

      “This is quite unnecessary,” he said, “quite unnecessary. I’m perf’kly sober, I assure you. As a matter o’ fac’, I’m soberes’ man in th ‘ole big room. Very big room. Ver’ big room indeed. Bigges’ room ever saw.”

      Between, us, the manager and I got him upstairs and into his room. Then I was left alone with him to undress him and get him into his bed. The task consumed all of an hour. He was rough, almost violent, one moment, and absurdly polite the next. His mind developed a trick of leaping off on unexpected tangents. He tried to point out reasons against removing each article of clothing as we came to it. It was interesting, on the whole. I have since almost regretted that I did not make exact notes of these curious mental flights. But at the moment it seemed too remote from my own field of study. And I suppose my decision was reasonable.

      It occurs to me, in glancing back over the foregoing paragraph, that Crocker – had I been the drunk one and he the sober – would not have drifted into СКАЧАТЬ