The Novel of the White Powder | Page 2

will have a holiday together
before long; we will go to Paris and enjoy ourselves, and keep away
from the Bibliothque Nationale."
I confessed myself delighted with the prospect.
"When shall we go?" I said. "I can start the day after to-morrow if you
like."
"Ah! that is perhaps a little too soon; after all, I do not know London
yet, and I suppose a man ought to give the pleasures of his own country
the first choice. But we will go off together in a week or two, so try and
furbish up your French. I only know law French myself, and I am afraid
that wouldn't do."
We were just finishing dinner, and he quaffed off his medicine with a
parade of carousal as if it had been wine from some choicest bin.
"Has it any particular taste?" I said.
"No; I should not know I was not drinking water," and he got up from
his chair and began to pace up and down the room as if he were
undecided as to what he should do next.
"Shall we have coffee in the drawing-room?" I said; "or would you like
to smoke?"
"No, I think I will take a turn; it seems a pleasant evening. Look at the
afterglow; why, it is as if a great city were burning in flames, and down
there between the dark houses it is raining blood fast. Yes, I will go out;
I may be in soon, but I shall take my key; so good-night, dear, if I don't
see you again."
The door slammed behind him, and I saw him walk lightly down the
street, swinging his malacca cane, and I felt grateful to Dr. Haberden
for such an improvement.

I believe my brother came home very late that night, but he was in a
merry mood the next morning.
"I walked on without thinking where I was going," he said, "enjoying
the freshness of the air, and livened by the crowds as I reached more
frequented quarters. And then I met an old college friend, Orford, in the
press of the pavement, and then--well, we enjoyed ourselves, I have felt
what it is to be young and a man; I find I have blood in my veins, as
other men have. I made an appointment with Orford for to-night; there
will be a little party of us at the restaurant. Yes; I shall enjoy myself for
a week or two, and hear the chimes at midnight, and then we will go for
our little trip together."
Such was the transmutation of my brother's character that in a few days
he became a lover of pleasure, a careless and merry idler of western
pavements, a hunter out of snug restaurants, and a fine critic of
fantastic dancing; he grew fat before my eyes, and said no more of
Paris, for he had clearly found his paradise in London. I rejoiced, and
yet wondered a little; for there was, I thought, something in his gaiety
that indefinitely displeased me, though I could not have defined my
feeling. But by degrees there came a change; he returned still in the
cold hours of the morning, but I heard no more about his pleasures, and
one morning as we sat at breakfast together I looked suddenly into his
eyes and saw a stranger before me.
"Oh, Francis!" I cried. "Oh, Francis, Francis, what have you done?" and
rending sobs cut the words short. I went weeping out of the room; for
though I knew nothing, yet I knew all, and by some odd play of thought
I remembered the evening when he first went abroad, and the picture of
the sunset sky glowed before me; the clouds like a city in burning
flames, and the rain of blood. Yet I did battle with such thoughts,
resolving that perhaps, after all, no great harm had been done, and in
the evening at dinner I resolved to press him to fix a day for our
holiday in Paris. We had talked easily enough, and my brother had just
taken his medicine, which he continued all the while. I was about to
begin my topic when the words forming in my mind van- ished, and I
wondered for a second what icy and intolerable weight oppressed my

heart and suffocated me as with the unutterable horror of the coffin-lid
nailed down on the living.
We had dined without candles; the room had slowly grown from
twilight to gloom, and the walls and corners were indistinct in the
shadow. But from where I sat I looked out into the street; and as I
thought of what I would say to Francis, the sky began to flush and
shine, as it had done on a well-remembered evening, and in the