The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport - The Three Correspondents Part 2

Kevin Owens (0:00)

Section 14 of The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Kevin Owens.

The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Section 14, The Three Correspondents, Part 2

The New Catacomb.

Look here, booger, said Kennedy. I do wish that you would confide in me. The two famous students of Roman remains sat together in Kennedy's comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth. Outside, under the bright winter stars, lay the modern Rome, the long, double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted cafes, the rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. But inside, in the sumptuous chamber of the rich young English archaeologist, there was only old Rome to be seen. Cracked and time-worn freezes hung upon the walls, gray old busts of senators and soldiers, with their fighting heads and their hard, cruel faces peered out from the corners. On the center table, amidst a litter of inscriptions, fragments, and ornaments, there stood the famous Reconstruction by Kennedy of the Bows of Caracalla, which excited such interest and admiration when it was exhibited in Berlin.

Amphorae hung from the ceiling, and a litter of curiosities strewed the rich red turkey carpet. And of them all there was not one which was not of the most unimpeachable authenticity and of the utmost rarity and value. For Kennedy, though little more than thirty, had a European reputation in this particular branch of research, and was, moreover, provided with that long purse which either proves to be a fatal handicap to the student's energies or, if his mind is still true to its purpose, gives him an enormous advantage in the race for fame. Kennedy had often been seduced by Whim in pleasure from his studies, but his mind was an incisive one, capable of long and concentrated efforts which ended in sharp reactions of sensuous linger. His handsome face, with its high white forehead, its aggressive nose, and its somewhat loose and sensuous mouth, was a fair index of the compromise between strength and weakness in his nature.

Of a very different type was his companion, Julius Berger. He came of a curious blend, a German father and an Italian mother, with the robust qualities of the North mingling strangely with the softer graces of the South. Blue Teutonic eyes lightened his sun-browned face, and above them rose a square, massive forehead, with the fringe of close yellow curls lying rounded. His strong, firm jaw was clean-shaven, and his companion had frequently remarked how much it suggested those old Roman busts which peered out from the shadows in the corners of his chamber. Under its bluff German strength, there lay always a suggestion of Italian subtlety. But the smile was so honest, and the eyes so frank, that one understood that this was only an indication of his ancestry, with no actual bearing upon his character.

In age and in reputation, he was on the same level as his English companion, but his life and his work had both been far more ergeous. Twelve years before he had come as a poor student to Rome, and had lived ever since upon some small endowment for research, which had been awarded to him by the University of Bonn.

Painfully, slowly, and doggedly, with extraordinary tenacity and single-mindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of fame until now he was a member of the Berlin Academy, and there was every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the chair of the greatest of German universities. But the singleness of purpose which had brought him to the same high level as the rich and brilliant Englishmen had caused him in everything outside their work to stand infinitely below him. He had never found a pause in his studies in which to cultivate the social graces. It was only when he spoke of his own subject that his face was filled with life and soul. At other times he was silent and embarrassed, too conscious of his own limitations in larger subjects, and impatient of that small talk which is the conventional refuge of those who have no thoughts to express.

And yet for some years there had been an acquaintanceship which appeared to be slowly ripening into a friendship between these two very different rivals. The base and origin of this lay in the fact that in their own studies each was the only one of the younger men who had knowledge and enthusiasm enough to properly appreciate the other. Their common interests and pursuits had brought them together, and each had been attracted by the other's knowledge. And then gradually something had been added to this. Kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while Berger, in turn, had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favorite in Roman society.