Poe's name can be restored. Snatched away from an eternity of injustice."
Peter reached for the newspaper extract again, but I grabbed it out of his hand and folded it into my pocket.
He seemed angered by this. Peter's massive hand now shot forward, clutching, as though needing to choke something, even the air. With his other hand, he flung the book of Poe tales straight into our hearth, the flames of which had been stoked up into a cheerful fire by one of the clerks just a half hour before.
"There!" he said.
The hearth fizzled with its sacrifice. I think Peter was instantly sorry for his action, since the fierceness in his face transformed into sourness as soon as the flames reached for the pages of the book. Understand, this was not one of the volumes I prized for its binding or from any particular sentimental attachment. It was not the copy I had found myself reading in the quiet days after receiving the telegram of my parents' deaths.
And yet, unthinkingly, with the swiftest motion I had ever shown, I reached in and pulled out the book. I stood there in the middle of my chambers, the book ablaze in my hand. My sleeve became a burning ring at the cuff. But I stood resolutely in place as Peter blinked, his helpless eyes large and glinting red with the fire as he took in this sight: the sight of his partner gripping a flaming book while the sizzling fire was beginning to engulf his arm. Strangely, the more delirious his expression became, the more tranquil I felt myself become. I could not remember ever having felt so strong, so decided in my purpose as in this single moment. I knew what was necessary for me now.
Hattie had come into the room looking for me. She stared at me, stared at the burning object I held in front of me, not shocked, exactly, but with a rare flash of anger.
She threw a rug from the hall over my arm and patted the flames until the fire was out. Peter recovered himself enough to gasp at the incident and then check the rug's damage before conferring with Hattie. The two clerks hurried over to me to stare, as if at a wild beast.
"Get out! Out of these offices now, Quentin!" Peter shouted, pointing with a trembling hand.
"Peter, no, please!" Hattie cried.
"Very well," I said.
I stepped out of my chamber door. Hattie was calling for me to return. But I did not turn back. I could see only faraway things in my mind as though they were stretched out before me in the wings of these halls: the long promenades, the din of the busy cafes, the unabashed, dreamy musical chords of dancing and fetes, the redemption waiting to be uncovered in a distant metropolis.
Chapter 7
Book II. Paris
7
I ARRIVED AT my first appointment in Paris by way of kidnapping.
In our American cities the stranger is left modestly to himself, with great cruelty and politeness; but in Paris a stranger has a constant sense of being shoved and directed by the citizens and officials; if you are lost, the Frenchman will run half a mile at great speed to point at your destination, and will accept no thanks. Perhaps kidnapping is the inevitable culmination of their aggressive kindness.
I made my voyage to Paris approximately a year and a half after I pulled that book out of the fire. My first shock upon arrival came at the railroad terminus, where screams of commissionnaires lure visitors to one or another hotel. I tried to avoid their outstretched hands.
I stopped where I met a man barking for the Hotel Corneille, named after the great French playwright. I had read of the hotel in a novel of Balzac's (for I had brought some books of his and the novelist George Sand's for entertainment and study on my voyage) and it was reputed to be an establishment welcoming to those who indulge in the various branches of the humanities. I considered my own purposes as having a degree of literary character.
"You are for the Corneille, monsieur?"
At my assent he released a hoarse sigh, as if to thank heaven he could rest from shouting. "This way, if you please!" He brought me to his carriage, where he labored to secure my bags above, occasionally pausing to examine me with an air of exuberant happiness at having a New World visitor as a passenger.
"You have come on business, monsieur?"
I contemplated an answer. "I