"No," I lied. "You are perhaps a little stouter. That"s all."
How hard it was to talk! How lamentably self-conscious we were! How unequal to the situation! We did not know what to say.
"You are far more beautiful than ever you were," he said, looking at me for an instant. "You are a woman; you were a girl--then."
The waiter brought another gla.s.s and saucer, and a second waiter followed him with a bottle, from which he poured a greenish-yellow liquid into the gla.s.s.
"What will you have?" Diaz asked me.
"Nothing, thank you," I said quickly.
To sit outside the cafe was already much. It would have been impossible for me to drink there.
"Ah! as you please, as you please," Diaz snapped. "I beg your pardon."
"Poor fellow!" I reflected. "He must be suffering from nervous irritability." And aloud, "I"m not thirsty, thank you," as nicely as possible.
He smiled beautifully; the irritability had pa.s.sed.
"It"s awfully kind of you to sit down here with me," he said, in a lower voice. "I suppose you"ve heard about me?"
He drank half the contents of the gla.s.s.
"I read in the papers some years ago that you were suffering from neurasthenia and nervous breakdown," I replied. "I was very sorry."
"Yes," he said; "nervous breakdown--nervous breakdown."
"You haven"t been playing lately, have you?"
"It is more than two years since I played. And if you had heard me that time! My G.o.d!"
"But surely you have tried some cure?"
"Cure!" he repeated after me. "There"s no cure. Here I am! Me!"
His gla.s.s was empty. He tapped on the window behind us, and the procession of waiters occurred again, and Diaz received a third gla.s.s, which now stood on three saucers.
"You"ll excuse me," he said, sipping slowly. "I"m not very well to-night.
And you"ve--Why did you run away from me? I wanted to find you, but I couldn"t."
"Please do not let us talk about that," I stopped him. "I--I must go."
"Oh, of course, if I"ve offended you--"
"No," I said; "I"m not at all offended. But I think--"
"Then, if you aren"t offended, stop a little, and let me see you home.
You"re sure you won"t have anything?"
I shook my head, wishing that he would not drink so much. I thought it could not be good for his nerves.
"Been in Paris long?" he asked me, with a slightly confused utterance.
"Staying in this quarter? Many English and Americans here."
Then, in setting down the gla.s.s, he upset it, and it smashed on the pavement like the first one.
"d.a.m.n!" he exclaimed, staring forlornly at the broken gla.s.s, as if in the presence of some irreparable misfortune. And before I could put in a word, he turned to me with a silly smile, and approaching his face to mine till his hat touched the brim of my hat, he said thickly: "After all, you know, I"m the greatish pianist in the world."
The truth struck me like a blow. In my amazing ignorance of certain aspects of life I had not suspected it. Diaz was drunk. The ignominy of it! The tragedy of it! He was drunk. He had fallen to the beast. I drew back from that hot, reeking face.
"You don"t think I am?" he muttered. "You think young What"s-his-name can play Ch--Chopin better than me? Is that it?"
I wanted to run away, to cease to exist, to hide with my shame in some deep abyss. And there I was on the boulevard, next to this animal, sharing his table and the degradation! And I could not move. There are people so gifted that in a dilemma they always know exactly the wisest course to adopt. But I did not know. This part of my story gives me infinite pain to write, and yet I must write it, though I cannot persuade myself to write it in full; the details would be too repulsive.
Nevertheless, forget not that I lived it.
He put his face to mine again, and began to stammer something, and I drew away.
"You are ashamed of me, madam," he said sharply.
"I think you are not quite yourself--not quite well," I replied.
"You mean I am drunk."
"I mean what I say. You are not quite well. Please do not twist my words."
"You mean I am drunk," he insisted, raising his voice. "I am not drunk; I have never been drunk. That I can swear with my hand on my heart. But you are ashamed of being seen with me."
"I think you ought to go home," I suggested.
"That is only to get rid of me!" he cried.
"No, no," I appealed to him persuasively. "Do not wound me. I will go with you as far as your house, if you like. You are too ill to be alone."
At that moment an empty open cab strolled by, and, without pausing for his answer, I signalled the driver. My heart beat wildly. My spirit was in an uproar. But I was determined not to desert him, not to abandon him to a public disgrace. I rose from my seat.
"You"re very good," he said, in a new voice.
The cab had stopped.
"Come!" I entreated him.
He rapped uncertainly on the window, and then, as the waiter did not immediately appear, he threw some silver on the table, and aimed himself in the direction of the cab. I got in. Diaz slipped on the step.
"I"ve forgotten somethin"," he complained. "What is it? My umbrella--yes, my umbrella--_pepin_ as they say here. "Scuse me moment."
His umbrella was, in fact, lying under a chair. He stooped with difficulty and regained it, and then the waiter, who had at length arrived, helped him into the cab, and he sank like a ma.s.s of inert clay on my skirts.
"Tell the driver the address," I whispered.