I soon took my leave, and shortly afterwards went to the East, and returned by way of Russia, Germany, Sweden, and Holland, after an absence of eighteen months from Paris.
The morning after my arrival, as I was walking along the boulevards to breathe the air once more, I saw a pale man with sunken cheeks coming towards me, who was as much like Blérot as it was possible for a physically emaciated man to be to a strong, ruddy, rather stout man. I looked at him in surprise, and asked myself: "Can it possibly be he?" But he saw me, and came towards me with outstretched arms, and we embraced in the middle of the boulevard.
After we had gone up and down once or twice from the Rue Druot to the Vaudeville Theater, just as we were taking leave of each other--for he already seemed quite done up with walking--I said to him:
"You don't look at all well. Are you ill?"
"I do feel rather out of sorts," was all he said.
He looked like a man who was going to die, and I felt a flood of affection for my old friend, the only real one that I had ever had. I squeezed his hands.
"What is the matter with you? Are you in pain?"
"He calls it anæmia, and has ordered me to eat no white meat and to take tincture of iron."
"Yes, very happy; my wife is charming, and I love her more than ever."
But I noticed that he grew rather red and seemed embarrassed, as if he was afraid of any further questions, so I took him by the arm and pushed him into a café, which was nearly empty at that time of day. I forced him to sit down, and looking him straight in the face, I said:
"Look here, old fellow, just tell me the exact truth."
"I have nothing to tell you," he stammered.
"That is not true," I replied firmly. "You are ill, mentally perhaps, and you dare not reveal your secret to anyone. Something or other is doing you harm, and I mean you to tell me what it is. Come, I am waiting for you to begin."
Again he got very red, stammered, and turning his head away, he said:
"It is very idiotic--but I--I am done for!"
"Well, I have got a wife who is killing me, that is all," he said abruptly, almost desperately.
I did not understand at first. "Does she make you unhappy? How? What is it?"
"No," he replied in a low voice, as if he were confessing some crime; "I love her too much, that is all."