PARTISAN REVIEW
343
Camier was first
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arrive at the appointed place. That is · to say
that on his arrival Mercier was not there. In reality Mercier had fore–
stalled him by a good ten minutes. Not Camier then, but Mercier, was
first
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arrive. He possessed' himself in patience for five minutes, with
his eye on the various avenues of approach open to his friend, then set
out for a saunter destined to last full fifteen minutes. Meantime
Camier, five minutes having passed without sight or sign of Mercier,
took himself off in his turn for a little stroll. On his return
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the place,
fifteen minutes later, it was in vain he cast about him, and understand–
ably so. For Mercier, after cooling his heels for a further five minutes,
had wandered off again for what he pleased
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call a little stretch.
Camier hung around for five more minutes, then again departed, say–
ing
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himself, Perhaps I'll run into him in the street. It was at this
moment that Mercier, back from his breather, which as chance this
time would have it had not exceeded ten minutes, glimpsed receding in
the morning mist a shape suggestive of Camier's and which was in–
deed none other. .Unhappily it vanished as though swallowed up by
the cobbles, leaving Mercier
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resume his vigil. But on expiry of what
is beginning to look like the regulation five minutes he abandoned it
again, feeling the need of a little motion. Their joy was thus for an
instant unbounded, Mercier's joy and Camier's joy, when after five and
ten minutes respectively of uneasy prowl, debouching simu ltaneously
on the square, they found themselves face
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face for the first time since
the evening before. The time was nine fifty in the morning.
In other words:
Arr. Dep. Arr. Dep. Arr. Dep. Arr.
Mercier
9.05 9. 10 9.25 9.30 9.40 9.45 9.50
Camier
9.15 9.20 9.35 9.40 9.50
What stink of artifice.
They were still in each other's arms when the rain began to fall,
with quite oriental abruptness. They made therefore with all speed to
the shelter which, in the form of a pagoda, had been erected here as
protection from the rain and other inclemencies, in a word from the
weather. Shadowy and abounding in nooks and crannies it was a
friend to lovers also and to the aged of either sex. Into this refuge, at
the same instant as our heroes, bounded a dog, followed shortly by a
second. Mercier and Camier, irresolute, exchanged a look. They had
not finished in each other's arms and yet felt awkward about resuming.
