It was dilapidated, shabby, and disrespectable; which was exactly what Pierre desired.
What with a garrulous concierge and a prying neighborhood, to have remained in his own rooms would have been hazardous; and the Restaurant de la Tour D’Ivoire, besides the advantages already named, possessed the further and greatest one of an old window with broken panes which looked out directly upon the scene of the duel.
The clock was hard on five as Pierre entered the restaurant and accosted the proprietor, who was dozing in a lump behind the little wooden desk.
He awoke with a start and looked angrily at the intruder. “What do you want?” he demanded.
“I desire a private dining room,” said Pierre.
The greasy old man looked angrier still.
“The devil you do!” he shouted. “There isn’t any.”
He settled back into his chair and immediately fell asleep.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders, glanced around, and noticing a door in the opposite corner, passed through it into the room beyond.
This room was cold, dirty and filled with that particularly disagreeable odor which is the effect of stale tobacco smoke and poisoned breaths in a close atmosphere.
Tables and chairs were piled in confusion at one end; a row of them extended along the farther wall; and the only light was that which came in through the window with broken panes overlooking the Pont de Surenes entrance, and its fellow directly opposite.
Three or four men, sleeping with their heads nodding at various angles, were scattered here and there on the wooden chairs; another was seated at a table with a bottle before him reading a newspaper; and a drowsy and bedraggled waiter rose to his feet and stood blinking foolishly as Pierre entered.
Pierre, having seated himself and ordered a bottle of wine, looked up to meet the curious gaze of the man with the newspaper.
It was sustained almost to the point of impertinence, and at once made Pierre uneasy.
Was it possible he had been recognized?
The fellow’s dress was very different from that of the ordinary habitue of holes such as the Restaurant de la Tour d’Ivoire; and though Pierre could find nothing familiar in either the face or figure, he became every minute more restless and suspicious; until, finally, he accosted the stranger.
“It is very cold,” he said, in as indifferent a tone as possible, glancing up at the broken window through which the damp river air found its way.
The stranger started and glanced up quickly.
“Were you speaking to me, monsieur?”
“I did myself that honor,” said Pierre.
“And you said—”
“That it is very cold.”
“Yes.
In fact, it is freezing.”
The stranger shivered slightly and drew his cloak closer around his shoulders.
“Do you play?” he asked.
“A little,” said Pierre, who felt somehow reassured by the mere fact that the other had spoken to him. The waiter brought cards and another bottle of wine, and Pierre moved over to the other’s table.
For a half-hour the game proceeded, for the most part in silence.
Once or twice Pierre glanced at his watch, then up at the window, which from his viewpoint disclosed only a glimpse of dark, gloomy sky and the upper framework of the Pont de Suresnes.
Gradually, as the waiter continued to replace empty bottles with full ones, the stranger’s tongue was loosened.
“You’re lucky,” said he, eyeing the little heap of silver and small notes at Pierre’s elbow.
Pierre glanced again at his watch.
“Let us hope so,” he muttered.
“And yet you are uneasy and agitated.
That is wrong.
Learn, my friend, the value of philosophy—of stoicism.”
The stranger waved a hand in the air and grinned foolishly.
“Learn to control your fate.
For whatever happens today, or tomorrow, you are still a man.”
Pierre’s uneasiness returned.
“You are drunk,” he said calmly.
“But what do you mean?”
The other pointed a wavering finger at Pierre’s hand.
“That’s what I mean.
You tremble, you glance about, you are afraid.
No doubt you have a reason; but look at that!”
He held out his own hand, which shook like a leaf in the wind.
“Observe my steadiness, my calm!
And yet my whole future—my whole future is decided within the hour.”
“Come,” said Pierre, “you talk too much, my friend.”