He began to forget our existence again, laying his face on his forearms and staring down at the floor between his feet.

“What brought it back to memory?” asked Gloria.

“The Turk brought it back—­Fiamil—­who bought my mother from four drunken soldiers, and ill-treated her before my eyes.  He came to the Turkish consulate, not as consul but in some peculiar position; and by that time I was thriving as head-waiter and part-owner of a New York restaurant.  Thither the fat beast came to eat daily.  And so I met him, and recognized him.  He did not know me.

“Remember, I was young, and prosperous for the first time in all my life.  You must not judge me by too up-right standards.  At first I argued with myself to let him alone.  He was nothing to me.  I no longer believed in God.  My mother was long dead, and Armenia no more my country.  My money was accumulating in a savings bank.  I was proud of it, and I remember I saw visions of great restaurants in every city of America, all owned by me!  I did not like to take any step that should prevent that flow of money into the savings bank.

“But Fiamil inflamed my memory, and I saw him every day.  And at last it dawned on me what his peculiar business in America must be.  He was back at his old games, buying women.  He was buying American young women to be shipped to Turkey, all under the seal of consular activity.  One day, after he had had lunch and I had brought him cigarettes and coffee, he made a proposal.  And although I did not care very deeply for the women of a free land who were willing to be sold into Turkish harems, nevertheless, as I said, he inflamed my memory.  A love of Armenia returned to me.  I remembered my people, I remembered my mother’s shame, and my own shame.

“After a little reflection I agreed with Fiamil, and met him that night in an up-stairs room at a place he frequented for his purposes.  I locked the door, and we had some talk in there, until in the end he remembered me and all the details of my mother’s death.  After that I killed him with a corkscrew and my ten fingers, there being no other weapon.  And I threw his body out of the window into the gutter, as my mother’s body had been thrown, myself escaping from the building by another way.

“Not knowing where to hide, I kept going—­kept going; and after two days I fell among sportmen—­cow-punchers they called themselves, who had come to New York with a circus, and the circus had gone broke.  To them I told some of my story, and they befriended me, taking me West with them to cook their meals; and for a year I traveled in cow camps.  In those days I remembered God as well as Armenia, and I used to pray by starlight.

“And Armenia kept calling—­calling.  Fiamil had wakened in me too many old memories.  But there was the money in the savings bank that I did not dare to draw for fear the police might learn my address, yet I had not the heart to leave behind.