"Ella, I love you. Let us move into the trousseau department. Don't look so dismayed, darling. If you like, we will go right away from here. We will live in that little restaurant in Central Park. There are thousands of birds there."
"Please please don't talk like that!"
"But I love you with all my heart."
"You mustn't."
"But I find I must. I can't help it. Ella, you don't love another?"
She wept a little. "Oh, Charles, I do."
"Love another, Ella? One of these? I thought you dreaded them all. It must be Roscoe. He is the only one that's any way human. We talk of art, life, and such things. And he has stolen your heart!"
"No, Charles, no. He's just like the rest, really. I hate them all. They make me shudder."
"Who is it, then?"
"It's him."
"Who?"
"The night-watchman."
"Impossible!"
"No. He smells of the sun."
"Oh, Ella, you have broken my heart."
"Be my friend, though."
"I will. I'll be your brother. How did you fall in love with him?"
"Oh, Charles, it was so wonderful. I was thinking of birds, and I was careless. Don't tell on me, Charles. They'll punish me."
"No. No. Go on."
"I was careless, and there he was, coming round the corner. And there was no place for me; I had this blue dress on. There were only some wax models in their underthings."
"Please go on."
"I couldn't help it. I slipped off my dress, and stood still."
"I see."
"And he stopped just by me, Charles. And he looked at me. And he touched my cheek."
"Did he notice nothing?"
"No. It was cold. But Charles, he said he said 'Say, honey, I wish they made 'em like you on Eighth Avenue.' Charles, wasn't that a lovely thing to say?"
"Personally, I should have said Park Avenue."
"Oh, Charles, don't get like these people here. Sometimes I think you're getting like them. It doesn't matter what street, Charles; it was a lovely thing to say."
"Yes, but my heart's broken. And what can you do about him? Ella, he belongs to another world."
"Yes, Charles, Eighth Avenue. I want to go there. Charles, are you truly my friend?"
"I'm your brother, only my heart's broken."
"I'll tell you. I will. I'm going to stand there again. So he'll see me."
"And then?"
"Perhaps he'll speak to me again."
"My dearest Ella, you are torturing yourself. You are making it worse."
"No, Charles. Because I shall answer him. He will take me away."
"Ella, I can't bear it."
"Ssh! There is someone coming. I shall see birds real birds, Charles and flowers growing. They're coming. You must go."
MAY 13 The last three days have been torture. This evening I broke. Roscoe had joined me. He sat eying me for a long time. He put his hand on my shoulder.
He said, "You're looking seedy, old fellow. Why don't you go over to Wanamaker's for some skiing?"
His kindness compelled a frank response. "It's deeper than that, Roscoe. I'm done for. I can't eat, I can't sleep. I can't write, man, I can't even write."
"What is it? Day starvation?"
"Roscoe it's love."
"Not one of the staff, Charles, or the customers? That's absolutely forbidden."
"No, it's not that, Roscoe. But just as hopeless."
"My dear old fellow, I can't bear to see you like this. Let me help you. Let me share your trouble."
Then it came out. It burst out. I trusted him. I think I trusted him. I really think I had no intention of betraying Ella, of spoiling her escape, of keeping her here till her heart turned towards me. If I had, it was subconscious, I swear it.
But I told him all. All! He was sympathetic, but I detected a sly reserve in his sympathy. "You will respect my confidence, Roscoe? This is to be a secret between us."
"As secret as the grave, old chap."
And he must have gone straight to Mrs. Vanderpant. This evening the atmosphere has changed. People flicker to and fro, smiling nervously, horribly, with a sort of frightened sadistic exaltation. When I speak to them they answer evasively, fidget, and disappear. An informal dance has been called off. I cannot find Ella. I will creep out. I will look for her again.
LATER Heaven! It has happened. I went in desperation to the manager's office, whose glass front overlooks the whole shop. I watched till midnight. Then I saw a little group of them, like ants bearing a victim. They were carrying Ella. They took her to the surgical department. They took other things.
And, coming back here, I was passed by a flittering, whispering horde of them, glancing over their shoulders in a thrilled ecstasy of panic, making for their hiding places. I, too, hid myself. How can I describe the dark inhuman creatures that passed me, silent as shadows? They went there where Ella is.
What can I do? There is only one thing. I will find the watchman. I will tell him. He and I will save her. And if we are overpowered -Well, I will leave this on a counter. Tomorrow, if we live, I can recover it.
If not, look in the windows. Look for the three new figures: two men, one rather sensitive-looking, and a girl. She has blue eyes, like periwinkle flowers, and her upper lip is lifted a little.
Look for us.
Smoke them out! Obliterate them! Avenge us!
WITCHS MONEY
Foiral had taken a load of cork up to the high road, where he met the motor truck from Perpignan. He was on his way back to the village, walking harmlessly beside his mule, and thinking of nothing at all, when he was passed by a striding madman, half naked, and of a type never seen before in this district of the Pyrnes-Orientales.
He was not of the idiot sort, with the big head, like two or three of them down in the village. Nor was he a lean, raving creature, like Barilles' old father after the house burned down. Nor had he a little, tiny, shrunken-up, chattering head, like the younger Lloubes. He was a new sort altogether.
Foiral decided he was a kind of bursting madman, all blare and racket, as bad as the sun. His red flesh burst out of his little bits of coloured clothes; red arms, red knees, red neck, and a great round red face bursting with smiles, words, laughter.
Foiral overtook him at the top of the ridge. He was staring down into the valley like a man thunderstruck.
"My God!" he said to Foiral. "Just look at it!" Foiral looked at it. There was nothing wrong.
"Here have I," said the mad Jack, "been walking up and down these goddam Pyrnes for weeks meadows, birch trees, pine trees, waterfalls green as a dish of haricots verts! And here's what I've been looking for all the time. Why did no one tell me?"
There's a damned question to answer! However, madmen answer themselves. Foiral thumped his mule and started off down the track, but the mad fellow fell in step beside him.
"What is it, for God's sake?" said he. "A bit of Spain strayed over the frontier, or what? Might be a crater in the moon. No water, I suppose? God, look at that ring of red hills! Look at that pink and yellow land! Are those villages down there? Or the bones of some creatures that have died?
"I like it," he said. "I like the way the fig trees burst out of the rock. I like the way the seeds are bursting out of the figs. Ever heard of surrealism? This is surrealism come to life. What are those? Cork forests? They look like petrified ogres. Excellent ogres, who bleed when these impudent mortals flay you, with my little brush, on my little piece of canvas, I shall restore to you an important part of your life!"
Foiral, by no means devout, took the sensible precaution of crossing himself. The fellow went on and on, all the way down, two or three kilometres, Foiral answering with a "yes," a "no," and a grunt. "This is my country!" cried the lunatic. "It's made for me. Glad I didn't go to Morocco! Is this your village? Wonderful! Look at those houses three, four stories. Why do they look as if they'd been piled up by cave-dwellers, cave-dwellers who couldn't find a cliff? Or are they caves from which the cliff has crumbled away, leaving them uneasy in the sunlight, huddling together? Why don't you have any windows? I like that yellow belfry. Sort of Spanish. I like the way the bell hangs in that iron cage. Black as your hat. Dead. Maybe that's why it's so quiet here. Dead noise, gibbeted against the blue! Ha! Ha! You're not amused, eh? You don't care for surrealism? So much the worse, my friend, because you're the stuff that sort of dream is made of. I like the black clothes all you people wear. Spanish touch again, I suppose? It makes you look like holes in the light."