If I still find all this worth saying, if I am sitting here writing this letter to you, it is only because—in you—I have found one last exception, one last spark of that which life is not anymore. It is not your beauty, nor your fame, nor your great art. It is not in the women you have played—for you have never played that which I see in you, that which—with the last faith left to me—I believe you really are. It is something without name, something lost deep beyond your eyes, beyond the movements of your body, something to which one could wave banners, to which one could drink, for which one could go out into a last, sacred battle—if sacred battles were still possible in the world of today.

  When I see you on the screen, I know suddenly what it was that life has never given me, I know what I could have been, and I know—anxious, helpless, frightened—the fearful spark of what it means to be able to desire.

  I have said that I am leaving the sideshow. It does not mean that I am dying. But if I do not bother to die, it is only because my life has all the emptiness of the grave and my death would have no change to offer me. It may happen, any day now, and nobody, not even the one writing these lines, will know the difference.

  But before it happens, I want to raise what is left of my soul in a last salute to you, you who are that which the world could have been. Morituri te salutamus.

  Dietrich von Esterhazy

  Beverly-Sunset Hotel

  Beverly Hills, California”

  On the evening of May 5th, Dietrich von Esterhazy wrote out a check for one thousand and seventy-two dollars, while he had three hundred and sixteen dollars left in his bank account.

  Lalo Jones shrugged her shoulders and whispered:

  “I don’t see why I have to stop, Rikki. If you let me stay a little longer, I’m sure I can win it back.”

  He said:

  “I’m sorry. I’m a little tired. Do you mind if we go now?”

  She threw her head up, her long pearl earrings swaying like moist pink raindrops against her shoulders, and rose impatiently.

  The tight ring of black coats and white, naked backs closed again around the roulette table. The huge white lamp in a slanting shade, low over the table, made a yellow pool in the blue, smoke-filled dusk, a pool edged by glistening black heads with neat parts, and heads of soft, golden waves, and heads of silvery gray, and tiny pink ears sparkling with diamonds, all bending over a spot where chips clicked dryly and something whirred sharply, hissing in a sudden silence.

  “What’s the matter, Rikki?” Lalo Jones asked, putting a soft little hand on his black sleeve. “I must say you’re not the best of company tonight.”

  “My dear, I am ever helpless in your charming presence,” he answered indifferently.

  “A drink, Rikki? Before we go? Just one?”

  “As you wish.”

  Beyond a broad arch, glasses glittered in a row like thin, upturned silvery bells in a haze of smoke, over a dark bar. Soft music came from nowhere, a whirling tune that gasped, breaking on sharp, high notes.

  Lalo Jones raised a glass to her lips slowly, as if she was tired. Her movements were always slow, weary with the most graceful lassitude. Her arms and shoulders were bare, round and sunburnt, soft with a fuzz one could not see, but guessed, like the fuzz of a peach which one wanted irresistibly to feel. She drew her shoulders into a soft, lazy huddle, leaning with one elbow on the bar, resting her chin on the back of a little dimpled hand with tapering, gracefully drooping fingers. She wore a simple ring with a huge pink pearl, round and dully lustrous like her shoulders.

  “But we’ll have to go to Agua Caliente, Rikki,” she was saying, “and this time I’ll put it all on Black Rajah. He’s going to run and Marian says she knows for certain—she has it straight from Dicky—that it’s a cinch. By the way, Madame Ailen is sure she can get that French perfume for me, the real thing, if you pay her a hundred or something to order it. . . . They make the most impossible martinis here. . . . By the way, Rikki, my chauffeur’s wages were due yesterday. And, Rikki . . .”

  Dietrich von Esterhazy was listening, and if he answered, neither he nor Lalo knew it. His empty glass stood at his elbow, but he did not order another, even though Lalo was sipping slowly her third one.

  A glistening gentleman slapped his shoulder, and Lalo nodded to him lazily, and the gentleman roared confidentially at some joke he had just heard, and Lalo laughed, showing little sparkling teeth, and Dietrich von Esterhazy smiled, looking into space.

  Then he threw a twenty-dollar bill to the bartender and turned away without waiting for the change. Behind his back the bartender was bowing eagerly, hurriedly.

  “What I like about you, Rikki,” Lalo whispered, clinging to his arm as they made their way to the cloakroom, “is the manner you have of knowing how to spend money.”

  Dietrich von Esterhazy smiled. When he smiled, his thin mouth drew into a longer line, without opening, and his lower lip stuck out slightly, and deep, ironic little wrinkles creased his pale, lean cheeks. He had golden blond hair, and silvery blue eyes, and a tall body, erect, precise, a body born for uniforms and evening clothes.

  In the cloakroom, he held Lalo’s wrap for her, and the white ermine cuddled in soft, lazy folds to her shoulders.

  Then they were swaying in the deep cushions of his Duesenberg, and Lalo stretched out her little satin pumps, and put her dark, perfumed head on his shoulder.

  “Sorry I lost that money,” she whispered lazily. “It wasn’t very much, though.”

  “Not at all, my dear. Glad you enjoyed the evening.”

  Dietrich von Esterhazy suddenly felt very tired; his hands fell limply between his knees, and he had no strength to lift them.

  The car drew up smoothly at the door of a tall, trim building with a gilded, softly lit lobby beyond the glass entrance.

  “What? Taking me home already?” Lalo asked, wrinkling her little nose. “Don’t you want me to go with you? To wish you good night?”

  “Not tonight. Do you mind?”

  She shrugged, tightening the white ermine under her chin. She stepped out, throwing back over her shoulder:

  “Well, phone me sometime. I’ll answer—if I feel like it.”

  The door closed and the car tore forward. Dietrich von Esterhazy leaned back, his hands hanging between his knees.

  When he stepped out at the door of the Beverly Sunset Hotel, he said to the chauffeur:

  “I won’t need you tomorrow, Johnson.”

  He had no intention of saying that; but when he had said it he knew why he had.

  He crossed the long lobby swiftly, swinging his cane under his arm. Upstairs, in his suite, where soft light made circles on a soft carpet, and long drapes seemed to swallow all sounds from the city far below, he put on a dark satin lounging jacket, walked to a table where a crystal decanter and spotless glasses were waiting for him, took a glass, hesitated, and put it down again. He walked to the window, pulled the drapes aside, and stood motionless, looking at the lights twinkling over the silence of a sleeping city.

  It had been so sudden and now all was so simple. He had not planned to write that check; a few hours ago, he had problems, a thick web of problems he was too weary to untangle; now he was free, free at one useless stroke he had not intended striking.

  He had other debts: his hotel bill, Lalo’s new Packard, his tailor’s bill, the diamond bracelet he had given Hughette Dorsey, the bill for that last party he had given—and cocaine was expensive, the sable coat for Lona Weston. And although he had repeated it to himself for the last few months, he knew suddenly, for the first time, that he had nothing left.

  He had felt it vaguely, uncertainly, for the last two years; but a fortune of several millions did not disappear without a few last convulsions; there had always been something to sell, to pawn, to borrow on; always someone to borrow from. This time, the fortune lay still, dead in the fearful silence of a few hundreds in some bank, of closed safe deposit boxes, and unpaid bills. Tomorrow, Count Dietrich von Esterhazy would be called upon to explain the matter of a bad check. He would not be there for the call. Count Dietrich von Esterhazy had but one night left to live.

  The thought left him completely indifferent; that surprised him, but he was indifferent even to his own indifference. There, below, beyond those lights twinkling in dim windows, men were struggling in agonies such as no hell could hold, to hang on to that precious, worthless gift of life which he was giving up, lightly, wearily, as if tossing a tip to a waiter.

  Fifteen years ago, arrogant and young, last descendant of a proud old name, he had been thrown out of Germany by the revolution, with many millions in his pocket and an infinite contempt in his heart. He had wandered all over the world, strewing away, in his footsteps, his fortune and his spirit, drop by drop, with each step. He knew it had been fifteen years when he looked at the calendar; when he looked into his soul it seemed like fifteen centuries.

  He dimly remembered chandeliers reflected in a polished floor and high-heeled slippers on slender, glistening legs; a hard, golden tennis court and his body swift, light, in white trousers and a damp white shirt; a propeller roaring through space and a flat, endless earth swaying very far below; white gulls and a motor shrieking through salty sprays, his hands on a wheel, his blond hair under a blue sky; a little ball spinning dizzily through squares of black and red; white bedrooms and white shoulders leaning back, limp, exhausted. And not one moment was worth reliving. Not one foot of ground was worth retraveling, in an empty world to which a lonely, haughty aristocrat, drugging an anguished brain, could not be reconciled.

  That was ended. He could still wear his trim evening clothes and beg lonely dollars from those who had them, a brazen nonchalance hiding an obsequious smile, pleading an equality that would exist no longer; he could carry a shining briefcase and talk glibly of bonds and interest, and bow like a well-trained valet. But Dietrich von Esterhazy had too much good taste.

  He would do it in the morning. One bullet could end so much. He would go, weary and alone, without a great cause, without a last worthy gesture, end his life for the sake of a few moments of gambling by a woman he had never loved.

  The telephone rang.

  He lifted the receiver wearily.

  “A lady wishes to see you, sir,” a polite, expressionless voice informed him from the desk below.

  “Who is she?” asked Dietrich von Esterhazy.

  There was a silence. Then the voice answered:

  “The lady declines to give her name, sir. But she will send it up to you.”

  Dietrich von Esterhazy let the receiver drop and yawned. He lit a cigarette and stuck it mechanically into the corner of his mouth. A hand knocked at his door. A stiff chest with two rows of polished buttons stood on the threshold, two straight fingers holding a sealed envelope.

  Dietrich von Esterhazy tore the envelope open. The note contained but two words:

  “Kay Gonda.”

  Dietrich von Esterhazy laughed.

  “All right,” he told the bellhop, “have the lady come up.”

  If it was a joke, he wanted to know whose joke and why. When a hand knocked at his door again, his thin lips smiled without opening, and he said:

  “Come in.”

  Then the door opened and his smile disappeared. He did not move but for one hand that took his cigarette and descended slowly.

  Dietrich von Esterhazy bowed calmly from the hips and said:

  “Good evening, Miss Gonda.”

  She answered:

  “Good evening.”

  “Please sit down.” He moved a comfortable armchair. “I am greatly honored.” He offered her a cigarette, but she shook her head.

  She remained standing, looking at him from under the brim of her black hat.

  “Are you sure you want me to stay?” she asked. “It may be dangerous. You have not asked me why I came.”

  “You came—and that is all I have to know. Unless you wish to tell me now.”

  “I want to tell you that I am hiding from the police.”

  “I guessed that.”

  “I’m in danger.”

  “I understand. You do not have to explain, if you would rather not discuss it.”

  “I’d rather not. But I must ask you to let me stay here for the night.”

  He bowed again, swiftly, precisely. He said:

  “Miss Gonda, had we met two centuries ago, I would have laid my sword at your feet. Unfortunately, this age does not believe in swords. But my life and my house are at your feet, gratefully, for the great honor of being selected to help you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She sat down and tore her hat off wearily, and it dropped from her hand to the floor. He hurried to pick it up. He walked to the windows and drew the curtains. He said:

  “You are safe here, with me. As safe as in one of those castles my ancestors had to protect that which was most precious to them.”

  “Now give me a cigarette.”

  He offered his open cigarette case, struck a flame in his dark metal lighter with its golden crest, held it out to her steadily, and his eyes glanced straight into hers, into those wide, pale eyes that looked so calm and open, concealing a mystery he could not pierce.

  He sat down, facing her, leaning on the arm of his chair, the light of a lamp on his golden hair. He said:

  “Do you know that it is really I who must thank you? Not only for coming, but for coming tonight of all nights.”

  “Why?”

  “It is strange. One might almost think that there is some providence watching over us. Perhaps, you have taken one life in order to save another.”

  “I have?”

  “You have killed a man. Please excuse me for mentioning this, if it is unpleasant to you. But please understand that it is not said in the spirit of reproach. After all, men make entirely too much of the fact of murder. There is more honor in having killed than in being one worth being killed.”

  “But you did not know Granton Sayers.”

  “And I do not have to know. I know you. The great mistake has always been in thinking that a life is a precious entity equal to all other lives. When, as a matter of fact, there are lives that cannot be replaced by millions of others through centuries to come. Men hunt a murderer, when the first, the only question, should be whether the murdered one was worth leaving alive. In this case, how could he have been, if you found it necessary to kill him? In that alone, whoever he was, whatever he had done, is the justification of what men may call your crime. One thousand lives—what are they beside one hour of yours?”

  “But you do not know me.”

  He was leaning toward her, and the cigarette dropped, unnoticed, from his fingers.

  “I know what you can tell me about yourself. I know that world into which you have been thrown and what it has done to you. But I know something that has kept you out of its reach. Something which I wish I did not see. Something I can’t help seeing. Only I can’t name it.”

  “What is it?” she asked softly. “My beauty?”

  “Beauty is one of those words that seem to mean so much, but when you think of it, it means nothing whatever. I have looked at all that men call beauty—and I’ve longed for some nonexistent boric acid to wash my eyes.”

  “My wisdom?”

  “I have listened to all that men call wisdom—and I have heard nothing more valuable than how to clean my fingernails.”

  “My art?”

  “I have watched all that men call art—and I have yawned. If I were allowed to make one request to the all-powerful Messiah of this world—if such existed—I would beg him, on my knees, for a cure to stop me from yawning. Only that can never be granted.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know. Something that needs no name, no explanation. Something to which the proudest, the weariest head bows reverently. You have given yourself to a graceless world and to many graceless men. I know that. But something has kept you still out of their reach. Something. What is it?”

  “A hope,” she whispered.

  He rose. He paced up and down the room. His steps had the light, exultant swing of youth. His eyes were tired no longer; they were eager, sparkling, alive. He stopped suddenly before her.

  “A hope! Who doesn’t have that? Man has always known, deep in his heart, that his life is not what it should have been. He has always gone forth on glorious, doomed crusades. But he has always returned empty-handed. Because he has never had a chance. It’s a hopeless quest and one gets so tired! I have seen all men call their virtues. I have seen all they call their vices and I have enjoyed the vices to forget their virtues. But I still have that in me which has eyes for the real, the only life possible, that which still keeps me alive. That which is the highest. You.”

  “Are you sure,” she whispered, “are you sure you want me?”

  “You’ll know the answer,” he replied, “tomorrow.”

  He stood before her, his eyes blazing.

  “I’ve told you you have saved a life tonight. You have. I was ready to end it. But not now. Not now. I have something worth fighting for. We have to flee—both of us. We’ll run away to where men’s claws will never reach us. I want nothing but to serve you. Nothing, but to be a knight such as my ancestors were. They would envy me, if they could see me. For my Holy Grail is of this earth. It is real, alive, possible. Only even they may not understand. No one will understand. It will remain only for the two of us. Only for you and me.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, and her eyes were on him, and her eyes were open, trusting, surrendering, “only for you and me.”