Is He Living or Is He Dead?

I was spending the month of March 1892 at Mentone, in the Riviera. At

this retired spot one has all the advantages, privately, which are to be

had publicly at Monte Carlo and Nice, a few miles farther along. That is

to say, one has the flooding sunshine, the balmy air and the brilliant

blue sea, without the marring additions of human pow-wow and fuss and

feathers and display. Mentone is quiet, simple, restful, unpretentious;

the rich and the gaudy do not come there. As a rule, I mean, the rich do

not come there. Now and then a rich man comes, and I presently got

acquainted with one of these. Partially to disguise him I will call him

Smith. One day, in the Hotel des Anglais, at the second breakfast, he

exclaimed:

'Quick! Cast your eye on the man going out at the door. Take in every

detail of him.'

'Why?'

'Do you know who he is?'

'Yes. He spent several days here before you came. He is an old,

retired, and very rich silk manufacturer from Lyons, they say, and I

guess he is alone in the world, for he always looks sad and dreamy, and

doesn't talk with anybody. His name is Theophile Magnan.'

I supposed that Smith would now proceed to justify the large interest

which he had shown in Monsieur Magnan, but, instead, he dropped into a

brown study, and was apparently lost to me and to the rest of the world

during some minutes. Now and then he passed his fingers through his

flossy white hair, to assist his thinking, and meantime he allowed his

breakfast to go on cooling. At last he said:

'No, it's gone; I can't call it back.'

'Can't call what back?'

'It's one of Hans Andersen's beautiful little stories. But it's gone fro

me. Part of it is like this: A child has a caged bird, which it loves

but thoughtlessly neglects. The bird pours out its song unheard and

unheeded; but, in time, hunger and thirst assail the creature, and its

song grows plaintive and feeble and finally ceases--the bird dies. The

child comes, and is smitten to the heart with remorse: then, with bitter

tears and lamentations, it calls its mates, and they bury the bird with

elaborate pomp and the tenderest grief, without knowing, poor things,

that it isn't children only who starve poets to death and then spend

enough on their funerals and monuments to have kept them alive and made

them easy and comfortable. Now--'

But here we were interrupted. About ten that evening I ran across Smith,

and he asked me up to his parlour to help him smoke and drink hot Scotch.

It was a cosy place, with its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and

its friendly open fire of seasoned olive-wood. To make everything

perfect, there was a muffled booming of the surf outside. After the

second Scotch and much lazy and contented chat, Smith said:

'Now we are properly primed--I to tell a curious history and you to

listen to it. It has been a secret for many years--a secret between me

and three others; but I am going to break the seal now. Are you

comfortable?'

'Perfectly. Go on.'