The Balloonist by MacDonald Harris Page B

conversation was of Rodin, the gloomy footman served loukoumi and tea. I learned quite by accident that Luisa was engaged. Her fiancé was a young Spanish officer of artillery who, it seemed, was considered a family joke. His name was Alberto but for some reason he was called the Peninsula. Perhaps it was because he was Spanish, or because he was only semi-attached to the family. I never actually encountered him at Quai d’Orléans, although there was a photograph of him on the piano: a self-satisfied young man with a strong jaw, something like a bulldog, and a meaty nose. His eyebrows met over the nose, so that he really only had one of them. I cannot say why I found this last detail repugnant, or amusing. I don’t know what I expected eyebrows to do. The aunt’s sloped outward and I found this eccentric too. The aunt never did ask me about my emanations,as Luisa had promised she would, but on my final visit to Quai d’Orléans she did interrogate me about my position in life. I told her that I was attached to the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and had every expectation of becoming its librarian in due time, and in the meanwhile I was devoting myself to my researches, which had won me a modest recognition along with membership in an international society or two. This crass little speech was pompous but so, I felt, was the question.
    â€œLuisa tells me you are interested in spiritualism.”
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œWell then, in electricity or something. It’s much the same thing.”
    â€œIt’s the furthest thing possible from the same thing.”
    â€œIs it true that, with electricity, one can tell what people are doing in the next room?”
    â€œOnly if they are sending out waves with a coulomb apparatus.”
    â€œWhat is it exactly that you are discovering then? I am sorry that I am such a stupid old woman.” The head vibrated back and forth, denying all, as she smiled and made this apology.
    By this time I was feeling quite arrogant, not to say hilarious. “I believe that intelligences on the stars may be attempting to send us telegraph messages. If so, it is a question of the greatest importance. Are you interested in such matters?”
    But, like her niece, she countered all questions by changing the subject. “Do you know, I wonder if you have noticed that Luisa is a remarkable young person. We expect extraordinary things from her. Extraordinary. Do you know that she reads Dante?”
    I agreed that she was educated beyond the common sphere of woman, but my phraseology here was unfortunate and evoked a blank stare.
    â€œThese spheres of which you speak, my dear Captain,” she informed me, “are of a bygone era. Persons of advanced thought, these days, no longer believe that half the human race is confined in one sphere and the other half in another, or rather free to wander around and do exactly as it pleases. Apropos, tell me something, dites donc, why is it that you are a military man and yet you don’t wear a uniform?”
    â€œPrimo,” I explained,“I am on detached duty; secundo, the container ought to indicate the contents, and taken apart from or inside my clothes, I am not very uniform.”
    â€œInside your clothes you are not the same?”
    â€œProfoundly different.”
    â€œAh.” A skeptical look came into her eye, but she said nothing, only waggled her head.
    I forget what else happened at this last tea. A good many idiocies. I talked for a little while to the mother, or attempted to, but it was thick going. For one thing she stood slightly too close to me for the conversation to be comfortable. It was about an arm’s length, or three quarters of a metre. As inconspicuously as I could I would back away about a hand’s breadth, she would follow me by the same distance, and so on. This has happened to me before and it is a futile exercise at best. Such a ballet can describe large