WILLIAM DAVEY
I ultimately spent two days in Paris. I lodged at the Hotel des Étrangers in the guise of a visiting scholar.
Though internally I fretted about the lost time, I tried to make the best of it; Dupotet provided me an introduction to a few of his colleagues, including a formal one to the poet Leconte de Lisle. This encounter confirmed my earlier opinion—the man thought altogether too highly of himself. He had a reputation for deep thinking that was built upon a foundation of shifting sand; but such is the relationship between Frenchmen and their poets. Even Dupotet spoke highly of his literary feats, while admitting that his skill as a mesmerist left something to be desired.
In any case, I did not intend to remain in Paris long enough to ingratiate myself with the resident mesmerists, at least the ones over whom Charles Dupotet de Sennevoy presided as Le Maître. The Société de l’Harmonie Universelle claimed direct descent from the original body formed by the legendary Mesmer himself; it possessed a more mystical and philosophical bent than our own Committee.
Overall, despite its pedigree, it was not a particularly practical instrument for effecting useful action. With Dupotet—Le Maître—at its center, it had been turned into a cult of personality; in comparison to our rather brutal meritocracy, it was neither forceful nor efficient.
While I was personally known and my skill was respected, my Englishness was mildly disdained. As long as I obtained the help I needed, I cared very little for their opinion. Deflecting their questions and dismissing their frivolities were a matter of merely exercising patience and world-weariness. The rest was simply bluff and arch superiority.
My time in Paris was both gratifying and frustrating. Dupotet, once he determined that he would help me, was courteous and insightful; but I was eager to get on my way and had to wait until he was able to make dispositions on my behalf.
I had expected to depart from Gare Saint-Lazare for a destination somewhere to the east—Vienna, perhaps, or Berlin; instead, on the second night following my arrival, Le Maître directed our steps to the new railroad station, the Gare de Lyon, where he provided me with a first-class ticket for Marseilles and a steamship billet for Alexandria.
“I have sent letters on your behalf, William. Expect help in Alexandria, at least. I have further arranged for someone of approximately your height and build to don a suit that matches this drab and highly unfashionable one you wear. He will be on the express for Munich this evening,” he told me as we stood in the smoky concourse. “And before you complain, William, it is someone who is well-skilled in the Art.”
“I was actually going to react to the jibe about my clothing.”
“Really, I think that was quite on target. Minister or not, you really must consider returning here after your business in the East is finished. I shall introduce you to my tailor.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
“I truly am concerned about you,” Dupotet said. He paused and glanced up and down the wide concourse; I did as well, wondering if I might catch a glimpse of the Levantine somewhere nearby. There was no such apparition.
“Why?”
“It puts me in mind of a cartoon I saw some years ago,” Dupotet answered. “Before the late revolution. It showed our former king, Louis-Philippe, sitting on the cover of a teapot that was boiling over. He had talked about the ‘storm in the teapot’ to his ministers—but it erupted on him and gave us a republic.”
“For a few years.”
Dupotet snorted. “Yes. Well, that is the politics of my country. When I consider your situation, William, I am put in mind of that cartoon. You are sitting atop a major problem that has already begun to erupt.”
“I am working to avoid the worst.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. But if it were truly under your control, you would not be here—and asking for my help.” He embraced me after the custom of the French: a little unseemly, except we were in France, after all. Then he held me out at arm’s length. “I shall call upon you in future. But in the meanwhile”—his face went from merry to serious—“do not let matters reach the stage at which your people are unwelcome in my domain.”
“I shall do my best, Charles.”
“I know you will.”
At that time, the railway from Paris to Marseilles was not an express route: it was a new line, scarcely a dozen years old, and I am sure that if I had been traversing it by day I would have found it remarkably scenic. Instead, we passed ghost-like through Dijon, Chalon-sur-Saône, and then—deep in the night—Lyon, before leaving civilization behind and climbing into a remote, tree-covered region. From there we were to descend to the port and see the Mediterranean. In the dark compartment I made my best effort to sleep, but as we were obliged to make a number of stops on sidings, my rest was fitful at best. Once in the night, I wondered if we had stopped to allow Hannibal’s elephants to cross in front of us; but it was my imagination, or more likely the wind.
Awakening at night when a train halts on a siding or a train platform is a curious feeling. It is not always quite possible to determine what interrupted one’s sleep—and then suddenly the scene comes into focus. It is as if there is no one else awake: then in the quiet a whistle is blown and the train shudders into motion.
I wondered as I traveled southward what might be happening at home; however, I had chosen to put all of that aside by embarking upon this journey. Dupotet had, at my request, sent a two-word telegram to Carlyle just after my departure from Paris: “Chairman safe.” He would, I hoped, convey that assurance to the other principals of the Committee—or not: I had not imposed any constraints on my deputy’s style, except to protect the interests of the organization. He might well choose to keep Vernon, Jackson, and others in the dark, either from his own arrogance or to demonstrate his strength of will. Meanwhile, he would use the fine pretext of keeping information from the Committee’s enemies. Carlyle was a Germanophile and unimpressed with the French, after all, though that was nominally only in the realm of literature.
When it began to become light, I could see Marseilles spread out like a beautiful painting, with the Mediterranean shining beyond from the rays of the sun not yet visible. I had come through the night, travelling from darkness into light. My journey had only lately begun, but in a way, I felt that I had been freed from the perilous corner in which the chthonios had sought to trap me. I told myself that whatever lay ahead I would meet with firm decision, with my eyes open and in full possession of the initiative.
In that respect, I was totally and completely wrong.
I will not dwell upon the two days I spent in Marseilles waiting for the Alexandria steamer. The light rain sweeping off the sea dampened my spirits somewhat, but it was the forced patience that irked me the most, as I remained eager—I might even venture to say anxious—to be on my way. When the vessel finally arrived, the weather had at least turned pleasant. I boarded along with several other passengers and a large number of huge sealed cartons and sacks labeled with the mark of the French Emperor’s postal service—some, I noted, with destinations in India, like myself. But most cargo and passengers were bound for the Italian coast, despite the unrest there owing to the Risorgimento.
We traveled for three days, following the southern shore of Provence. If my mission had not been driving me on, I should have enjoyed the trip far more; the Provençal coast, with its tree-covered hills dappled with sun and rocky promontories jutting into the sea, is extraordinarily beautiful for anyone not condemned to the scourge of seasickness. I was not afflicted in the slightest by that malady, but despite my earlier feelings of freedom I could not avoid being troubled by what lay immediately before me. Still, the balmy and sunny pattern that replaced the recent intemperate weather was utterly different from the damp and foggy city of London in the autumn.
However, as I sat on the deck with the smokestacks and a straw hat affording me shade, I encountered some difficulty focusing on the matter at hand—chthonic spirits, Ann Daniel, the death of James Esdaile, Eliza—all of it; these things seemed distant, matters that elicited someone else’s concern.
Our second day at sea, we passed Corsica; the mountains were already covered with snow and their tops disappeared into the clouds. While we steamed along the coast of the island, we were followed by a whale for a time; it was a frequent companion and apparently, the sailors considered it a good omen.
The ship halted at Naples for almost a full day and departed by night. From the stern, I watched the light from brooding Mount Vesuvius until it disappeared below the horizon.
Those ships that do not pass between Scylla and Charybdis in the Strait of Messina follow the coast to the northwestern tip of Sicily. This cape is rocky and decorated with a scattering of small islands. In sailing days, ships had to weather that promontory to begin their travels eastward, but a modern steam vessel need only travel wide enough to avoid any hazard that such rocky islands might present. I had been drowsing in the mid-afternoon sun and noted the course change, turning our path east and south, placing the sunlight to starboard instead of ahead—and I was suddenly struck with the unusual feeling that we were being pitched downward, as if the sea itself were inclined in the direction we were travelling.
I could not account for this sensation, which grew greater as afternoon wore into evening. We passed a sward of green on our right—the island of Pantelleria, a bucolic-looking place that was a possession of the King of the Two Sicilies; it was swiftly left astern and was clearly not the source of my unusual feeling. I did not receive confirmation until early the following morning when, standing on deck in gray pre-dawn, I saw us drawing near the distant land.
By late morning I could at last resolve features on the horizon. What I had taken to be Malta—not being completely versed in the geography of the central Mediterranean—was in fact the rocky island of Gozo, the northwestern of the main islands in the Maltese archipelago. We were to steam along the north side of the islands to Grand Harbour on Malta proper; Gozo was not on our itinerary, merely a place to view just as Pantelleria had been on the previous evening. Still, I obtained the use of a spyglass from a crewman so that I could take a closer look.
As I swept the glass along the horizon, I picked out a singular formation of rock—a sort of arched bridge on the coast of Gozo, extending a number of feet out into the water; the waves of the Mediterranean crashed at its base and washed through the opening between the single pillar out in the ocean and the mainland.
I lowered the spyglass with astonishment. The crewman who had lent me the device squinted at me, then took the glass from my hands and spied in the direction I had been viewing.
“Bien, oui, that’s a pretty one,” he said. “Not sailed this way before, Monsieur?”
“What? Oh, no, never,” I said. “Would you tell me what we are looking at?”
“Oh, that? Quite a natural wonder. It’s called the ‘Azure Window,’ Monsieur. At low water, you can climb right up into it—it’s, I should say, a hundred fifty feet high—less when the tide is up. You can see right through it; that’s why they call it a window, I think.”
“Quite,” I said, and accepted the spyglass back from the man. To the naked eye it was as he had said—a rock arch with the rough headland of Gozo visible through the ‘window,’ but when I trained my spyglass on the formation, I did not see land beyond, framed by the stone arch.
It looked to me like a firmament dotted with pale stars scattered across a dark night.