To his great dismay, he found himself free all of a sudden. One morning, taking advantage of the Other’s absence, he announced to the Ostrich that he had decided to leave. The lack of concern, the seeming indifference with which she greeted the news, precipitated his determination; his decision, which until that moment was still uncertain, now became irrevocable. Seeing that the widow was not even going to ask him to delay his departure, he thereupon made up a story about an inheritance that urgently required his presence in the country.
The ever-obliging Ostrich immediately provided him with some string and two cardboard boxes in which to pack his belongings. While he tied a knot around his things — in spite of the anger which made his fingers tremble, it barely took a few minutes — to his own astonishment, he became aware for the first time of the part that hatred had played in the ties that for more than twenty years had bound him body and soul in the service of that Other Man, and this hatred was in fact so deep that, in suddenly choosing to flee its object for good, he had the wrenching feeling of cutting off an essential part of himself.
The Ostrich wanted to get a servant to take him to the coach, but his baggage was light and he declined the offer. Overcome with a resentment that he could no longer keep in check, he even refused the farewell drink that the good woman offered him. Suddenly he could not bear to prolong his stay under that roof for another minute. The Ostrich could not understand this agitation and naïvely showed her surprise, which made the whole scene all the more painful.
His sudden flight did not take the medical officer very far. When he got to the end of the street, he realized that he had nowhere to go: quite naturally he would end up at Les Trois Boules. So Napoleon had no difficulty in laying hands on him again, and it was in this establishment, toward the end of the afternoon, that he came as a matter of course to find the deserter.
Sitting down at the table in front of him, Napoleon did not bother, even as a formality, to question him about the reasons for his abrupt departure or his supposed inheritance. Calmly, and with that superb ability to brush aside unimportant details — an ability which usually characterizes genius and which is akin in its effects to natural catastrophes — he came straight to the point that concerned him. The medical officer, who, in the meantime, had recovered a degree of composure, tried to stand up to the first assault without flinching.
“You know who I am,” said Napoleon. And without leaving him the time to deal with his first statement — for the medical officer would have taken advantage of it to reply, “You are a prosperous melon merchant”—he went on, “And I need you.”
The medical officer, avoiding his master’s eyes, lit a cigar. “It’s too late,” he mumbled into his mustache, staring at the bottom of his glass.
“This is the situation,” continued Napoleon, pretending not to have heard the last remark — or perhaps it had really escaped his attention, as the pursuit of a brilliant idea usually made him deaf to any comment that did not accord with his own views.
“It’s too late,” repeated the medical officer in a louder voice. He summoned all his energy, but still did not dare to raise his eyes to the person he was speaking to. While the latter, disconcerted by this obstinate reaction, tapped the table rather impatiently with his plump white hand, the medical officer, like an old cart horse balking for the first time at the touch of the shafts and kicking out blindly in all directions, went on almost in a shout, “It’s too late! I tell you, it’s too late!”
His voice grew hoarse. His glass was empty; he gulped down the one opposite. He was struggling now, like a desperate man, to preserve this grim new freedom that he had only just won. Hesitantly, he stretched out his arm and gripped Napoleon by the lapel of his frock coat; at last his yellow eyes came to rest, unsteadily meeting the Other’s gaze. “Believe me, just concentrate on making your fortune in watermelons and your future will be a thousand times more enviable than you can imagine. You don’t believe me? Come on, then, come with me, and YOU’LL SEE!…” Then he added more quietly, “It’s not far from here,” in a voice soft and sly.
He got up. His legs shook, but his grip stayed firm on Napoleon’s coat. The latter, rather taken aback, was aware that in the medical officer’s present state it was no use starting a discussion. To avoid a scene, he therefore decided to humor this annoying caprice for the moment. There would always be time to speak of serious matters again later, as soon as the absinthe fumes had cleared away.
Without uttering one more word, the medical officer dragged his bemused victim through a series of quiet streets. They crossed a middle-class suburb with detached houses, iron gates, and gardens. Day was ending; the approaching night was lengthening the shadows; soon they would all blend into a single mysterious softness, which would once more endow this petty world with a dreamy depth, redeeming it from banality at last. Somewhere from behind closed shutters came the sound of someone practicing the piano.
Napoleon was becoming more and more impatient, when his guide indicated to him that they had finally arrived. They stood in front of the entrance to a sort of private park whose walls were overhung with the branches of chestnut and linden. The bars of the iron-grille gate were backed by a metal sheet that frustrated prying eyes.
The medical officer must have been a regular visitor, for in spite of the growing darkness, he managed to find without any difficulty a small chain that was hidden under the ivy. A sharp tug produced a grating metallic sound behind the wall, which in turn was followed by the distant tinkling of a bell.
The two men waited for a moment.
“Will you explain to me now…” began Napoleon, who could hardly contain his exasperation — but at that precise instant a small door on well-oiled hinges opened silently in the middle of the iron gate.
Following his guide, Napoleon had to step into this kind of rat trap, whether he wanted to or not, and found himself in the deep shadows of a large unkempt garden with a dense grove of trees.
He could scarcely make out the form of the concierge, who closed the gate again behind them, but it seemed to him that this person was wearing a sort of long, grayish dustcoat and a type of round skull cap that gave him a vaguely ecclesiastical air.
They went into the trees, following a winding sandy path which muffled their footsteps. Under the trees, the dusk had already fallen.
At a bend in the path, the medical officer, whose squat silhouette was now discernible only by the red glow on the end of his cigar, turned to Napoleon and whispered in his ear, “I’ll go on ahead, wait for me here a moment.” And throwing away his cigar, he vanished into the shadows before Napoleon could stop him.
Napoleon was now alone, standing in the middle of the path. All about him, the dense black treetops hid everything from view. High in the branches, flocks of starlings were finally settling down for the night with shrill cries and beating wings.
How long did he wait like that? The medical officer was still not back. The whole thing began to look like a joke in very questionable taste. Napoleon took out his watch, but could not make out the position of the hands against the dim whiteness of the dial. The starlings had ceased their racket. Only the slight murmur of the wind rose intermittently from the dark emptiness of the park, stirring the invisible depths of the foliage.
Napoleon was not a man to allow himself to be led up the garden path for very long. However, he did not want to give up before finding out what the medical officer’s intentions were, and so he decided to carry out a general investigation of the area. Following the pale ribbon of the path through the dark wood, he went on deeper into the park.