and scrambling down wild ravines with my letter to Dona Rita in his pocket.  It would be such a letter of farewell as no lover had ever written, no woman in the world had ever read, since the beginning of love on earth.  It would be worthy of the woman.  No experience, no memories, no dead traditions of passion or language would inspire it.  She herself would be its sole inspiration.  She would see her own image in it as in a mirror; and perhaps then she would understand what it was I was saying farewell to on the very threshold of my life.  A breath of vanity passed through my brain.  A letter as moving as her mere existence was moving would be something unique.  I regretted I was not a poet.

I woke up to a great noise of feet, a sudden influx of people through the doors of the platform.  I made out my man’s whiskers at once—­not that they were enormous, but because I had been warned beforehand of their existence by the excellent Commissary General.  At first I saw nothing of him but his whiskers:  they were black and cut somewhat in the shape of a shark’s fin and so very fine that the least breath of air animated them into a sort of playful restlessness.  The man’s shoulders were hunched up and when he had made his way clear of the throng of passengers I perceived him as an unhappy and shivery being.  Obviously he didn’t expect to be met, because when I murmured an enquiring, “Senor Ortega?” into his ear he swerved away from me and nearly dropped a little handbag he was carrying.  His complexion was uniformly pale, his mouth was red, but not engaging.  His social status was not very definite.  He was wearing a dark blue overcoat of no particular cut, his aspect had no relief; yet those restless side-whiskers flanking his red mouth and the suspicious expression of his black eyes made him noticeable.  This I regretted the more because I caught sight of two skulking fellows, looking very much like policemen in plain clothes, watching us from a corner of the great hall.  I hurried my man into a fiacre.  He had been travelling from early morning on cross-country lines and after we got on terms a little confessed to being very hungry and cold.  His red lips trembled and I noted an underhand, cynical curiosity when he had occasion to raise his eyes to my face.  I was in some doubt how to dispose of him but as we rolled on at a jog trot I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do would be to organize for him a shake-down in the studio.  Obscure lodging houses are precisely the places most looked after by the police, and even the best hotels are bound to keep a register of arrivals.  I was very anxious that nothing should stop his projected mission of courier to headquarters.  As we passed various street corners where the mistral blast struck at us fiercely I could feel him shivering by my side.  However, Therese would have lighted the iron stove in the studio before retiring for the night, and, anyway, I would have to turn her out to make up a