GENERISIS
presents THE GOLDEN DAWN
Episode
23 - ABSINTHE and BLOOD!
Not
long ago, a friend in the Office of Strategic Service remarked that it was
perhaps Washington's greatest fear that the physicist Planck... or students of his,
for he is a very, very old man... would develop weaponry based on the
discoveries of the modest Zuricher student who, in the last decade, has
developed quite the reputation in his own name... Einstein.
"Were
it not for Hitler's absurd prejudice against Jews," Roosevelt's man
sighed, "who knows what deviltry might have found its way into Germany's
arsenal?" The man was right... but also wrong, Hitler's Germany could not
have existed without its loathing and hatred of its Jews... the documents
Haeckel provided giving proof of the Nazis' intentions well before National
Socialism even came into being.
And
beyond? Well, Nazism has been bombed into oblivion. Winnetou is dead by his own
hand and, of course, Basil Zaharoff went to his reward many years ago... but
does the Vehm endure, like the root system of a great poisonous weed, a few of
whose leaves have been lopped off? That is what we must hold the future to
account for... and our children after us...
But...
back to a more innocent and pleasant time. I had reached Paris without incident
and, on the recommendation of a porter (and perhaps the memory of those
sharp-fanged hounds of Viereck's Ossuary), proceeded to the Alsatian Hotel near
the Seine, whose English-speaking concierge handed me my key with an amused
disdain. "You are a light traveler, even for an American..."
"The
Germans exploded and burned my belongings," I apologized.
"They
are in the habit of doing such things! I can recommend three competent tailors
or perhaps the Englishman in the back room can loan you a suit while yours is
cleaned," Monsieur Dupoirier suggested. "He has a substantial
wardrobe."
"I
shall keep that in mind. But first, it is imperative I locate the Gallery and
Temple of the Wound in the Left Shoulder of Our Lord Jesus Christ..." I
replied, memorizing Haeckel's instructions.
"The
Assyrian's place?" Dupoirier scowled. "Are you another painter
seeking the patronage of the Sar? You're in luck... his is the least
discriminating of all Parisian galleries, though also the tightest. Most would
find his rate of commission unacceptable if he sold anything. But perhaps you
can find paying work at the Exposition construction, we have several young
Spaniards here with such ambitions. See it for yourself on the way to
Peladan's."
Dupoirier
gave me directions and I did take his advice, drinking in the sights of Paris
of the fin du siecle from a horse car. Across the Seine, foundations of the
Exposition were rising on both banks. A paradise of pavilions in cheap wood and
plaster, even cardboard... Arab minarets and Russian domes and plenty of gaudy
electric lighting... my English speaking driver foresaw, however, only tragedy.
"Look,"
he scoffed, "...a cardboard citadel that scarcely will improve when it
opens next April. President Faure who died last February would have made these
foreigners toe the line, but Loubet doesn't even have the stomach to guillotine
traitors... he is a Mason, did you know?... and all of those are no better than
the Socialists..."
"A
traitor," I remarked, "...would that be Dreyfus? I heard he was
convicted, then pardoned just before I came over here."
"The
very man! Loubet is making the Exposition an open sore to entice all the flies
of Europe," my driver spat, "...it was said the sky itself shed
silver tears at Faure's funeral. He was our last politician who knew how to
dress well."
Presently
the carriage stopped before an unprepossessing gallery on a shabby street...
Peladan's Temple, I was informed... my driver quite sympathized with the
patron's politics but warned I might find the gallery contents challenging.
"Peladan's version of Islam is a Martinist Catholicism of extremes,"
he advised me... I paid him, disembarked and entered, finding innumerable
garish, often bloody paintings crowding the walls, others piled up in great
stacks... and finding a familiar face too...
"Harry...
no," I struggled to match face and name, "it's Henry, isn't it...
from the boat?"
"Well
it is but..." he said, looking over his shoulder as if some wrathful deity
might manifest from, of course, the East, "...I've taken the name Meroduk
since I started working for the Sar. I would rather not let our past episode be
known, Mr. Cameron, I realize now that the end, the au-dela as Peladan calls
it, must be enforced by God and not ourselves... my father didn't pay you to
retrieve me, did he?"
"Your
secret is perfectly safe, Monsieur ah... Meroduk, now I have an important
matter to discuss with Joseph Peladan. Is he about?"
"The
Sar is in his temple, praying to Baal... I can notify him but it might be a few
moments, he detests interruptions..."
"Baal?
Aren't they followers of Mohammed in Syria?"
"I
think," said young Henry, tentatively, "but Sar is an Assyrian...
they are a far more ancient tribe. So ancient in fact that they are extinct...
rather, the Sar is the last..."
"Then
I certainly won't object to waiting for such a person of rare
distinction," I parried, "...just give him my name, I'll have a look
at these and when he's finished we'll talk. Oh... my name may mean nothing so
do also tell him that I come on the recommendation of a mutual friend in
Berlin, Dr. Haeckel..."
"Haeckel,"
whispered Meroduk, repeating the name under his breath, "Haeckel, right...
I'll be back..."
Crowley's
recovered suicide was some minutes in conveying my presence to the Sar, so I
actually did pass some minutes looking over the wares of the wounded Gallery
which, with few exceptions, reflected the workings of disturbed minds...
frightful yet badly rendered. A forest of clumsy ghouls and asymmetrical satyrs
bent to my touch; bejewelled temptresses with vacant stares brazen as any tart
of Pigalle, a compendium of bad, banal art was the stuff of this Temple! Some
of it, despite the inexpertise, revolted on a level of the viscera, so I was
visibly relieved when Peladan... an imposing figure in a long, curling black
beard, flowing robes and Turkish slippers manifested in the doorway.
"You
seek audience with the Sar, Joseph Peladan? Here he stands!"
I
extended a hand which the Assyrian regarded rather like an offer of rotten
fish, and I drew back with, instead, a little nod. "As you wish. Actually
Dr. Haeckel said you could put me in touch with a Doctor Encausse... Papus as I
understand he may be known... I have a package for him which Haeckel called the
Protocols. Not sure what they are... seem to be written in Russian but, if it's
anything to you, I'm also on a mission for Aleister Crowley and his patron
Mathers."
Peladan
lifted his hands... somewhat later Crowley told me that he was given to soliciting
advice from the sun, I presume it did not matter that we were indoors.
"The Praemonstrator Mathers can vouch for you?" he asked.
"Well
actually I haven't been to Temple Ahathoor on the Rue de Mozart yet but Crowley
will, and Mathers sent Crowley so... well..." I again strove to explain.
"Give
me the Protocols!" demanded Peladan.
"Well
actually, I left them back at my room in the Hotel Alsatian... Haeckel did say
they specifically were for Papus..."
"You
may give them to me. Encausse and I are both Martinist proteges of Barbey, de
Guaita and Eliphas Levi, so the Protocols will be quite safe with me until I
convey them to him."
Something...
perhaps the pricing of these repugnant canvases implied avarice in the Sar and
it occurred to me to take refuge in the sort of cowardice bureaucrats practice.
"All the same... orders, you know, you are ah... not going to tell me
where to find Papus? Well, then, I'll ask Mathers himself what to do. I mean...
you're all part of that same crowd, aren't you?"
"I
am the Sar!" Peladan replied importantly, "... Mathers a common
British drunk. Encausse is learned but of a Mediterranean race upon whom the
hourglass of time has all but run out. There shall be a final debauch, and then
the ravishers from beyond the Elbe will pour in and..."
"The
au-dela?" I tried to help.
"You
are not meant to know of such things - some novice has been loose with his
tongue, it seems," remarked the slippered broker in artistic curiosities.
"Now... give me the Protocols!"
"Like
I said, don't have 'em. I'll talk to Mathers and be back," I said,
"or not... it depends... nice stuff!" I added, turning over a large
canvas to find a medieval torture cellar depicted, badly of course, but with
enough blood to make the intent of the artist known by force, if not by
craft...
"Just
as Religion has made itself into art in order to speak to the masses,"
Peladan intoned, "so art must make itself into religion in order to speak
to Adepts. The Protocols..."
At
this repeated request I bowed, backing out of the Temple of the Wounded
Shoulder etcetera; half expecting to be chased down the street by the lunatic
in his slippers and robes. Peladan, however, stopped at the door as if suddenly
fearful of injury from exposure to his God above, he glowered while I walked
off briskly, looking for a carriage. None were to be found in this unkempt
arondissement so I was gradually pulled back towards the Seine by the gravity
of a crowd forming.
"What's
going on? Is a riot beginning..." I asked one stranger, than another,
"do you speak English, monsieur... you?" Finally a well-dressed woman
of evident breeding and means took pity upon me despite the cloying entreaties
of her young escort.
"Stop
whimpering Marcel," she turned, raising a gloved fist like an asp coiled to
strike, "the gentleman's only American, not one of those Apaches... isn't
that so..."
"I
have been called many things of late," I replied, "but never a Red
Indian!"
"See?
This is Monsieur Proust who worries rather too much and you may call me
Laura... Laura deSade..."
"She
is the Comtesse Chevigne..." appended the fellow called Proust, rather
primly.
"Americans
do not set store by titles," replied the Comtesse with a wave of her
parasol, "isn't that so?"
"Only
if it is considered polite to do so, Comtesse... or Madame Laura if you will. I
am Arthur Cameron, and I was looking for... but what is all this excitement
about?" I could not help asking, wholly distracted by the murmurs of the
crowd which had, more or less, carried us along towards the river. The mass of
humanity had quite thickened, like good Ulster County butter in its churn,
eventually it ceased to move altogether.
"They
are raising the Siren of the Binet Gate," Monsieur Proust informed me.
"The
name she has been given is La Parisienne but, in her tight skirt and ermines,
she is no more than a brazen whore," remarked the Comtesse with a voice
rather more suited to the stage than to nobility. Laura deSade stretched her
remarkably long neck which, under a formidable nose worthy of Rostand, gave the
Comtesse the appearance of a predatory bird who, I gathered, regarded this
Siren with less than total disapprobation. "Already they call her the
Salamander."
"It
is sadly characteristic of this exposition that France should be represented by
a streetwalker," Proust sighed.
The
Comtesse could not lift a hand in this crowd, but her glance sufficed to
scourge the young dandy... I have heard he's become one of those authors often
spoken of, seldom read, a literary fellow told me Proust modeled one of his
characters, his Duchesse deGuermantes, upon the Comtesse, his "white
peacock," his "hawk with diamond eyes", sharp enough to carve up
such young fellows as we.
"Well,"
remarked this avian effigy, "at least it appears less garish than the
Russian pavilion and more inspired than that of the English..."
"All
of them are only going to attract more foreigners," Proust stood his
ground, "and, with them, the Portuguese plague!"
Laura
deSade spat over our heads like any washerwoman. "Fah! A drink at the Irish
Bar will kill any plague!"
"Comtesse,"
Proust reminded her, "...it is the Cafe Weber now."
"Of
course it is. And since you are so concerned with your health... and I do not
observe Monsieur Pasteur in this crowd, I propose we retire to that office for
vaccination. Mr. Cameron, will you join us?"
"I
believe he was hurrying away to... what was the place?" remarked the
little man, rather jealously as I recollect.
"Actually
I was looking for the Rue de Mozart..."
"Well
to reach it," explained the Comtesse, "you must pass the Cafe so we
are all going in the same direction. There's nothing to see here... coming
through!" And Laura deSade prodded the backs of gawkers with her parasol
in a way quite recalling her sadistic ancestor. Once out of the throng, she
commandeered a horse car away from a party of Germans, which carriage shortly
deposited us at the door of the Weber.
I
had, of course, been deceived by deSade and Marcel Proust for Mathers' temple
lay to the west by the Bois deBolougne while the Weber was one of those
disreputable cafes that haunted the district of Montmarte. But, of course, what
truth might an American expect from one descended from the author of
"Justine" and "Juliette", works Wolves and Bonesman alike
were careful to conceal from the prying eyes of proctors. "Were you
aware," Laura remarked, "my ancestor was loosed from the Bastille to
serve as Judge during the Terror, but proved so lenient he was fired and
imprisoned again?"
"Truly,"
I parried, "another example of the misfortunes of virtue overcome by the
prosperities of vice."
The
blue eyes of the Comtesse sparkled with recognition as she guided my attention
to a pair of tiny men at the bar. "There is Toulouse..." she said.
"And
he's drinking with Jarry!" Proust said disapprovingly. "One of his
nags must have staggered across the finish line ahead of the knackers' hook. I
am faint already... let us please go to the Hancourt."
"Nonsense!"
replied the Comtesse. "Marcel is very sweet, very sensitive... he doesn't
like scenes and, as these little men are from the theatre, making scenes is a
sort of livelihood for them. But they're only a pair of dwarves... don't be
afraid!" and, observing that Proust glanced at me with the same distrust
with which he regarded the two theatricals, she appended "...you will not
spit tobacco here, will you sir?"
"If
it will please you," I volunteered, "...not only shall I refrain from
spitting, I'll allow the manager to hold my guns..."
Laura
deSade patted Proust on the neck as the party next to the two little men left,
apparently complaining about tobacco smoke billowing up from the pipe of
Lautrec. "See Marcel... Mr. Cameron is a gentleman, as such are reckoned
in America. But here, here..." she chided, "is another form of
trouble, I know when I see it. You are up to some conspiracy!" she accused
the two little men, "it's all over your faces."
Lautrec
nodded warily, as if disappointed by the potency of his cocktail. Less then two
years from death, his skin was already yellowish behind his black beard whereas
Alfred Jarry was comparatively clean shaven, dark hair plastered down the sides
of his head by some objectionable oil. Perhaps two inches taller than the
painter, Jarry spoke with a certain affected mechanical monotone I have heard
compared to a nutcracker.
"Ma-da-me,
we a-wait the il-lu-sion-ist Me-lies; he is to make a mov-ing pic-ture of our
Chev-al du Phy-nance..."
Lautrec
exhaled a wreath of tobacco that brought a sickly frown to the countenance of
Marcel Proust; the cocktails that Laura deSade had called for arrived, green
and foreboding.
"My,
this is bitter!" I remarked at the first taste. "Packs a wallop,
though..."
"Absinthe
is usually sipped... some prefer taking it through sugar," the painter
volunteered.
"Nice
to see you back from the sanatorium, Lautrec," Proust acknowledged, not
without an inkling of malice.
"Yes,
it looks as though I will live out the century... to which I'll have another...
I have been fortunate at the track."
Laura
deSade now thought to make formal introductions. "These two disreputable
little persons are Toulouse Lautrec, a painter of advertisements for
nightclubs, and Alfred Jarry... he has a drama re-opening with Lugne-Poe, or is
it comedy? A Symbolist offering..."
"Mad-dam,
We pre-sent a cym-ball-last di-ver-sion..." Jarry answered. I have since
been assured his French was as execrable as his English... perhaps the
scenarist only felt comfortable in the tongue of ancient Greeks. He clapped
together a pair of saucers for emphasis, shattering one and cutting his thumb
which he offered to the Comtesse who kissed it, chastely while quite lapping up
and savoring the blood, chasing it with the rest of her absinthe while Jarry
wiped the lacerated digit absent-mindedly on a velvet covered package that lay
on the bar.
"And
this," the Comtesse said, "is Arthur Cameron, who's an American, of
course, and I really don't know more than that... are you with their
Pavilion?"
"No,
actually I am on a mission," I said, perhaps more jauntily than I should
have for absinthe fumes had blighted my vision. "A rather confidential
business..."
"Our
pass-sion is les Biz Arts..." Jarry replied. Blood had continued dripping
from his hand to the oilcloth covering the bar; Toulouse had commenced smearing
and daubing at it until it began to take the form of portraiture... suddenly I
recognized the face resembled my own. Without my asking, another glass of green
liqueur was set before me and a tall, balding gentleman joined our party.
"Sorry
to be late. I have equipment waiting in a carriage outside but if you've
ordered... I will also... Comtesse?"
"Monsieur...
here is Arthur Cameron, an American... this is the former stage magician and,
now, impresario of moving pictures, George Melies."
I
accepted the hand of the cineaste gratefully. "Could you presume to ask
him, Comtesse, whether he is known to Edison?"
"Unfortunately
I have not had that pleasure," replied Melies, "I hope to rectify
that next summer when the sorcerer of Menlo Park visits our Exposition. I was,
for some years, an assistant to Maskelyne's Hall of Egypt; the magician's
associate Devant's my London distributor. Another Englishman, Mr. Paul, sold me
the camera outside, which also suffices as a film projector... quite efficient
device, and safer than the usual ether lamps. Cinema has had a late start here
as a result of the unfortunate fire two years ago at the Bazar de la
Charite..."
"Les
dia-montes du ris-tew-crazy burnt to co-ahl!" Jarry remarked, favoring us
with a smirk, rather like that of an evil marionette.
"Some
of those who consider themselves of the better class chose to dance upon the
occasion," remarked the Comtesse Chevigne. "Leon Bloy was
delighted... one of those Catholics who believes charity denies the poor their
natural destiny, which is suffering and death. And he presumes to criticize my
ancestry!"
"Laura
is not only a Sade but directly descended from that Laura to whom Petrarch
dedicated his verses," volunteered the energetic Proust. I've also heard
it said that he used to linger on the Rue de Miromesnil waiting for the
Comtesse to pass, so as to situate her in his novel... or, rather, a chapter of
the one long novel of his life in which he exhibited his passion for Laura
thusly:
"The
greatest happiness I could have asked of God would have been that He should
overwhelm her under every imaginable calamity and that, ruined, despised,
stripped of all the privileges that divided her from me, having no longer any
home of her own or people who would condescend to speak to her, she should come
to me for refuge..."
Now one who stalked a gentlewoman
of New York would quickly have attracted the attention of policemen... further,
I think it most unlikely a descendant of the Marquis ever to have acted so... but,
in those days, Europeans had different attitudes than either we, or they, enjoy
now.
"I
met Maskelyne in London," I endeavored to change the subject, "in
Egyptian Hall... where he is preparing an adaptation of Lord Lytton's novel,
'The Coming Race'."
There
was a collective inhalation... even Lautrec ceased his bloody portraiture.
"He
ought not be doing this!" Marcel Proust finally rebuked, "...we must
inform the Grandmaster..."
Laura
deSade had lifted her absinthe to nose - inhaling its vapors, perhaps seeking a
clue in the swirling enticements of that which Parisians call the Green Fairy.
"Perhaps Sir Neville has his reasons," she said finally,
"...these are perilous if fruitful times..."
Proust
remained unconvinced. "Still, it is not his right to bring to
light..." and the remainder he whispered into her ear in quite inaudible
French.
"Sorry,"
Melies told me, but without translation, "...bit of a local row as they
say in London."
"I
don't feel well," Proust repeated in English. "I think that I must
retire early, if the Comtesse pleases..."
"He
is somewhat frail," apologized Laura, "...and we have a long tomorrow
ahead... Axel and, no doubt, some function for Madame Sarah after. Marcel
wishes it presumed he does not care to venture out onto the boulevards after
the sun has gone down," the Comtesse added wickedly.
"Cameron...
there's room in our wagon if you don't mind sharing your space with my new
machinery. We can take you as far as the Theatre Lugne-Poe by Clichy and the
Moulin Rouge..."
"Is
that near the Rue de Mozart?"
Again,
all the French pretended disinterest. "It's, well... thereabouts,"
Melies allowed. "Or I can drop you off on the way to my Theatre Robert
Houdin on the Boulevarde des Italiens after having a look at Monsieur Jarry's
horse and taking a few measurements..."
"Our
chev-val du phy-nance..." the playwright remarked, gathering up his
package under his arm. The velvet covering fell away, and an enormous stone
phallus blinked in the dim twilight of the Cafe Weber.
"How
marvelous," Laura deSade said admiringly. "Is it a cast?"
"Non
mad-ami, c'est ree-duc-sione!" Whatever more Jarry intended to say
deserted him, whether for reason of drink or loss of blood... wrapping his hand
in a napkin, Jarry allowed Melies to steer him outside with Lautrec waddling
behind. Proust and the Comtesse deSade followed, but only to admire Melies' new
projection device and then, squeezing into a space next to the machinery, we
proceeded to the Theatre Lugne-Poe and descended into its basement, filled with
strange puppets and canvases, some of the former larger than life and most of
the latter larger than the marionettes who'd birthed them. A thin man with
straw-colored hair and the pale complexion of the Far North was drawing
counterclockwise spirals on cloth and, at the sight of this, Jarry revived...
more properly one could say he became enraged...
"Non
Mon-sieur Munch, like so!"
And,
with Lautrec also shouting, waving his cane in drunken fury, Jarry seized the
brushes and traced a clockwise spiral on his shirt... Munch roaring back a few
Norwegian oaths, causing the playwright... whether understanding or not... to
pull a revolver from his trousers and fire past Munch into the wall. The shot
and spray of brick caused a grizzled donkey to give an anarchical sneeze and
flick its tail, to which brushes had been attached. A dark horizontal smear
violated a rather peaceful frieze of vertical stokes caused by the waving of
the tail of the beast... at the sight of this Jarry put down his pistol and
half a dozen assistant set decorators swarmed to view the masterpiece.
"Magnifico," the youngest declared, and began chattering in what
appeared Spanish... the choler faded from the face of Toulouse-Lautrec, and the
little painter inclined his head towards Melies.
"His
mood worsens as presentation nears... this is nothing extraordinary, it was
much worse five years ago. Yvette and LaGoloue were like that, stage fright's
common among all of the dancers at Moulin Rouge. The only person who can calm
him down is Rachilde and I think she's gone back to the Mercure with her
husband. We will get by," sighed the muralist, "but I do not know how
he will react to the camera..."
Melies
had already withdrawn a cloth tape of the sort that tailors use to circumscribe
a thigh for a pair of pants.
"Then
I shall simply take these measurements," declared the cinematographer
"...so as to be ready to set up at the premiere. I am attempting something
wholly new," he addressed me, "...a stage play filmed from curtain to
curtain. If Edison can match that... let him try! I can take you as far as the
Boulevard des Italiens, it shouldn't be hard to find... what do they call it in
London... a Victoria? To the Rue de Mozart, yes..."
I
could be no further from Mathers than if I had gone to the moon, but there was
nothing more I could do... it was quite dark by now so I followed Lautrec and
Melies to the waiting carriage and its admirable cargo.
"That
is an impressive device!" I forced myself to admit.
"It
serves both as camera and, in the twilight or dark, as a film projector,"
its proud owner said with a smile I thought rather sinister... although it
might have been the gaslight of that still rather poor arondissement, or
perhaps from my later recollections of Melies in his surviving films. In
several of these, the producer took apparent delight in playing Satanic roles.
"I have tested a new application for the Exposition... a film accompanied
by sound. The subject, which would have delighted Moreau, not to mention Old
Death... which is what we call the composer Saint-Saens hereabouts... well, the
Surete has invited me to record the execution of an anarchist by electric
current... as they do in progressive States of America... rather than by our
beloved guillotine."
"Our
Parisian executioner will be disappointed... he's a merry fellow," Lautrec
remarked, "...he frequents the cafes and bars all night so it is well that
his black hood conceals the ravages of his debauches..."
"Since
Vaillant and Ravachol anarchists have been put to death in secret," Melies
confided, "but there's a difficulty in claiming misadventure when one
returns a corpse without a head. For a while it seemed the government would put
all we Parisian artists who do not follow Boulangerism on the chopping block,
but since Loubet ascended I have... despite my documentation of the Dreyfus
trial... been given a more or less ceremonial status as cinematographer to the
Republic. Unfortunately this experiment did not go well - the fellow veritably
roasted to death like a goose and his screams were such as to evoke terror even
in the hardest hearts of Boulangerism. I will hand the film over to Surete next
week, but I think its effect will be the survival of the guillotine well into
this new century. Perhaps our Executioner thought so too... at times the
thought occurs to me that powerful and conflicting forces toy with our
ambitions.
"'Barbarisme!'
Monsieur Deibler remarked!" added Melies, speaking of the Paris
executioner. "Did you know the Symbolist author Huysmans was Director of
the political branch of the Surete... one of those few who enjoyed blood as
much in the here and now as in the abstract?"
Melies
stopped at the Boulevard des Italiens, where I hailed a carriage for Hippodrome
in the Bois de Boulogne and sauntered towards the tenement on the Rue Mozart
where Mathers maintained his Temple Ahathoor. I knocked politely... at first...
then called out for the proprietor, pounding rather more sharply in the manner
Crowley had attacked the door of the Isis-Uranians. No answer was given, not
even a light shone... dispirited and tired, I made my way back to the Alsatian
Hotel to be presented with an envelope by Monsieur Dupoirier.
"A
friend apparently considers you worth a valuable gift." I nodded, removing
that ticket to Villier's "Axel" at Theatre Montparnasse. "It is
quite coveted here, all performances have been subscribed to for weeks."
"It
is for tomorrow afternoon," I observed. "Who brought this by?"
"A
boy," Dupoirier replied... one of those anyone could have hired for a couple
of centimes." He glanced over my hand at the ticket. "A fine seat...
up in the boxes. Are you an admirer of Madame's."
"Bernhardt?
I've heard about the lady but never seen her... well, this is another mystery
which can only be solved one way." And, thanking the hotel manager, I
retired immediately to bed and wasted the following morning strolling the banks
of the Seine on which the palaces of the Exposition were rising... took a long
lunch which precluded a return to the Temple Ahathoor and arrived at the
appointed hour at the Theatre Montparnasse.
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