The count made me sit down beside him. One of his first questions was
to demand if I ever cut fives.[9] [Footnote 9: Tirer à cinq, a card game played only for very high
stakes.] "That depends on how I feel," I replied.
"Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The
devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I
wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little
Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I
hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal
Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because
we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives
again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my
promise. But there are moments when it is hard...."
He added in a voice steeped in melancholy: "Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I,
Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of
the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly
fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run."
It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver
goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage.
And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines
of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.
That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats,
to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of
cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of
sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or
wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes,
pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those
which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy
watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows
of black seeds.
I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le
Mesge rose.
"Gentlemen, if you are ready," he said to Morhange and me.
"Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can," whispered the
Hetman of Jitomir to me. "The party of Trente et Quarante will begin
soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora
Pearl's."
"Gentlemen," repeated M. Le Mesge in his dry tone.
We followed him. When the three of us were back again in the library,
he said, addressing me: "You, sir, asked a little while ago what occult power holds you here.
Your manner was threatening, and I should have refused to comply had
it not been for your friend, whose knowledge enables him to appreciate
better than you the value of the revelations I am about to make to
you."