The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online Page A

harbor works before they were abandoned had done a lot of good; they were responsible for a grand piano in one house, a new refrigerator in somebody's kitchen, and perhaps in some small unimportant subcontractor's cellar, where spirits had hitherto been little known, lay a dozen or two cases of the national Scotch. When Doctor Plarr returned to the Hotel Bolivar he found Charley Fortnum drinking strong black coffee made on a spirit ring which was installed on a marble-topped washstand, beside the soap dish and Doctor Humphries' tooth glass. He had become a good deal more coherent, and it was all the more difficult to dissuade him from visiting Señora Sanchez. "There's a girl there," he said. "A real girl. Not what you think at all. I've got to see her again. Last time I wasn't in a fit condition..."
           "You aren't in a fit condition now," Humphries said.
           "You don't understand me at all, do you? I only want to talk to her. We aren't all bloody lechers, Humphries. There's a quality about María. She doesn't belong..."
           "She's a whore like all the rest, I suppose," Doctor Humphries said, clearing his throat. Doctor Plarr was soon to learn that, whenever Humphries disapproved of a subject, his throat clogged with phlegm.
           "And that's where you're both of you so bloody wrong," Charley Fortnum said, although Doctor Plarr had not expressed an opinion. "She is different from all the others. She's got a sort of refinement. Her family comes from Córdoba. There's good blood in her or else I'm not Charley Fortnum. I know you think I'm a fool, but there's something well... almost virginal about that girl."
           "And you're the Consul here, honorary or not. You've no business to be seen in a low dive like that."
           "I respect the girl," Charley Fortnum said, "I respect her even when I sleep with her."
           "It's all you are capable of doing tonight."
           After a little more harsh persuasion, Fortnum allowed himself to be assisted to-Doctor Plarr's car.
           There he brooded in silence for a time, while his chin shook to the movement of the engine. "One grows old I suppose," he said suddenly. "You are young. You don't suffer from memories, regrets... Are you married?" he asked abruptly as they drove up San Martin.
           "No."
           "I was married once," Fortnum said, "twenty-five years ago—it seems a century now. It didn't work out. She was an intellectual if you understand what I mean. She didn't understand human nature." He switched—by an association of ideas Doctor Plarr found it impossible, to follow—to his present condition. "I always feel a great deal more human," he said, "when I've drunk just over half a bottle. A little less than half—that's no use at all, but a little more... Of course the effect doesn't last, but half an hour of feeling really good is worth some sadness afterward."
           "Are you talking of wine?" Doctor Plarr asked with incredulity. He couldn't believe that Fortnum had been so moderate.
           "Wine, whisky, gin, it's all the same. It's the measure that counts. There's something psychological in the measure. Less than half a bottle and Charley Fortnum's a poor lonely bastard with only Fortnum's Pride for company."
           "Fortnum's Pride?"
           "My proud and well-groomed steed. But one glass over the half-bottle—any glass, even a liqueur glass, it's just the measure that counts and Charley Fortnum's quite himself again. Fit for royalty. You know I went on a picnic with some royals once among the rums. We had two bottles among the three of us, and it was quite a day, I can tell you, but that's another story. Like Captain Izquierdo. Remind me to tell you one day about Captain Izquierdo." It was very hard for a stranger to follow Charley Fortnum's associations.
           "Where's the Consulate? Is it the next turning on the left?"
           "Yes, but we