But how did I make his acquaintance? Why was I selected to be his
historiographer? Why I, and not some one else?
The answer is simple: chance alone presided over my choice; my
merit was not considered. It was chance that put me in his way.
It was by chance that I was participant in one of his strangest and
most mysterious adventures; and by chance that I was an actor in a
drama of which he was the marvelous stage director; an obscure and
intricate drama, bristling with such thrilling events that I feel a
certain embarrassment in undertaking to describe it.
The first act takes place during that memorable night of 22 June,
of which so much has already been said. And, for my part, I
attribute the anomalous conduct of which I was guilty on that
occasion to the unusual frame of mind in which I found myself on my
return home. I had dined with some friends at the Cascade
restaurant, and, the entire evening, whilst we smoked and the
orchestra played melancholy waltzes, we talked only of crimes and
thefts, and dark and frightful intrigues. That is always a poor
overture to a night's sleep.
The Saint-Martins went away in an automobile. Jean Daspry--that
delightful, heedless Daspry who, six months later, was killed in
such a tragic manner on the frontier of Morocco--Jean Daspry and I
returned on foot through the dark, warm night.
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