Chapter 12: Morhange Disappears

My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next day. I awoke about three o’clock in the afternoon.

I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed amazing.

“Let me see,” I said to myself. “Let us work this out. I must begin by consulting Morhange.”

I was ravenously hungry.

The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm’s reach. I struck it. A white Targa appeared.

“Show me the way to the library,” I ordered.

He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his help.

Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript.

“A lost treatise of Saint Optat,” he said. “Oh, if only Dom Granger were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters.”

I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the table beside the manuscript. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she herself wore.

Morhange smiled.

“Well?” I said.

“Well?”

“You have seen her?”

“I have indeed,” Morhange replied.

“She is beautiful, is she not?”

“It would be difficult to dispute that,” my comrade answered. “I even believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is beautiful.”

There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.

“You know what our fate is to be?”

“I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure.”

He was silent, then said, looking at me:

“I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very easily.”

Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged correctly.

“What do you think of doing?” I finally murmured.

He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair and lit a cigar.

“I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no discussion.

“The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but, even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.

“That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish, results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire: such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The end justified the means.

“But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd caprices of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take you first. Under those conditions...”

“Under those conditions?”

“Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to acquiesce.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“What do I intend to do?” Morhange leaned back in the armchair and smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.

“Nothing,” he said. “And that is all that is necessary. Man has this superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse advances.”

Then he added with an ironical smile:

“A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to.”

I nodded.

“I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea,” he continued. “It was breath wasted. ‘But, ‘ I said at the end of my arguments, ‘why not Le Mesge?’ She began to laugh. ‘Why not the Reverend Spardek?’ she replied. ‘Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But

_Maudit soit à jamais rêveur inutile,

Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidité,

S’éprenant d’un problème insoluble et stérile,

Aux choses de l’amour mêler l’honnêteté._

“‘Besides, ‘ she added with that really very charming smile of hers, ‘probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.’ There followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from Baudelaire.

“She condescended to explain further: ‘Le Mesge is a learned gentleman whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid things as you know of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in the languages which I need ... But I am talking a great deal, and this is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend is not so curious.’ With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer than that master of sensualism.”

“Gentlemen,” said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, “why are you so late? They are waiting dinner for you.”

The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He wore a new violet rosette.

“Well?” he said, in a mocking tone, “you have seen her?”

Neither Morhange nor I replied.

The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the cream-colored mat.

“Be seated, gentlemen,” said Le Mesge noisily. “Lieutenant de Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must give me your opinion of it.”

A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento sauce as red as tomatoes.

I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite. The sauce immediately made me thirsty.

“White Ahaggar, 1879,” the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. “I developed it myself: rien pour la tête, tout pour les jambes.”

I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.

“Well, Captain Morhange,” Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had taken a mouthful of fish, “what do you say to this acanthopterygian? It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?”

“The fish is an argument,” my companion replied.

Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered. The diners stopped talking.

The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right arm.

“Very well,” said Morhange.

He got up and followed the messenger.

The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I filled my goblet--a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.

The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. “Antinea has respect for the hierarchic order.”

The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Le Mesge again.

My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it again.

“Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton,” said the Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick slice of meat.

“He won’t regret it,” said the Hetman crossly. “This is not roast; it is ram’s horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us.”

“Blame it on the Reverend,” the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. “I have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook alone.”

“Professor,” Spardek began with dignity.

“I maintain my contention,” cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be getting a bit overloaded. “I call the gentleman to witness,” he went on, turning to me. “He has just come. He is unbiased. Therefore I ask him: has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?”

“Alas!” the pastor replied sadly. “You are mistaken. He has only too strong a propensity to controversy.”