Part 4 (1/2)
”I am preparing you. You will of course meet at our house.”
”Is that necessary?”
”Very. At least I shall be made to pay for it if you don't.”
”Dear me! is he dangerous?”
Alice laughed: ”I find him so, at any rate.”
”O ho! that alters the situation.”
”Now you are misunderstanding me. Wait till you see him.”
”Is he so very good-looking?”
Alice laughed. ”No, he is positively ugly. Just wait.”
As they drove on, the Avenue became more crowded; it was one of the great days.
”What is his name?”
”Frans Roy.”
”Roy? That is our lady doctor's name--Miss Roy.”
”Yes, she is his sister, he often talks of her.”
”She is a fine-looking woman.”
Alice drew herself up. ”You should see _him_. When I walk with him in the street, people turn round to take another look at him. He is a giant! But not of the kind that run to muscle and flesh. No, very tall, agile.”
”A trained athlete, I suppose?”
”Magnificent! His strength is what he is proudest of and delights most in displaying.”
”Is he stupid, then?”
”Stupid? Frans Roy?----” She leaned back again, and Mary asked no more.
They had been late in setting out. Endless rows of returning carriages pa.s.sed them. The three broad driving-roads of the Avenue were crowded.
The nearer they came to the iron gate where these three meet in one, the more compact did the rows become. The display of light, many-coloured spring costumes on this first day of suns.h.i.+ne after rain was a unique sight. Amongst the fresh foliage the carriages looked like baskets of flowers among green leaves--one behind the other, one alongside of the other, without beginning, without end.
At the iron gate they came close to the undulating crowd of pedestrians.
No sooner were they inside than a disturbance communicated itself from right to left. The people on the right must see something invisible to the others. Some of them were screaming and pointing in the direction of the lakes; the carriages were ordered to drive either to the side or into the cross-roads; the agitation increased; it was soon universal.
Gendarmes and park-keepers rushed hither and thither; the carriages were packed so closely together that none of them could move on. A broad s.p.a.ce in the centre was soon clear for a considerable distance. All gazed, all questioned ... there it came! A pair of frantic horses with a heavy carriage behind them. On the box both coachman and groom were to be seen. There must have been a struggle, since there had been time to clear the way; or else the horses must have bolted a long way off. Up here, inside the gate, all the carriages had disappeared from the central pa.s.sage. Alice's stood blocked nearest the gate, against the left footpath. They hear shouts behind them; probably the whole Avenue is being cleared. But no one looks that way, all gaze straight ahead, at the magnificent animals that are tearing frantically towards them.
Driven by curiosity, the crowds on both sides swayed back and forwards.
Terrified voices outside the gate cried: ”Shut the gates!” A furious protest, a thousand-voiced jeer, answered them from within. In the carriages every one was standing; many had mounted the seats, Mary and Alice among the number. It seemed as if the horses' pace increased the nearer they came; both coachman and groom were tugging at the reins with might and main, but this only excited them the more. A man wearing a tall hat was leaning his whole body out of the carriage, probably to discover where he was going to break his neck. Some dogs were following, with strenuous protest. Up here they allured others on to the road, but these did not venture far out. Two or three that did, knocked up against each other with such violence that one fell and was run over; the carriage bounded, the dog howled; his comrades stopped for a moment.
Now a man, disengaging himself from the crowd at the iron gate, ran into the middle of the road. People shouted to him; they waved with sticks and umbrellas; they threatened. Two gendarmes ventured out a few steps after him and gesticulated and shouted; a single park-keeper inside the gate did the same, but ran back terrified. Instead of attending to these shouts and threats, the man measured the horses with his eye, moved to the left, to the right, back again to the left ... evidently preparing to throw himself on them.