“It is true,” said Max Cadol, to whom I was clumsily expressing myself. “It is regret. It is beauty more than one can bear. It is the nostalgia of immortality.”
“He would impress you with the idea that he is a poet and a philosopher,” said Tombarel, sweeping his pointed white beard, “but I know him better.”
“A man is never a hero to his godfather,” said Max Cadol.
“Especially if he happens to be Mayor of Creille,” said Tombarel, repeating himself. “If you only knew what I have suffered at the hands of this poet and philosopher and hero.”
Cadol lit a cigar. Its blue smoke toned in with the blue of the sky. There was a span of silence.
Presently, with a glint of his dark eyes and a gesture, Cadol drew my attention to the old man, drowsing in his long cane chair. We laughed and drew our
