A Chair on The Boulevard
by
Leonard Merrick
Part 1 out of 5
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ginny Brewer, Tom Allen
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD
By LEONARD MERRICK
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. NEIL LYONS
1921
CONTENTS
I THE TRAGEDY OF A COMIC SONG
II TRICOTRIN ENTERTAINS
III THE FATAL FLOROZONDE
IV THE OPPORTUNITY OF PETITPAS
V THE CAFÉ OF THE BROKEN HEART
VI THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET
VII THE SUICIDES IN THE RUE SOMBRE
VIII THE CONSPIRACY FOR CLAUDINE
IX THE DOLL IN THE PINK SILK DRESS
X THE LAST EFFECT
XI AN INVITATION TO DINNER
XII THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
XIII THE FAIRY POODLE
XIV LITTLE-FLOWER-OF-THE-WOOD
XV A MIRACLE IN MONTMARTRE
XVI THE DANGER OF BEING A TWIN
XVII HERCULES AND APHRODITE
XVIII "PARDON, YOU ARE MADEMOISELLE GIRARD!"
XIX HOW TRICOTRIN SAW LONDON
XX THE INFIDELITY OF MONSIEUR NOULENS
INTRODUCTION
These disjointed thoughts about one of Leonard Merrick's most
articulate books must begin with a personal confession.
For many years I walked about this earth avoiding the works of Leonard
Merrick, as other men might have avoided an onion. This insane aversion
was created in my mind chiefly by admirers of what is called the
"cheerful" note in fiction. Such people are completely agreed in
pronouncing Mr. Merrick to be a pessimistic writer. I hate pessimistic
writers.
Years ago, when I was of an age when the mind responds acutely to
exterior impressions, some well-meaning uncle, or other fool, gave me a
pessimistic book to read. This was a work of fiction which the British
Public had hailed as a masterpiece of humour. It represented, with an
utter fury of pessimism, the spiritual inadequacies of--but why go into
details.
Now, I have to confess that for a long time I did Mr. Merrick the
extraordinary injustice of believing him to be the author of that
popular masterpiece.
The mistake, though intellectually unpardonable, may perhaps be
condoned on other grounds. By virtue of that process of thought which
we call the "association of ideas," I naturally connected Mr. Merrick
with this work of super-pessimism; my friends being so confirmed in
their belief that he was a super-pessimist.
But by virtue of a fortunate accident, I at last got the truth about
Mr. Merrick. This event arose from the action of a right-minded
butcher, who, having exhausted his stock of _The Pigeon-Fancier's
Gazette_, sent me my weekly supply of dog-bones wrapped about with
Leonard Merrick.
These dog-bones happened to reach my house at a moment when no other
kind of literary nutriment was to be had. Having nothing better to read
I read the dog-bone wrappers. Thus, by dog-bones, was I brought to
Merrick: the most jolly, amusing, and optimistic of all spiritual
friends.
The book to which these utterances are prefixed is to my mind one of
the few _really_ amusing books which have been published in
England during my lifetime. But, then, I think that all of Mr.
Merrick's books are amusing: even his "earnest" books, such as _The
Actor-Manager, When Love Flies out o' the Window_, or _The
Position of Peggy Harper_.
It is, of course, true that such novels as these are unlikely to be
found congenial by those persons who derive entertainment from fiction
like my uncle's present. On the other hand, there are people in the
world with a capacity for being amused by psychological inquiry. To
such people I would say: "Don't miss Merrick." The extraordinary
cheerfulness of Mr. Merrick's philosophy is a fact which will impress
itself upon all folk who are able to take a really cheerful view of
life.
All of Mr. Merrick's sermons--I do not hesitate to call his novels
"sermons," because no decent novel can be anything else--all his
sermons, I say, point to this conclusion: that people who go out
deliberately to look for happiness, to kick for it, and fight for it,
or who try to buy it with money, will miss happiness; this being a
state of heart--a mere outgrowth, more often to be found by a careless
and self-forgetful vagrant than by the deliberate and self-conscious
seeker. A cheerful doctrine this. Not only cheerful, but self-evidently
true. How right it is, and how cheerful it is, to think that while
philosophers and clergymen strut about this world looking out, and
smelling out, for its prime experiences, more careless and less
celebrated men are continually finding such things, without effort,
without care, in irregular and unconsecrated places.
In novel after novel, Mr. Merrick has preached the same good-humoured,
cheerful doctrine: the doctrine of anti-fat. He asks us to believe--he
_makes_ us believe--that a man (or woman) is not merely virtuous,
but merely sane, who exchanges the fats of fulfilment for the little
lean pleasures of honourable hope and high endeavour. Oh wise, oh witty
Mr. Merrick!
Mr. Merrick has not, to my knowledge, written one novel in which his
hero is represented as having achieved complacency. Mr. Merrick's
heroes all undergo the very human experience of "hitting a snag." They
are none of them represented as _enjoying_ this experience; but
none of them whimper and none of them "rat."
If anybody could prove to me that Mr. Merrick had ever invented a hero
who submitted tamely to tame success, to fat prosperity; or who had
stepped, were it ever so lightly, into the dirty morass of accepted
comfort, then would I cheerfully admit to anybody that Leonard Merrick
is a Pessimistic Writer. But until this proof be forthcoming, I stick
to my opinion: I stick to the conviction that Mr. Merrick is the
gayest, cheer fullest, and most courageous of living humorists.
This opinion is a general opinion, applicable to Mr. Merrick's general
work. This morning, however, I am asked to narrow my field of view: to
contemplate not so much Mr. Merrick at large as Mr. Merrick in
particular: to look at Mr. Merrick in his relationship to this one
particular book: _A Chair on the Boulevard_.
Now, if I say, as I have said, that Mr. Merrick is cheerful in his
capacity of solemn novelist, what am I to say of Mr. Merrick in his
lighter aspect, that of a writer of _feuilletons?_ Addressing
myself to an imaginary audience of Magazine Enthusiasts, I ask them to
tell me whether, judged even by comparison with their favourite
fiction, some of the stories to be found in this volume are not
exquisitely amusing?
The first story in the book--that which Mr. Merrick calls "The Tragedy
of a Comic Song"--is in my view the funniest story of this century:
but I don't ask or expect the Magazine Enthusiast to share this view or
to endorse that judgment. "The Tragedy of a Comic Song" is essentially
one of those productions in which the reader is expected to
collaborate. The author has deliberately contrived certain voids of
narrative; and his reader is expected to populate these anecdotal
wastes. This is asking more than it is fair to ask of a Magazine
Enthusiast. No genuine Magazine reader cares for the elusive or
allusive style in fiction. "The Tragedy of a Comic Song" won't do for
Bouverie Street, however well and completely it may do for me.
But there are other stories in this book. There is that screaming farce
called "The Suicides in the Rue Sombre." Now, then, you Magazine
zealots, speak up and tell me truly: is there anything too difficult
for you in this? If so, the psychology of what is called "public taste"
becomes a subject not suited to public discussion.
The foregoing remarks and considerations apply equally to such stories
as "The Dress Clothes of M. Pomponnet" and "Tricotrin Entertains."
There are other stories which delight me, as, for example, "Little-
Flower-of-the-Wood": but this jerks us back again to the essential Mr.
Merrick: he who demands collaboration.
There are, again, other stories, and yet others; but to write down all
their titles here would be merely to transcribe the index page of the
book. Neither the reader nor I can afford to waste our time like that.
I have said nothing about the technical qualities of Mr. Merrick's
work. I don't intend to do so. It has long been a conceit of mine to
believe that professional vendors of letterpress should reserve their
mutual discussions of technique for technical occasions, such as those
when men of like mind and occupation sit at table, with a bottle
between them.
I am convinced that Mr. Merrick is a very great and gifted man, deeply
skilled in his profession. I can bring forth arguments and proofs to
support this conviction; but I fail utterly to see why I should do so.
To people who have a sense of that which is sincere and fresh in
fiction, these facts will be apparent. To them my arguments and
illustrations would be profitless. As for those honest persons to whom
the excellencies of Merrick are not apparent, I can only think that
nothing which I or any other man could say would render them obvious.
"Happiness is in ourselves," as the Vicar remarked to the donkey who
was pulling the lawn-mower.
Good luck, Leonard Merrick, and good cheer! I shout my greeting to you
across the ripples of that inky lake which is our common fishery.
A. NEIL LYONS.
A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD
THE TRAGEDY OF A COMIC SONG
I like to monopolise a table in a restaurant, unless a friend is with
me, so I resented the young man's presence. Besides, he had a
melancholy face. If it hadn't been for the piano-organ, I don't suppose
I should have spoken to him. As the organ that was afflicting Lisle
Street began to volley a comic song of a day that was dead, he started.
"That tune!" he murmured in French. If I did not deceive myself, tears
sprang to his eyes.
I was curious. Certainly, on both sides of the Channel, we had long ago
had more than enough of the tune--no self-respecting organ-grinder
rattled it now. That the young Frenchman should wince at the tune I
understood. But that he should weep!
I smiled sympathetically. "We suffered from it over here as well," I
remarked.
"I did not know," he said, in English that reproved my French, "it was
sung in London also--'Partant pour le Moulin'?"
"Under another name," I told him, "it was an epidemic."
Clearly, the organ had stirred distressing memories in him, for though
we fell to chatting, I could see that he neither talked nor dined with
any relish. As luck would have it, too, the instrument of torture
resumed its répertoire well within hearing, and when "Partant pour le
Moulin" was reached again, he clasped his head.
"You find it so painful?" I inquired.
"Painful?" he exclaimed. "Monsieur, it is my 'istory, that comic tune!
It is to me romance, tragedy, ruin. Will you hear? Wait! I shall range
my ideas. Listen:"
* * * * *
It is Paris, at Montmartre--we are before the door of a laundress. A
girl approaches. Her gaze is troubled, she frowns a little. What ails
her? I shall tell you: the laundress has refused to deliver her washing
until her bill is paid. And the girl cannot pay it--not till Saturday--
and she has need of things to put on. It is a moment of anxiety.
She opens the door. Some minutes pass. The girl reappears, holding
under her arm a little parcel. Good! she has triumphed. In coming out
she sees a young man, pale, abstracted, who stands before the shop. He
does not attempt to enter. He stands motionless, regarding the window
with an air forlorn.
"Ah," she says to herself, "here is another customer who cannot pay his
bill!"
But wait a little. After 'alf an hour what happens? She sees the young
man again! This time he stands before a modest restaurant. Does he go
in? No, again no! He regards the window sorrowfully. He sighs. The
dejection of his attitude would melt a stone.
"Poor boy," she thought; "he cannot pay for a dinner either!"
The affair is not finished. How the summer day is beautiful--she will
do some footing! Figure yourself that once more she perceives the young
man. Now it is before the mont-de-piété, the pawnbroker's. She watches
him attentively. Here, at least, he will enter, she does not doubt. She
is wrong. It is the same thing--he regards, he laments, he turns away!
"Oh, mon Dieu," she said. "Nothing remains to him to pawn even!"
It is too strong! She addressed him:
"Monsieur!"
But, when she has said "Monsieur," there is the question how she shall
continue. Now the young man regards the girl instead of the
pawnbroker's. Her features are pretty--or "pretty well"; her costume
has been made by herself, but it is not bad; and she has chic--above
all she has chic. He asks:
"What can I have the pleasure to do for you?"
Remark that she is bohemian, and he also.
The conversation was like this:
"Monsieur, three times this morning I have seen you. It was impossible
that I resist speaking. You have grief?"
"Frightful!" he said.
"Perhaps," she added timidly, "you have hunger also?"
"A hunger insupportable, mademoiselle!"
"I myself am extremely hard up, monsieur, but will you permit that I
offer you what I can?"
"Angel!" the young man exclaimed. "There must be wings under your coat.
But I beg of you not to fly yet. I shall tell you the reason of my
grief. If you will do me the honour to seat yourself at the café
opposite, we shall be able to talk more pleasantly."
This appeared strange enough, this invitation from a young man who she
had supposed was starving; but wait a little! Her amazement increased
when, to pay for the wine he had ordered, her companion threw on to the
table a bank-note with a gesture absolutely careless.
She was in danger of distrusting her eyes.
"Is it a dream?" she cried. "Is it a vision from the _Thousand and
One Nights_, or is it really a bank-note?"
"Mademoiselle, it is the mess of pottage," the young man answered
gloomily. "It is the cause of my sadness: for that miserable money, and
more that is to come, I have sold my birthright."
She was on a ship--no, what is it, your expression?--"at sea"!
"I am a poet," he explained; "but perhaps you may not know my work; I
am not celebrated. I am Tricotrin, mademoiselle--Gustave Tricotrin, at
your feet! For years I have written, aided by ambition, and an uncle
who manufactures silk in Lyons. Well, the time is arrived when he is
monstrous, this uncle. He says to me, 'Gustave, this cannot last--you
make no living, you make nothing but debts. (My tragedies he ignores.)
Either you must be a poet who makes money, or you must be a partner who
makes silk,' How could I defy him?--he holds the purse. It was
unavoidable that I stooped. He has given me a sum to satisfy my
creditors, and Monday I depart for Lyons. In the meantime, I take
tender farewells of the familiar scenes I shall perhaps never behold
again."
"How I have been mistaken!" she exclaimed. And then: "But the hunger
you confessed?"
"Of the soul, mademoiselle," said the poet--"the most bitter!"
"And you have no difficulties with the laundress?"
"None," he groaned. "But in the bright days of poverty that have fled
for ever, I have had many difficulties with her. This morning I
reconstituted the situation--I imagined myself without a sou, and
without a collar."
"The little restaurant," she questioned, "where I saw you dining on the
odour?"
"I figured fondly to myself that I was ravenous and that I dared not
enter. It was sublime."
"The mont-de-piété?"
"There imagination restored to me the vanished moments when I have
mounted with suspense, and my least deplorable suit of clothes." His
emotion was profound. "It is my youth to which I am bidding adieu!" he
cried. "It is more than that--it is my aspirations and my renown!"
"But you have said that you have no renown," she reminded him.
"So much the more painful," said the young man; "the hussy we could not
win is always the fairest--I part from renown even more despairingly
than from youth."
She felt an amusement, an interest. But soon it was the turn of him to
feel an interest--the interest that had consequences so important, so
'eart-breaking, so _fatales_! He had demanded of her, most
naturally, her history, and this she related to him in a style
dramatic. Myself, I have not the style dramatic, though I avow to you I
admire that.
"We are in a provincial town," she said to the young man, "we are in
Rouen--the workroom of a modiste. Have no embarrassment, monsieur
Tricotrin, you, at least, are invisible to the girls who sew! They sew
all day and talk little--already they are _tristes_, resigned.
Among them sits one who is different--one passionate, ambitious--a girl
who burns to be _divette_, singer, who is devoured by longings for
applause, fashion, wealth. She has made the acquaintance of a little
pastrycook. He has become fascinated, they are affianced. In a month
she will be married."
The young man, Tricotrin, well understood that the girl she described
was herself.
"What does she consider while she sits sewing?" she continued. "That
the pastrycook loves her, that he is generous, that she will do her
most to be to him a good wife? Not at all. Far from that! She
considers, on the contrary, that she was a fool to promise him; she
considers how she shall escape--from him, from Rouen, from her ennui--
she seeks to fly to Paris. Alas! she has no money, not a franc. And she
sews--always she sews in the dull room--and her spirit rebels."
"Good!" said the poet. "It is a capital first instalment."
"The time goes on. There remains only a week to the marriage morning.
The little home is prepared, the little pastrycook is full of joy.
_Alors_, one evening they go out; for her the sole attraction in
the town is the hall of varieties. Yes, it is third class, it is not
great things; however, it is the only one in Rouen. He purchases two
tickets. What a misfortune--it is the last temptation to her! They
stroll back; she takes his arm--under the moon, under the stars; but
she sees only the lamps of Paris!--she sees only that he can say
nothing she cares to hear!"
"Ah, unhappy man!" murmured the poet.
"They sit at a café table, and he talks, the fiancé, of the bliss that
is to come to them. She attends to not a word, not a syllable. While
she smiles, she questions herself, frenzied, how she can escape. She
has commanded a _sirop_. As she lifts her glass to the syphon, her
gaze falls on the ring she wears--the ring of their betrothal. 'To the
future, cher ange!' says the fiancé. 'To the future, vieux chéri!' she
says. And she laughs in her heart--for she resolves to sell the ring!"
Tricotrin had become absolutely enthralled.
"She obtained for the ring forty-five francs the next day--and for the
little pastrycook all is finished. She wrote him a letter--'Good-bye.'
He has lost his reason. Mad with despair, he has flung himself before
an electric car, and is killed.... It is strange," she added to the
poet, who regarded her with consternation, "that I did not think sooner
of the ring that was always on my finger, n'est-ce-pas? It may be that
never before had I felt so furious an impulse to desert him. It may be
also--that there was no ring and no pastrycook!" And she broke into
peals of laughter.
"Ah, mon Dieu," exclaimed the young man, "but you are enchanting! Let
us go to breakfast--you are the kindred soul I have looked for all my
life. By-the-bye, I may as well know your name?"
Then, monsieur, this poor girl who had trembled before her laundress,
she told him a name which was going, in a while, to crowd the
Ambassadeurs and be famous through all Paris--a name which was to mean
caprices, folly, extravagance the most wilful and reckless. She
answered--and it said nothing yet--"My name is Paulette Fleury."
* * * * *
The piano-organ stopped short, as if it knew the Frenchman had reached
a crisis in his narrative. He folded his arms and nodded impressively.
"Voilà! Monsieur, I 'ave introduced you to Paulette Fleury! It was her
beginning."
He offered me a cigarette, and frowned, lost in thought, at the lady
who was chopping bread behind the counter.
"Listen," he resumed.
* * * * *
They have breakfasted; they have fed the sparrows around their chairs,
and they have strolled under the green trees in the sunshine. She was
singing then at a little café-concert the most obscure. It is arranged,
before they part, that in the evening he shall go to applaud her.
He had a friend, young also, a composer, named Nicolas Pitou. I cannot
express to you the devotion that existed between them. Pitou was
employed at a publisher's, but the publisher paid him not much better
than his art. The comrades have shared everything: the loans from the
mont-de-piété, the attic, and the dreams. In Montmartre it was said
"Tricotrin and Pitou" as one says "Orestes and Pylades." It is
beautiful such affection, hein? Listen!
Tricotrin has recounted to his friend his meeting with Paulette, and
when the hour for the concert is arrived, Pitou accompanied him. The
musician, however, was, perhaps, the more sedate. He has gone with
little expectation; his interest was not high.
What a surprise he has had! He has found her an actress--an artist to
the ends of the fingers. Tricotrin was astonished also. The two
friends, the poet and the composer, said "Mon Dieu!" They regarded the
one the other. They said "Mon Dieu!" again. Soon Pitou has requested of
Tricotrin an introduction. It is agreed. Tricotrin has presented his
friend, and invited the _chanteuse_ to drink a bock--a glass of
beer.... A propos, you take a liqueur, monsieur, yes? What liqueur you
take? Sst, garçon!... Well, you conjecture, no doubt, what I shall say?
Before the bock was finished, they were in love with her--both!
At the door of her lodging, Paulette has given to each a pressure of
the hand, and said gently, "Till to-morrow."
"I worship her!" Tricotrin told Pitou.
"I have found my ideal!" Pitou answered Tricotrin.
It is superb, such friendship, hein?
In the mind of the poet who had accomplished tragedies majestic--in the
mind of the composer, the most classical in Montmartre--there had been
born a new ambition: it was to write a comic song for Paulette Fleury!
It appears to you droll, perhaps? Monsieur, to her lover, the humblest
_divette_ is more than Patti. In all the world there can be no joy
so thrilling as to hear the music of one's brain sung by the woman one
adores--unless it be to hear the woman one adores give forth one's
verse. I believe it has been accepted as a fact, this; nevertheless it
is true.
Yes, already the idea had come to them, and Paulette was well pleased
when they told her of it. Oh, she knew they loved her, both, and with
both she coquetted. But with their intention she did not coquet; as to
that she was in earnest. Every day they discussed it with enthusiasm--
they were to write a song that should make for her a furore.
What happened? I shall tell you. Monday, when Tricotrin was to depart
for Lyons, he informed his uncle that he will not go. No less than
that! His uncle was furious--I do not blame him--but naturally
Tricotrin has argued, "If I am to create for Paulette her great chance,
I must remain in Paris to study Paulette! I cannot create in an
atmosphere of commerce. I require the Montmartrois, the boulevards, the
inspiration of her presence." Isn't it?
And Pitou--whose very soul had been enraptured in his leisure by a
fugue he was composing--Pitou would have no more of it. He allowed the
fugue to grow dusty, while day and night he thought always of refrains
that ran "_Zim-la-zim-la zim-boum-boum!_" Constantly they
conferred, the comrades. They told the one the other how they loved
her; and then they beat their heads, and besought of Providence a fine
idea for the comic song.
It was their thought supreme. The silk manufacturer has washed his
'ands of Tricotrin, but he has not cared--there remained to him still
one of the bank-notes. As for Pitou, who neglected everything except to
find his melody for Paulette, the publisher has given him the sack.
Their acquaintances ridiculed the sacrifices made for her. But,
monsieur, when a man loves truly, to make a sacrifice for the woman is
to make a present to himself.
Nevertheless I avow to you that they fretted because of her coquetry.
One hour it seemed that Pitou had gained her heart; the next her
encouragement has been all to Tricotrin. Sometimes they have said to
her:
"Paulette, it is true we are as Orestes and Pylades, but there can be
only one King of Eden at the time. Is it Orestes, or Pylades that you
mean to crown?"
Then she would laugh and reply:
"How can I say? I like you both so much I can never make up my mind
which to like best."
It was not satisfactory.
And always she added. "In the meantime, where is the song?"
Ah, the song, that song, how they have sought it!--on the Butte, and in
the Bois, and round the Halles. Often they have tramped Paris till
daybreak, meditating the great chance for Paulette. And at last the
poet has discovered it: for each verse a different phase of life, but
through it all, the pursuit of gaiety, the fever of the dance--the
gaiety of youth, the gaiety of dotage, the gaiety of despair! It should
be the song of the pleasure-seekers--the voices of Paris when the lamps
are lit.
Monsieur, if we sat 'ere in the restaurant until it closed, I could not
describe to you how passionately Tricotrin, the devoted Tricotrin,
worked for her. He has studied her without cease; he has studied her
attitudes, her expressions. He has taken his lyric as if it were
material and cut it to her figure; he has taken it as if it were
plaster, and moulded it upon her mannerisms. There was not a
_moue_ that she made, not a pretty trick that she had, not a word
that she liked to sing for which he did not provide an opportunity. At
the last line, when the pen fell from his fingers, he shouted to Pitou,
"Comrade, be brave--I have won her!"
And Pitou? Monsieur, if we sat 'ere till they prepared the tables for
déjeuner to-morrow, I could not describe to you how passionately Pitou,
the devoted Pitou, worked that she might have a grand popularity by his
music. At dawn, when he has found that _strepitoso_ passage, which
is the hurrying of the feet, he wakened the poet and cried, "Mon ami, I
pity you--she is mine!" It was the souls of two men when it was
finished, that comic song they made for her! It was the song the organ
has ground out--"Partant pour le Moulin."
And then they rehearsed it, the three of them, over and over, inventing
always new effects. And then the night for the song is arrived. It has
rained all day, and they have walked together in the rain--the singer,
and the men who loved her, both--to the little café-concert where she
would appear.
They tremble in the room, among the crowd, Pitou and Tricotrin; they
are agitated. There are others who sing--it says nothing to them. In
the room, in the Future, there is only Paulette!
It is very hot in the café-concert, and there is too much noise. At
last they ask her: "Is she nervous?" She shakes her head: "Mais non!"
She smiles to them.
Attend! It is her turn. Ouf; but it is hot in the café-concert, and
there is too much noise! She mounts the platform. The audience are
careless; it continues, the jingle of the glasses, the hum of talk. She
begins. Beneath the table Tricotrin has gripped the hand of Pitou.
Wait! Regard the crowd that look at her! The glasses are silent, now,
hein? The talk has stopped. To a great actress is come her chance.
There is _not_ too much noise in the café-concert!
But, when she finished! What an uproar! Never will she forget it. A
thousand times she has told the story, how it was written--the song--
and how it made her famous. Before two weeks she was the attraction of
the Ambassadeurs, and all Paris has raved of Paulette Fleury.
Tricotrin and Pitou were mad with joy. Certainly Paris did not rave of
Pitou nor Tricotrin--there have not been many that remembered who wrote
the song; and it earned no money for them, either, because it was hers
--the gift of their love. Still, they were enraptured. To both of them
she owed equally, and more than ever it was a question which would be
the happy man.
Listen! When they are gone to call on her one afternoon she was not at
'ome. What had happened? I shall tell you. There was a noodle, rich--
what you call a "Johnnie in the Stalls"--who became infatuated with her
at the Ambassadeurs. He whistled "Partant pour le Moulin" all the days,
and went to hear it all the nights. Well, she was not at 'ome because
she had married him. Absolutely they were married! Her lovers have been
told it at the door.
What a moment! Figure yourself what they have suffered, both! They had
worshipped her, they had made sacrifices for her, they had created for
her her grand success; and, as a consequence of that song, she was the
wife of the "Johnnie in the Stalls"!
* * * * *
Far down the street, but yet distinct, the organ revived the tune
again. My Frenchman shuddered, and got up.
"I cannot support it," he murmured. "You understand? The associations
are too pathetic."
"They must be harrowing," I said. "Before you go, there is one thing I
should like to ask you, if I may. Have I had the honour of meeting
monsieur Tricotrin, or monsieur Pitou?"
He stroked his hat, and gazed at me in sad surprise. "Ah, but neither,
monsieur," he groaned. "The associations are much more 'arrowing than
that--I was the 'Johnnie in the Stalls'!"
TRICOTRIN ENTERTAINS
One night when Pitou went home, an unaccustomed perfume floated to
meet him on the stairs. He climbed them in amazement.
"If we lived in an age of miracles I should conclude that Tricotrin was
smoking a cigar," he said to himself. "What can it be?"
The pair occupied a garret in the rue des Trois Frères at this time,
where their window, in sore need of repairs, commanded an unrivalled
view of the dirty steps descending to the passage des Abbesses.
To-night, behold Tricotrin pacing the garret with dignity, between
his lips an Havannah that could have cost no less than a franc. The
composer rubbed his eyes.
"Have they made you an Academician?" he stammered. "Or has your uncle,
the silk manufacturer, died and left you his business?"
"My friend," replied the poet, "prepare yourself forthwith for 'a New
and Powerful Serial of the Most Absorbing Interest'! I am no longer the
young man who went out this evening--I am a celebrity."
"I thought," said the composer, "that it couldn't be you when I saw the
cigar."
"Figure yourself," continued Tricotrin, "that at nine o'clock I was
wandering on the Grand Boulevard with a thirst that could have consumed
a brewery. I might mention that I had also empty pockets, but--"
"It would be to pad the powerful Serial shamelessly," said Pitou:
"there are things that one takes for granted."
"At the corner of the place de l'Opera a fellow passed me whom I knew
and yet did not know; I could not recall where it was we had met. I
turned and followed him, racking my brains the while. Suddenly I
remembered--"
"Pardon me," interrupted the composer, "but I have read _Bel-Ami_
myself. Oh, it is quite evident that you are a celebrity--you have
already forgotten how to be original!"
"There is a resemblance, it is true," admitted Tricotrin. "However,
Maupassant had no copyright in the place de l'Opera. I say that I
remembered the man; I had known him when he was in the advertisement
business in Lyons. Well, we have supped together; he is in a position
to do me a service--he will ask an editor to publish an Interview with
me!"
"An Interview?" exclaimed Pitou. "You are to be Interviewed? Ah, no, my
poor friend, too much meat has unhinged your reason! Go to sleep--you
will be hungry and sane again to-morrow."
"It will startle some of them, hein? 'Gustave Tricotrin at Home'--in
the illustrated edition of _Le Demi-Mot?_"
"Illustrated?" gasped Pitou. He looked round the attic. "Did I
understand you to say 'illustrated'?"
"Well, well," said Tricotrin, "we shall move the beds! And, when the
concierge nods, perhaps we can borrow the palm from the portals. With a
palm and an amiable photographer, an air of splendour is easily arrived
at. I should like a screen--we will raise one from a studio in the rue
Ravignan. Mon Dieu! with a palm and a screen I foresee the most opulent
effects. 'A Corner of the Study'--we can put the screen in front of the
washhand-stand, and litter the table with manuscripts--you will admit
that we have a sufficiency of manuscripts?--no one will know that they
have all been rejected. Also, a painter in the rue Ravignan might lend
us a few of his failures--'Before you go, let me show you my pictures,'
said monsieur Tricotrin: 'I am an ardent collector'!"
In Montmartre the sight of two "types" shifting household gods makes
no sensation--the sails of the remaining windmills still revolve. On
the day that it had its likeness taken, the attic was temporarily
transformed. At least a score of unappreciated masterpieces concealed
the dilapidation of the walls; the broken window was decorated with an
Eastern fabric that had been a cherished "property" of half the
ateliers in Paris; the poet himself--with the palm drooping gracefully
above his head--mused in a massive chair, in which Solomon had been
pronouncing judgment until 12:15, when the poet had called for it. The
appearance of exhaustion observed by admirers of the poet's portrait
was due to the chair's appalling weight. As he staggered under it up
the steps of the passage des Abbesses, the young man had feared he
would expire on the threshold of his fame.
However, the photographer proved as resourceful as could be desired,
and perhaps the most striking feature of the illustration was the
spaciousness of the apartment in which monsieur Tricotrin was presented
to readers of _Le Demi-Mot._ The name of the thoroughfare was not
obtruded.
With what pride was that issue of the journal regarded in the rue des
Trois Frères!
"Aha!" cried Tricotrin, who in moments persuaded himself that he
really occupied such noble quarters, "those who repudiated me in the
days of my struggles will be a little repentant now, hein? Stone Heart
will discover that I was not wrong in relying on my genius!"
"I assume," said Pitou, "that 'Stone Heart' is your newest pet-name for
the silk-manufacturing uncle?"
"You catch my meaning precisely. I propose to send a copy of the paper
to Lyons, with the Interview artistically bordered by laurels; I cannot
draw laurels myself, but there are plenty of persons who can. We will
find someone to do it when we palter with starvation at the Café du Bel
Avenir this evening--or perhaps we had better fast at the Lucullus
Junior, instead; there is occasionally some ink in the bottle there. I
shall put the address in the margin--my uncle will not know where it
is, and on the grounds of euphony I have no fault to find with it. It
would not surprise me if I received an affectionate letter and a
bank-note in reply--the perversity of human nature delights in generosities
to the prosperous."
"It is a fact," said Pitou. "That human nature!"
"Who knows?--he may even renew the allowance that he used to make me!"
"Upon my word, more unlikely things have happened," Pitou conceded.
"Mon Dieu, Nicolas, we shall again have enough to eat!"
"Ah, visionary!" exclaimed Pitou; "are there no bounds to your
imagination?"
Now, the perversity to which the poet referred did inspire monsieur
Rigaud, of Lyons, to loosen his purse-strings. He wrote that he
rejoiced to learn that Gustave was beginning to make his way, and
enclosed a present of two hundred and fifty francs. More, after an
avuncular preamble which the poet skipped--having a literary hatred of
digression in the works of others--he even hinted that the allowance
might be resumed.
What a banquet there was in bohemia! How the glasses jingled afterwards
in La Lune Rousse, and oh, the beautiful hats that Germaine and
Marcelle displayed on the next fine Sunday! Even when the last ripples
of the splash were stilled, the comrades swaggered gallantly on the
boulevard Rochechouart, for by any post might not the first instalment
of that allowance arrive?
Weeks passed; and Tricotrin began to say, "It looks to me as if we
needed another Interview!"
And then came a letter which was no less cordial than its predecessor,
but which stunned the unfortunate recipient like a warrant for his
execution. Monsieur Rigaud stated that business would bring him to
Paris on the following evening and that he anticipated the pleasure of
visiting his nephew; he trusted that his dear Gustave would meet him at
the station. The poet and composer stared at each other with bloodless
faces.
"You must call at his hotel instead," faltered Pitou at last.
"But you may be sure he will wish to see my elegant abode."
"'It is in the hands of the decorators. How unfortunate!'"
"He would propose to offer them suggestions; he is a born suggester."
"'Fever is raging in the house--a most infectious fever'; we will ask a
medical student to give us one."
"It would not explain my lodging in a slum meanwhile."
"Well, let us admit that there is nothing to be done; you will have to
own up!"
"Are you insane? It is improvident youths like you, who come to lament
their wasted lives. If I could receive him this once as he expects to
be received, we cannot doubt that it would mean an income of two
thousand francs to me. Prosperity dangles before us--shall I fail to
clutch it? Mon Dieu, what a catastrophe, his coming to Paris! Why
cannot he conduct his business in Lyons? Is there not enough money in
the city of Lyons to satisfy him? O grasper! what greed! Nicolas, my
more than brother, if it were night when I took him to a sumptuous
apartment, he might not notice the name of the street--I could talk
brilliantly as we turned the corner. Also I could scintillate as I led
him away. He would never know that it was not the rue des Trois
Frères."
"You are right," agreed Pitou; "but which is the pauper in our social
circle whose sumptuous apartment you propose to acquire?"
"One must consider," said Tricotrin. "Obviously, I am compelled to
entertain in somebody's; fortunately, I have two days to find it in. I
shall now go forth!"
It was a genial morning, and the first person he accosted in the rue
Ravignan was Goujaud, painting in the patch of garden before the
studios. "Tell me, Goujaud," exclaimed the poet, "have you any gilded
acquaintance who would permit me the use of his apartment for two hours
to-morrow evening?"
Goujaud reflected for some seconds, with his head to one side. "I have
never done anything so fine as this before," he observed; "regard the
atmosphere of it!"
"It is execrable!" replied Tricotrin, and went next door to Flamant.
"My old one," he explained, "I have urgent need of a regal apartment
for two hours to-morrow--have you a wealthy friend who would
accommodate me?"
"You may beautify your bedroom with all my possessions," returned
Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but
I have not a friend that is wealthy."
"You express yourself like a First Course for the Foreigner," said
Tricotrin, much annoyed. "Devil take your stuffed parrot!"
The heat of the sun increased towards midday, and drops began to
trickle under the young man's hat. By four o'clock he had called upon
sixty-two persons, exclusive of Sanquereau, whom he had been unable to
wake. He bethought himself of Lajeunie, the novelist; but Lajeunie
could offer him nothing more serviceable than a pass for the Elysée-
Montmartre. "Now how is it possible that I spend my life among such
imbeciles?" groaned the unhappy poet; "one offers me a parrot, and
another a pass for a dancing-hall! Can I assure my uncle, who is a
married man, and produces silk in vast quantities, that I reside in a
dancing-hall? Besides, we know those passes--they are available only
for ladies."
"It is true that you could not get in by it," assented Lajeunie, "but I
give it to you freely. Take it, my poor fellow! Though it may appear
inadequate to the occasion, who knows but what it will prove to be the
basis of a fortune?"
"You are as crazy as the stories you write," said Tricotrin, "Still, it
can go in my pocket." And he made, exhausted, for a bench in the place
Dancourt, where he apostrophised his fate.
Thus occupied, he fell asleep; and presently a young woman sauntered
from the sidewalk across the square. In the shady little place Dancourt
is the little white Theatre Montmartre, and she first perused the
play-bill, and then contemplated the sleeping poet. It may have been that
she found something attractive in his bearing, or it may have been that
ragamuffins sprawled elsewhere; but, having determined to wait awhile,
she selected the bench on which he reposed, and forthwith woke him.
"Now this is nice!" he exclaimed, realising his lapse with a start.
"Oh, monsieur!" said she, blushing.
"Pardon; I referred to my having dozed when every moment is of
consequence," he explained. "And yet," he went on ruefully, "upon my
soul, I cannot conjecture where I shall go next!"
Her response was so sympathetic that it tempted him to remain a little
longer, and in five minutes she was recounting her own perplexities. It
transpired that she was a lady's-maid with a holiday, and the problem
before her was whether to spend her money on a theatre, or on a ball.
"Now that is a question which is disposed of instantly," said
Tricotrin, "You shall spend your money on a theatre, and go to a ball
as well." And out fluttered the pink pass presented to him by Lajeunie.
The girl's tongue was as lively as her gratitude. She was, she told
him, maid to the famous Colette Aubray, who had gone unattended that
afternoon to visit the owner of a villa in the country, where she would
stay until the next day but one. "So you see, monsieur, we poor
servants are left alone in the flat to amuse ourselves as best we can!"
"Mon Dieu!" ejaculated Tricotrin, and added mentally, "It was decidedly
the good kind fairies that pointed to this bench!"
He proceeded to pay the young woman such ardent attentions that she
assumed he meant to accompany her to the ball, and her disappointment
was extreme when he had to own that the state of his finances forbade
it. "All I can suggest, my dear Léonie," he concluded, "is that I shall
be your escort when you leave. It is abominable that you must have
other partners in the meantime, but I feel that you will be constant to
me in your thoughts. I shall have much to tell you--I shall whisper a
secret in your ear; for, incredible as it may sound, my sweet child,
you alone in Paris have the power to save me!"
"Oh, monsieur!" faltered the admiring lady's-maid, "it has always been
my great ambition to save a young man, especially a young man who used
such lovely language. I am sure, by the way you talk, that you must be
a poet!"
"Extraordinary," mused Tricotrin, "that all the world recognises me as
a poet, excepting when it reads my poetry!" And this led him to reflect
that he must sell some of it, in order to provide refreshment for
Léonie before he begged her aid. Accordingly, he arranged to meet her
when the ball finished, and limped back to the attic, where he made up
a choice assortment of his wares.
He had resolved to try the office of _Le Demi-Mot;_ but his
reception there was cold. "You should not presume on our good nature,"
demurred the Editor; "only last month we had an article on you, saying
that you were highly talented, and now you ask us to publish your work
besides. There must be a limit to such things."
He examined the collection, nevertheless, with a depreciatory
countenance, and offered ten francs for three of the finest specimens.
"From _Le Demi-Mot_ I would counsel you to accept low terms," he
said, with engaging interest, "on account of the prestige you, derive
from appearing in it."
"In truth it is a noble thing, prestige," admitted Tricotrin; "but,
monsieur, I have never known a man able to make a meal of it when he
was starving, or to warm himself before it when he was without a fire.
Still--though it is a jumble-sale price--let them go!"
"Payment will be made in due course," said the Editor, and became
immersed in correspondence.
Tricotrin paled to the lips, and the next five minutes were terrible;
indeed, he did not doubt that he would have to limp elsewhere. At last
he cried, "Well, let us say seven francs, cash! Seven francs in one's
fist are worth ten in due course." And thus the bargain was concluded.
"It was well for Hercules that none of his labours was the extraction
of payment from an editor!" panted the poet on the doorstep. But he was
now enabled to fête the lady's-maid in grand style, and--not to be
outdone in generosity--she placed mademoiselle Aubray's flat at his
disposal directly he asked for it.
"You have accomplished a miracle!" averred Pitou, in the small hours,
when he heard the news.
Tricotrin waved a careless hand. "To a man of resource all things are
possible!" he murmured.
The next evening the silk manufacturer was warmly embraced on the
platform, and not a little surprised to learn that his nephew expected
a visit at once. However, the young man's consternation was so profound
when objections were made that, in the end, they were withdrawn.
Tricotrin directed the driver after monsieur Rigaud was in the cab,
and, on their reaching the courtyard, there was Léonie, all frills,
ready to carry the handbag.
"Your servant?" inquired monsieur Rigaud, with some disapproval, as
they went upstairs; "she is rather fancifully dressed, hein?"
"Is it so?" answered Tricotrin. "Perhaps a bachelor is not sufficiently
observant in these matters. Still, she is an attentive domestic. Take
off your things, my dear uncle, and make yourself at home. What joy it
gives me to see you here!"
"Mon Dieu," exclaimed the silk manufacturer, looking about him, "you
have a place fit for a prince! It must have cost a pretty penny."
"Between ourselves," said Tricotrin, "I often reproach myself for what
I spent on it; I could make very good use to-day of some of the money I
squandered."
"What curtains!" murmured monsieur Rigaud, fingering the silk
enraptured. "The quality is superb! What may they have charged you for
these curtains?"
"It was years ago--upon my word I do not remember," drawled Tricotrin,
who had no idea whether he ought to say five hundred francs, or five
thousand. "Also, you must not think I have bought everything you see--
many of the pictures and bronzes are presents from admirers of my work.
It is gratifying, hein?"
"I--I--To confess the truth, we had not heard of your triumphs,"
admitted monsieur Rigaud; "I did not dream you were so successful."
"Ah, it is in a very modest way," Tricotrin replied. "I am not a
millionaire, I assure you! On the contrary, it is often difficult to
make both ends meet--although," he added hurriedly, "I live with the
utmost economy, my uncle. The days of my thoughtlessness are past. A
man should save, a man should provide for the future."
At this moment he was astonished to see Léonie open the door and
announce that dinner was served. She had been even better than her
word.
"Dinner?" cried monsieur Rigaud. "Ah, now I understand why you were so
dejected when I would not come!"
"Bah, it will be a very simple meal," said his nephew, "but after a
journey one must eat. Let us go in." He was turning the wrong way, but
Léonie's eye saved him.
"Come," he proceeded, taking his seat, "some soup--some good soup! What
will you drink, my uncle?"
"On the sideboard I see champagne," chuckled monsieur Rigaud; "you
treat the old man well, you rogue!"
"Hah," said Tricotrin, who had not observed it, "the cellar, I own, is
an extravagance of mine! Alone, I drink only mineral waters, or a
little claret, much diluted; but to my dearest friends I must give the
dearest wines. Léonie, champagne!" It was a capital dinner, and the
cigars and cigarettes that Léonie put on the table with the coffee were
of the highest excellence. Agreeable conversation whiled away some
hours, and Tricotrin began to look for his uncle to get up. But it was
raining smartly, and monsieur Rigaud was reluctant to bestir himself.
Another hour lagged by, and at last Tricotrin faltered:
"I fear I must beg you to excuse me for leaving you, my uncle; it is
most annoying, but I am compelled to go out. The fact is, I have
consented to collaborate with Capus, and he is so eccentric, this dear
Alfred--we shall be at work all night."
"Go, my good Gustave," said his uncle readily; "and, as I am very
tired, if you have no objection, I will occupy your bed."
Tricotrin's jaw dropped, and it was by a supreme effort that he
stammered how pleased the arrangement would make him. To intensify the
fix, Leonie and the cook had disappeared--doubtless to the mansarde in
which they slept--and he was left to cope with the catastrophe alone.
However, having switched on the lights, he conducted the elderly
gentleman to an enticing apartment. He wished him an affectionate
"good-night," and after promising to wake him early, made for home,
leaving the manufacturer sleepily surveying the room's imperial
splendour.
"What magnificence!" soliloquised monsieur Rigaud. "What toilet
articles!" He got into bed. "What a coverlet--there must be twenty
thousand francs on top of me!"
He had not slumbered under them long when he was aroused by such a
commotion that he feared for the action of his heart. Blinking in the
glare, he perceived Léonie in scanty attire, distracted on her knees--
and, by the bedside, a beautiful lady in a travelling cloak, raging
with the air of a lioness.
"Go away!" quavered the manufacturer. "What is the meaning of this
intrusion?"
"Intrusion?" raved the lady. "That is what you will explain, monsieur!
How comes it that you are in my bed?"
"Yours?" ejaculated monsieur Rigaud. "What is it you say? You are
making a grave error, for which you will apologise, madame!"
"Ah, hold me back," pleaded the lady, throwing up her eyes, "hold me
back or I shall assault him!" She flung to Leonie. "Wretched girl, you
shall pay for this! Not content with lavishing my champagne and my
friend's cigars on your lover, you must put him to recuperate in my
room!"
"Oh!" gasped the manufacturer, and hid his head under the priceless
coverlet. "Such an imputation is unpardonable," he roared, reappearing.
"I am monsieur Rigaud, of Lyons; the flat belongs to my nephew,
monsieur Tricotrin; I request you to retire!"
"Imbecile!" screamed the lady; "the flat belongs to _me_--Colette
Aubray. And your presence may ruin me--I expect a visitor on most
important business! He has not my self-control; if he finds you here he
will most certainly send you a challenge. He is the best swordsman in
Paris! I advise you to believe me, for you have just five minutes to
save your life!"
"Monsieur," wailed Léonie, "you have been deceived!" And, between her
sobs, she confessed the circumstances, which he heard with the greatest
difficulty, owing to the chattering of his teeth.
The rain was descending in cataracts when monsieur Rigaud got outside,
but though the trams and the trains had both stopped running, and cabs
were as dear as radium, his fury was so tempestuous that nothing could
deter him from reaching the poet's real abode. His attack on the front
door warned Tricotrin and Pitou what had happened, and they raised
themselves, blanched, from their pillows, to receive his curses. It was
impossible to reason with him, and he launched the most frightful
denunciation at his nephew for an hour, when the abatement of the
downpour permitted him to depart. More, at noon, who should arrive but
Leonie in tears! She had been dismissed from her employment, and came
to beg the poet to intercede for her.
"What calamities!" groaned Tricotrin. "How fruitless are man's noblest
endeavours without the favouring breeze! I shall drown myself at eight
o'clock. However, I will readily plead for you first, if your mistress
will receive me."
By the maid's advice he presented himself late in the day, and when he
had cooled his heels in the salon for some time, a lady entered, who
was of such ravishing appearance that his head swam.
"Monsieur Tricotrin?" she inquired haughtily. "I have heard your name
from your uncle, monsieur. Are you here to visit my servant?"
"Mademoiselle," he faltered, "I am here to throw myself on your mercy.
At eight o'clock I have decided to commit suicide, for I am ruined. The
only hope left me is to win your pardon before I die."
"I suppose your uncle has disowned you?" she said. "Naturally! It was a
pretty situation to put him in. How would you care to be in it
yourself?"
"Alas, mademoiselle," sighed Tricotrin, "there are situations to which
a poor poet may not aspire!"
After regarding him silently she exclaimed, "I cannot understand what a
boy with eyes like yours saw in Léonie?"
"Merely good nature and a means to an end, believe me! If you would
ease my last moments, reinstate her in your service. Do not let me
drown with the knowledge that another is suffering for my fault!
Mademoiselle, I entreat you--take her back!"
"And why should I ease your last moments?" she demurred.
"Because I have no right to ask it; because I have no defence for my
sin towards you; because you would be justified in trampling on me--and
to pardon would be sublime!"
"You are very eloquent for my maid," returned the lady.
He shook his head. "Ah, no--I fear I am pleading for myself. For, if
you reinstate the girl, it will prove that you forgive the man--and I
want your forgiveness so much!" He fell at her feet.
"Does your engagement for eight o'clock press, monsieur?" murmured the
lady, smiling. "If you could dine here again to-night, I might relent
by degrees."
"And she is adorable!" he told Pitou. "I passed the most delicious
evening of my life!" "It is fortunate," observed Pitou, "for that, and
your uncle's undying enmity, are all you have obtained by your
imposture. Remember that the evening cost two thousand francs a year!"
"Ah, misanthrope," cried Tricotrin radiantly, "there must be a crumpled
roseleaf in every Eden!"
THE FATAL FLOROZONDE
Before Pitou, the composer, left for the Hague, he called on Théophile
de Fronsac, the poet. _La Voix Parisienne_ had lately appointed de
Fronsac to its staff, on condition that he contributed no poetry.
"Good-evening," said de Fronsac. "Mon Dieu! what shall I write about?"
"Write about my music," said Pitou, whose compositions had been
rejected in every arrondissement of Paris.
"Let us talk sanely," demurred de Fronsac. "My causerie is half a
column short. Tell me something interesting."
"Woman!" replied Pitou.
De Fronsac flicked his cigarette ash. "You remind me," he said, "how
much I need a love affair; my sensibilities should be stimulated. To
continue to write with fervour I require to adore again."
"It is very easy to adore," observed Pitou.
"Not at forty," lamented the other; "especially to a man in Class A.
Don't forget, my young friend, that I have loved and been loved
persistently for twenty-three years. I cannot adore a repetition, and
it is impossible for me to discover a new type."
"All of which I understand," said Pitou, "excepting 'Class A.'"
"There are three kinds of men," explained the poet. "Class A are the
men to whom women inevitably surrender. Class B consists of those whom
they trust by instinct and confide in on the second day; these men
acquire an extensive knowledge of the sex--but they always fall short
of winning the women for themselves. Class C women think of merely as
'the others'--they do not count; eventually they marry, and try to
persuade their wives that they were devils of fellows when they were
young. However, such reflections will not assist me to finish my
causerie, for I wrote them all last week."
"Talking of women," remarked Pitou, "a little blonde has come to live
opposite our lodging. So far we have only bowed from our windows, but I
have christened her 'Lynette,' and Tricotrin has made a poem about her.
It is pathetic. The last verse--the others are not written yet--goes:
"'O window I watched in the days that are dead,
Are you watched by a lover to-day?
Are glimpses caught now of another blonde head
By a youth who lives over the way?
Does _she_ repeat words that Lynette's lips have said--
And does _he_ say what _I_ used to say?'"
"What is the answer?" asked de Fronsac. "Is it a conundrum? In any case
it is a poor substitute for a half a column of prose in _La Voix_.
How on earth am I to arrive at the bottom of the page? If I am short in
my copy, I shall be short in my rent; if I am short in my rent, I shall
be put out of doors; if I am put out of doors, I shall die of exposure.
And much good it will do me that they erect a statue to me in the next
generation! Upon my word, I would stand a dinner--at the two-franc
place where you may eat all you can hold--if you could give me a
subject."
"It happens," said Pitou, "that I can give you a very strange one. As I
am going to a foreign land, I have been to the country to bid farewell
to my parents; I came across an extraordinary girl."
"One who disliked presents?" inquired de Fronsac.
"I am not jesting. She is a dancer in a travelling circus. The flare
and the drum wooed me one night, and I went in. As a circus, well, you
may imagine--a tent in a fair. My fauteuil was a plank, and the
orchestra surpassed the worst tortures of the Inquisition. And then,
after the decrepit horses, and a mangy lion, a girl came into the ring,
with the most marvellous eyes I have ever seen in a human face. They
are green eyes, with golden lights in them."
"Really?" murmured the poet. "I have never been loved by a girl who had
green eyes with golden lights in them."
"I am glad you have never been loved by this one," returned the
composer gravely; "she has a curious history. All her lovers, without
exception, have committed suicide."
"What?" said de Fronsac, staring.
"It is very queer. One of them had just inherited a hundred thousand
francs--he hanged himself. Another, an author from Italy, took poison,
while all Rome was reading his novel. To be infatuated by her is
harmless enough, but to win her is invariably fatal within a few weeks.
Some time ago she attached herself to one of the troupe, and soon
afterwards he discovered she was deceiving him. He resolved to shoot
her. He pointed a pistol at her breast. She simply laughed--and
_looked at him_. He turned the pistol on himself, and blew his
brains out!"
De Fronsac had already written: "Here is the extraordinary history of a
girl whom I discovered in a fair." The next moment:
"But you repeat a rumour," he objected. "_La Voix Parisienne_ has
a reputation; odd as the fact may appear to you, people read it. If
this is published in _La Voix_ it will attract attention. Soon she
will be promoted from a tent in a fair to a stage in Paris. Well, what
happens? You tell me she is beautiful, so she will have hundreds of
admirers. Among the hundreds there will be one she favours. And then?
Unless he committed suicide in a few weeks, the paper would be proved a
liar. I should not be able to sleep of nights for fear he would not
kill himself."
"My dear," exclaimed Pitou with emotion, "would I add to your
anxieties? Rather than you should be disturbed by anybody's living, let
us dismiss the subject, and the dinner, and talk of my new Symphony. On
the other hand, I fail to see that the paper's reputation is your
affair--it is not your wife; and I am more than usually empty to-day."
"Your argument is sound," said de Fronsac. "Besides, the Editor refuses
my poetry." And he wrote without cessation for ten minutes.
The two-franc table-d'hôte excelled itself that evening, and Pitou did
ample justice to the menu.
Behold how capricious is the jade, Fame! The poet whose verses had left
him obscure, accomplished in ten minutes a paragraph that fascinated
all Paris. On the morrow people pointed it out to one another; the
morning after, other journals referred to it; in the afternoon the
Editor of _La Voix Parisienne_ was importuned with questions. No
one believed the story to be true, but not a soul could help wondering
if it might be so.
When a day or two had passed, Pitou received from de Fronsac a note
which ran:
"Send to me at once, I entreat thee, the name of that girl, and say
where she can be found. The managers of three variety theatres of the
first class have sought me out and are eager to engage her."
"Decidedly," said Pitou, "I have mistaken my vocation--I ought to have
been a novelist!" And he replied:
"The girl whose eyes suggested the story to me is called on the
programmes 'Florozonde.' For the rest, I know nothing, except that thou
didst offer a dinner and I was hungry."
However, when he had written this, he destroyed it.
"Though I am unappreciated myself, and shall probably conclude in the
Morgue," he mused, "that is no excuse for my withholding prosperity
from others. Doubtless the poor girl would rejoice to appear at three
variety theatres of the first class, or even at one of them." He
answered simply:
"Her name is 'Florozonde'; she will be found in a circus at Chartres"--
and nearly suffocated with laughter.
Then a little later the papers announced that Mlle. Florozonde--whose
love by a strange series of coincidences had always proved fatal--would
be seen at La Coupole. Posters bearing the name of "Florozonde"--yellow
on black--invaded the boulevards. Her portrait caused crowds to
assemble, and "That girl who, they say, deals death, that Florozonde!"
was to be heard as constantly as ragtime.
By now Pitou was at the Hague, his necessities having driven him into
the employment of a Parisian who had opened a shop there for the sale
of music and French pianos. When he read the Paris papers, Pitou
trembled so violently that the onlookers thought he must have ague.
Hilarity struggled with envy in his breast. "Ma foi!" he would say to
himself, "it seems that my destiny is to create successes for others.
Here am I, exiled, and condemned to play cadenzas all day in a piano
warehouse, while she whom I invented, dances jubilant in Paris. I do
not doubt that she breakfasts at Armenonville, and dines at
Paillard's."
And it was a fact that Florozonde was the fashion. As regards her eyes,
at any rate, the young man had not exaggerated more than was to be
forgiven in an artist; her eyes were superb, supernatural; and now that
the spangled finery of a fair was replaced by the most triumphant of
audacities--now that a circus band had been exchanged for the orchestra
of La Coupole--she danced as she had not danced before. You say that a
gorgeous costume cannot improve a woman's dancing? Let a woman realise
that you improve her appearance, and you improve everything that she
can do!
Nevertheless one does not pretend that it was owing to her talent, or
her costume, or the weird melody proposed by the chef d'orchestre, that
she became the rage. Not at all. That was due to her reputation.
Sceptics might smile and murmur the French for "Rats!" but, again,
nobody could say positively that the tragedies had not occurred. And
above all, there were the eyes--it was conceded that a woman with eyes
like that _ought_ to be abnormal. La Coupole was thronged every
night, and the stage doorkeeper grew rich, so numerous were the daring
spirits, coquetting with death, who tendered notes inviting the Fatal
One to supper.
Somehow the suppers were rather dreary. The cause may have been that
the guest was handicapped by circumstances--to be good company without
discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may
have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a
tête-à-tête; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in
the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed
violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that
she wished she were 'on the road' again, with a jolly good fellow who
was not afraid of her!"
Then the tattered aunt cooed to her, reminding her that little
ducklings had run to her already roasted, and adding that she (the
tattered aunt) had never heard of equal luck in all the years she had
been in the show business.
"Ah, zut!" cried Florozonde. "It does not please me to be treated as if
I had scarlet fever. If I lean towards a man, he turns pale."
"Life is good," said her aunt philosophically, "and men have no wish to
die for the sake of an embrace--remember your reputation! II faut
souffrir pour être fatale. Look at your salary, sweetie--and you have
had nothing to do but hold your tongue! Ah, was anything ever heard
like it? A miracle of le bon Dieu!"
"It was monsieur de Fronsac, the journalist, who started it," said
Florozonde. "I supposed he had made it up, to give me a lift; but, ma
foi, I think _he_ half believes it, too! What can have put it in
his head? I have a mind to ask him the next time he comes behind."
"What a madness!" exclaimed the old woman; "you might queer your pitch!
Never, never perform a trick with a confederate when you can work
alone; that is one of the first rules of life. If he thinks it is true,
so much the better. Now get to bed, lovey, and think of pleasant
things--what did you have for supper?"
Florozonde was correct in her surmise--de Fronsac did half believe it,
and de Fronsac was accordingly much perturbed. Consider his dilemma!
The nature of his pursuits had demanded a love affair, and he had
endeavoured conscientiously to comply, for the man was nothing if not
an artist. But, as he had said to Pitou, he had loved so much, and so
many, that the thing was practically impossible for him, He was like
the pastrycook's boy who is habituated and bilious. Then suddenly a new
type, which he had despaired of finding, was displayed. His curiosity
awoke; and, fascinated in the first instance by her ghastly reputation,
he was fascinated gradually by her physical charms. Again he found
himself enslaved by a woman--and the woman, who owed her fame to his
services, was clearly appreciative. But he had a strong objection to
committing suicide.
His eagerness for her love was only equalled by his dread of what might
happen if she gave it to him. Alternately he yearned, and shuddered, On
Monday he cried, "Idiot, to be frightened by such blague!" and on
Tuesday he told himself, "All the same, there may be something in it!"
It was thus tortured that he paid his respects to Florozonde at the
theatre on the evening after she complained to her aunt. She was in her
dressing-room, making ready to go.
"You have danced divinely," he said to her. "There is no longer a
programme at La Coupole--there is only 'Florozonde.'"
She smiled the mysterious smile that she was cultivating. "What have
you been doing with yourself, monsieur? I have not seen you all the
week."
De Fronsac sighed expressively. "At my age one has the wisdom to avoid
temptation."
"May it not be rather unkind to temptation?" she suggested, raising her
marvellous eyes.
De Fronsac drew a step back. "Also I have had a great deal to do," he
added formally; "I am a busy man. For example, much as I should like to
converse with you now.--" But his resolution forsook him and he was
unable to say that he had looked in only for a minute.
"Much as you would like to converse with me--?" questioned Florozonde.
"I ought, by rights, to be seated at my desk," he concluded lamely.
"I am pleased that you are not seated at your desk," she said.
"Because?" murmured de Fronsac, with unspeakable emotions.
"Because I have never thanked you enough for your interest in me, and I
want to tell you that I remember." She gave him her hand. He held it,
battling with terror.
"Mademoiselle," he returned tremulously, "when I wrote the causerie you
refer to, my interest in you was purely the interest of a journalist,
so for that I do not deserve your thanks. But since I have had the
honour to meet you I have experienced an interest altogether different;
the interest of a man, of a--a--" Here his teeth chattered, and he
paused.
"Of a what?" she asked softly, with a dreamy air.
"Of a friend," he muttered. A gust of fear had made the "friend" an
iceberg. But her clasp tightened.
"I am glad," she said. "Ah, you have been good to me, monsieur! And if,
in spite of everything, I am sometimes sad, I am, at least, never
ungrateful."
"You are sad?" faltered the vacillating victim. "Why?"
Her bosom rose. "Is success all a woman wants?"
"Ah!" exclaimed de Fronsac, in an impassioned quaver, "is that not
life? To all of us there is the unattainable--to you, to me!"
"To you?" she murmured. Her eyes were transcendental. Admiration and
alarm tore him in halves.
"In truth," he gasped, "I am the most miserable of men! What is genius,
what is fame, when one is lonely and unloved?"
She moved impetuously closer--so close that the perfume of her hair
intoxicated him. His heart seemed to knock against his ribs, and he
felt the perspiration burst out on his brow. For an instant he
hesitated--on the edge of his grave, he thought. Then he dropped her
hand, and backed from her. "But why should I bore you with my griefs?"
he stammered. "Au revoir, mademoiselle!"
Outside the stage door he gave thanks for his self-control. Also, pale
with the crisis, he registered an oath not to approach her again.
Meanwhile the expatriated Pitou had remained disconsolate. Though the
people at the Hague spoke French, they said foreign things to him in
it. He missed Montmartre--the interests of home. While he waxed
eloquent to customers on the tone of pianos, or the excellence of rival
composers' melodies, he was envying Florozonde in Paris. Florozonde,
whom he had created, obsessed the young man. In the evening he read
about her at Van der Pyl's; on Sundays, when the train carried him to
drink beer at Scheveningen, he read about her in the Kurhaus. And then
the unexpected happened. In this way:
Pitou was discharged.
Few things could have surprised him more, and, to tell the truth, few
things could have troubled him less. "It is better to starve in Paris
than grow fat in Holland," he observed. He jingled his capital in his
trouser-pocket, in fancy savoured his dinner cooking at the Café du Bel
Avenir, and sped from the piano shop as if it had been on fire.
The clock pointed to a quarter to six as Nicolas Pitou, composer,
emerged from the gare du Nord, and lightly swinging the valise that
contained his wardrobe, proceeded to the rue des Trois Frères. Never
had it looked dirtier, or sweeter. He threw himself on Tricotrin's
neck; embraced the concierge--which took her breath away, since she was
ill-favoured and most disagreeable; fared sumptuously for one franc
fifty at the Café du Bel Avenir--where he narrated adventures abroad
that surpassed de Rougemont's; and went to La Coupole.
And there, jostled by the crowd, the poor fellow looked across the
theatre at the triumphant woman he had invented--and fell in love with
her.
One would have said there was more than the width of a theatre between
them--one would have said the distance was interminable. Who in the
audience could suspect that Florozonde would have been unknown but for
a boy in the Promenoir?
Yes, he fell in love--with her beauty, her grace--perhaps also with the
circumstances. The theatre rang with plaudits; the curtain hid her; and
he went out, dizzy with romance. He could not hope to speak to her
to-night, but he was curious to see her when she left. He decided that on
the morrow he would call upon de Fronsac, whom she doubtless knew now,
and ask him for an introduction. Promising himself this, he reached the
stage door--where de Fronsac, with trembling limbs, stood giving thanks
for his self-control.
"My friend!" cried Pitou enthusiastically, "how rejoiced I am to meet
you!" and nearly wrung his hand off.
"Aïe! Gently!" expostulated de Fronsac, writhing. "Aïe, aïe! I did not
know you loved me so much. So you are back from Sweden, hein?"
"Yes. I have not been there, but why should we argue about geography?
What were you doing as I came up--reciting your poems? By the way, I
have a favour to ask; I want you to introduce me to Florozonde."
"Never!" answered the poet firmly; "I have too much affection for you--
I have just resolved not to see her again myself. Besides, I thought
you knew her in the circus?"
"I never spoke to her there--I simply admired her from the plank. Come,
take me inside, and present me!"
"It is impossible," persisted de Fronsac; "I tell you I will not
venture near her any more. Also, she is coming out--that is her coupé
that you see waiting."
She came out as he spoke, and, affecting not to recognise him, moved
rapidly towards the carriage. But this would not do for Pitou at all.
"Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, sweeping his hat nearly to the pavement.
"Yes, well?" she said sharply, turning.
"I have just begged my friend de Fronsac to present me to you, and he
feared you might not pardon his presumption. May I implore you to
pardon mine?"
She smiled. There was the instant in which neither the man nor the
woman knows who will speak next, nor what is to be said--the instant on
which destinies hang. Pitou seized it.
"Mademoiselle, I returned to France only this evening. All the journey
my thought was--to see you as soon as I arrived!"
"Your friend," she said, with a scornful glance towards de Fronsac, who
sauntered gracefully away, "would warn you that you are rash."
"I am not afraid of his warning."
"Are you not afraid of _me_?"
"Afraid only that you will banish me too soon."
"Mon Dieu! then you must be the bravest man in Paris," she said.
"At any rate I am the luckiest for the moment."
It was a delightful change to Florozonde to meet a man who was not
alarmed by her; and it pleased her to show de Fronsac that his
cowardice had not left her inconsolable. She laughed loud enough for
him to hear.
"I ought not to be affording you the luck," she answered. "I have
friends waiting for me at the Café de Paris." "I expected some such
blow," said Pitou. "And how can I suppose you will disappoint your
friends in order to sup with me at the Café du Bel Avenir instead?"
"The Café du--?" She was puzzled.
"Bel Avenir."
"I do not know it."
"Nor would your coachman. We should walk there--and our supper would
cost three francs, wine included."
"Is it an invitation?"
"It is a prayer."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Nicolas Pitou,"
"Of Paris?"
"Of bohemia."
"What do you do in it?"
"Hunger, and make music."
"Unsuccessful?"
"Not to-night!"
"Take me to the Bel Avenir," she said, and sent the carriage away.
De Fronsac, looking back as they departed, was distressed to see the
young man risking his life.
At the Bel Avenir their entrance made a sensation. She removed her
cloak, and Pitou arranged it over two chairs. Then she threw her gloves
out of the way, in the bread-basket; and the waiter and the
proprietress, and all the family, did homage to her toilette.
"Who would have supposed?" she smiled, and her smile forgot to be
mysterious.
"That the restaurant would be so proud?"
"That I should be supping with you in it! Tell me, you had no hope of
this on your journey? It was true about your journey, hein?"
"Ah, really! No, how could I hope? I went round after your dance simply
to see you closer; and then I met de Fronsac, and then--"
"And then you were very cheeky. Answer! Why do I interest you? Because
of what they say of me?"
"Not altogether."
"What else?"
"Because you are so beautiful. Answer! Why did you come to supper with
me? To annoy some other fellow?"
"Not altogether."
"What else?"
"Because you were not frightened of me. Are you sure you are not
frightened? Oh, remember, remember your horrible fate if I should like
you too much!"
"It would be a thumping advertisement for you," said Pitou. "Let me
urge you to try to secure it."
"Reckless boy!" she laughed, "Pour out some more wine. Ah, it is good,
this! it is like old times. The strings of onions on the dear, dirty
walls, and the serviettes that are so nice and damp! It was in
restaurants like this, if my salary was paid, I used to sup on fête
days."
"And if it was not paid?"
"I supped in imagination. My dear, I have had a cigarette for a supper,
and the grass for a bed. I have tramped by the caravan while the stars
faded, and breakfasted on the drum in the tent. And you--on a bench in
the Champs Elysées, hein?"
"It has occurred."
"And you watched the sun rise, and made music, and wished _you_
could rise, too? I must hear your music some day. You shall write me a
dance. Is it agreed?"
"The contract is already stamped," said Pitou.
"I am glad I met you--it is the best supper I have had in Paris. Why
are you calculating the expenses on the back of the bill of fare?"
"I am not. I am composing your dance," said Pitou. "Don't speak for a
minute, it will be sublime! Also it will be a souvenir when you have
gone."
But she did not go for a long while. It was late when they left the
Café du Bel Avenir, still talking--and there was always more to say. By
this time Pitou did not merely love her beauty--he adored the woman. As
for Florozonde, she no longer merely loved his courage--she approved
the man.
Listen: he was young, fervid, and an artist; his proposal was made
before they reached her doorstep, and she consented!
Their attachment was the talk of the town, and everybody waited to hear
that Pitou had killed himself. His name was widely known at last. But
weeks and months went by; Florozonde's protracted season came to an
end; and still he looked radiantly well. Pitou was the most unpopular
man in Paris.
In the rue Dauphine, one day, he met de Fronsac.
"So you are still alive!" snarled the poet.
"Never better," declared Pitou. "It turns out," he added
confidentially, "there was nothing in that story--it was all fudge."
"Evidently! I must congratulate you," said de Fronsac, looking
bomb-shells.
THE OPPORTUNITY OF PETITPAS
In Bordeaux, on the 21st of December, monsieur Petitpas, a clerk with
bohemian yearnings, packed his portmanteau for a week's holiday. In
Paris, on the same date, monsieur Tricotrin, poet and pauper, was
commissioned by the Editor of _Le Demi-Mot_ to convert a rough
translation into literary French. These two disparate incidents were
destined by Fate--always mysterious in her workings--to be united in a
narrative for the present volume.
Three evenings later the poet's concierge climbed the stairs and rapped
peremptorily at the door.
"Well?" cried Tricotrin, raising bloodshot eyes from the manuscript;
"who disturbs me now? Come in!"
"I have come in," panted madame Dubois, who had not waited for his
invitation, "and I am here to tell you, monsieur, that you cannot be
allowed to groan in this agonised fashion. Your lamentations can be
heard even in the basement."
"Is it in my agreement, madame, that I shall not groan if I am so
disposed?" inquired the poet haughtily.
"There are things tacitly understood. It is enough that you are in
arrears with your rent, without your doing your best to drive away the
other tenants. For two days they have all complained that it would be
less disturbing to reside in a hospital."
"Well, they have my permission to remove there," said Tricotrin. "Now
that the matter is settled, let me get on with my work!" And with the
groan of a soul in Hades, he perused another line.
"There you go again!" expostulated the woman angrily, "It is not to be
endured, monsieur. What is the matter with you, for goodness' sake?"
"With me, madame, there is nothing the matter; the fault lies with an
infernal Spanish novel. A misguided editor has commissioned me to
rewrite it from a translation made by a foreigner. How can I avoid
groans when I read his rot? Miranda exclaims, 'May heaven confound you,
bandit!' And the fiancé of the ingénue addresses her as 'Angel of this
house!'"
"Well, at least groan quietly," begged the concierge; "do not bellow
your sufferings to the cellar."
"To oblige you I will be as Spartan as I can," agreed Tricotrin. "Now I
have lost my place in the masterpiece. Ah, here we are! 'I feel she
brings bad tidings--she wears a disastrous mien.' It is sprightly
dialogue! If the hundred and fifty francs were not essential to keep a
roof over my head, I would send the Editor a challenge for offering me
the job."
Perspiration bespangled the young man's brow as he continued his task.
When another hour had worn by he thirsted to do the foreign translator
a bodily injury, and so intense was his exasperation that, by way of
interlude, he placed the manuscript on the floor and jumped on it. But
the climax was reached in Chapter XXVII; under the provocation of the
love scene in Chapter XXVII frenzy mastered him, and with a yell of
torture he hurled the whole novel through the window, and burst into
hysterical tears.
The novel, which was of considerable bulk, descended on the landlord,
who was just approaching the house to collect his dues.
"What does it mean," gasped monsieur Gouge, when he had recovered his
equilibrium, and his hat; "what does it mean that I cannot approach my
own property without being assaulted with a ton of paper? Who has dared
to throw such a thing from a window?"
"Monsieur," stammered the concierge, "I do not doubt that it was the
top-floor poet; he has been behaving like a lunatic for days."
"Aha, the top-floor poet?" snorted monsieur Gouge. "I shall soon
dispose of _him_!" And Tricotrin's tears were scarcely dried when
_bang_ came another knock at his door.
"So, monsieur," exclaimed the landlord, with fine satire, "your poems
are of small account, it appears, since you use them as missiles? The
value you put upon your scribbling does not encourage me to wait for my
rent!"
"Mine?" faltered Tricotrin, casting an indignant glance at the muddy
manuscript restored to him; "you accuse _me_ of having perpetrated
that atrocity? Oh, this is too much! I have a reputation to preserve,
monsieur, and I swear by all the Immortals that it was no work of
mine."
"Did you not throw it?"
"Throw it? Yes, assuredly I threw it. But I did not write it."
"Morbleu! what do I care who wrote it?" roared monsieur Gouge, purple
with spleen. "Does its authorship improve the condition of my hat? My
grievance is its arrival on my head, not its literary quality. Let me
tell you that you expose yourself to actions at law, pitching weights
like this from a respectable house into a public street."
"I should plead insanity," said Tricotrin; "twenty-seven chapters of
that novel, translated into a Spaniard's French, would suffice to
people an asylum. Nevertheless, if it arrived on your hat, I owe you an
apology."
"You also owe me two hundred francs!" shouted the other, "and I have
shown you more patience than you deserve. Well, my folly is finished!
You settle up, or you get out, right off!"
"Have you reflected that it is Christmas Eve--do we live in a
melodrama, that I should wander homeless on Christmas Eve? Seriously,
you cannot expect a man of taste to lend himself to so hackneyed a
situation? Besides, I share this apartment with the composer monsieur
Nicolas Pitou. Consider how poignant he would find the room's
associations if he returned to dwell here alone!"
"Monsieur Pitou will not be admitted when he returns--there is not a
pin to choose between the pair of you. You hand me the two hundred
francs, or you go this minute--and I shall detain your wardrobe till
you pay. Where is it?"
"It is divided between my person and a shelf at the pawnbroker's,"
explained the poet; "but I have a soiled collar in the left-hand corner
drawer. However, I can offer you more valuable security for this
trifling debt than you would dare to ask; the bureau is full of pearls
--metrical, but beyond price. I beg your tenderest care of them,
especially my tragedy in seven acts. Do not play jinks with the
contents of that bureau, or Posterity will gibbet you and the name of
'Gouge' will one day be execrated throughout France. Garbage,
farewell!"
"Here, take your shaving paper with you!" cried monsieur Gouge,
flinging the Spanish novel down the stairs. And the next moment the man
of letters stood dejected on the pavement, with the fatal manuscript
under his arm.
"Ah, Miranda, Miranda, thou little knowest what mischief thou hast
done!" he murmured, unconsciously plagiarising. "She brought bad
tidings indeed, with her disastrous mien," he added. "What is to become
of me now?"
The moon, to which he had naturally addressed this query, made no
answer; and, fingering the sou in his trouser-pocket, he trudged in the
direction of the rue Ravignan. "The situation would look well in
print," he reflected, "but the load under my arm should, dramatically,
be a bundle of my own poems. Doubtless the matter will be put right by
my biographer. I wonder if I can get half a bed from Goujaud?"
Encouraged by the thought of the painter's hospitality, he proceeded to
the studio; but he was informed in sour tones that monsieur Goujaud
would not sleep there that night.
"So much the better," he remarked, "for I can have all his bed, instead
of half of it! Believe me, I shall put you to no trouble, madame."
"I believe it fully," answered the woman, "for you will not come
inside--not monsieur Goujaud, nor you, nor any other of his vagabond
friends. So, there!"
"Ah, is that how the wind blows--the fellow has not paid his rent?"
said Tricotrin. "How disgraceful of him, to be sure! Fortunately
Sanquereau lives in the next house."
He pulled the bell there forthwith, and the peal had scarcely sounded
when Sanquereau rushed to the door, crying, "Welcome, my Beautiful!"
"Mon Dieu, what worthless acquaintances I possess!" moaned the unhappy
poet. "Since you are expecting your Beautiful I need not go into
details."
"What on earth did you want?" muttered Sanquereau, crestfallen.
"I came to tell you the latest Stop Press news--Goujaud's landlord has
turned him out and I have no bed to lie on. Au revoir!"
After another apostrophe to the heavens, "That inane moon, which makes
no response, is beginning to get on my nerves," he soliloquised. "Let
me see now! There is certainly master Criqueboeuf, but it is a long
journey to the quartier Latin, and when I get there his social
engagements may annoy me as keenly as Sanquereau's. It appears to me I
am likely to try the open-air cure to-night. In the meanwhile I may as
well find Miranda a seat and think things over."
Accordingly he bent his steps to the place Dancourt, and having
deposited the incubus beside him, stretched his limbs on a bench
beneath a tree. His attitude, and his luxuriant locks, to say nothing
of his melancholy aspect, rendered him a noticeable figure in the
little square, and monsieur Petitpas, from Bordeaux, under the awning
of the café opposite, stood regarding him with enthusiasm.
"Upon my word of honour," mused Petitpas, rubbing his hands, "I believe
I see a Genius in the dumps! At last I behold the Paris of my dreams.
If I have read my Murger to any purpose, I am on the verge of an epoch.
What a delightful adventure!"
Taking out his Marylands, Petitpas sauntered towards the bench with a
great show of carelessness, and made a pretence of feeling in his
pockets for a match. "Tschut!" he exclaimed; then, affecting to observe
Tricotrin for the first time, "May I beg you to oblige me with a light,
monsieur?" he asked deferentially. A puff of wind provided an excuse
for sitting down to guard the flame; and the next moment the Genius had
accepted a cigarette, and acknowledged that the weather was mild for
the time of year.
Excitement thrilled Petitpas. How often, after business hours, he had
perused his well-thumbed copy of _La Vie de Bohème_ and in fancy
consorted with the gay descendants of Rodolphe and Marcel; how often he
had regretted secretly that he, himself, did not woo a Muse and jest at
want in a garret, instead of totting up figures, and eating three meals
a day in comfort! And now positively one of the fascinating beings of
his imagination lolled by his side! The little clerk on a holiday
longed to play the generous comrade. In his purse he had a couple of
louis, designed for sight-seeing, and, with a rush of emotion, he
pictured himself squandering five or six francs in half an hour and
startling the artist by his prodigality.
"If I am not mistaken, I have the honour to address an author,
monsieur?" he ventured.
"Your instincts have not misled you," replied the poet; "I am
Tricotrin, monsieur--Gustave Tricotrin. The name, however, is to be
found, as yet, on no statues."
"My own name," said the clerk, "is Adolphe Petitpas. I am a stranger in
Paris, and I count myself fortunate indeed to have made monsieur
Tricotrin's acquaintance so soon."
"He expresses himself with some discretion, this person," reflected
Tricotrin. "And his cigarette was certainly providential!"
"To meet an author has always been an ambition of mine," Petitpas
continued; "I dare to say that I have the artistic temperament, though
circumstances have condemned me to commercial pursuits. You have no
idea how enviable the literary life appears to me, monsieur!"
"Its privileges are perhaps more monotonous than you suppose," drawled
the homeless poet. "Also, I had to work for many years before I
attained my present position."
"This noble book, for instance," began the clerk, laying a reverent
hand on the abominable manuscript.
"Hein?" exclaimed its victim, starting.
"To have written this noble book must be a joy compared with which my
own prosperity is valueless."
"The damned thing is no work of mine," cried Tricotrin; "and if we are
to avoid a quarrel, I will ask you not to accuse me of it! A joy,
indeed? In that block of drivel you view the cause of my deepest
misfortunes."
"A thousand apologies!" stammered his companion; "my inference was
hasty. But what you say interests me beyond words. This manuscript, of
seeming innocence, is the cause of misfortunes? May I crave an enormous
favour; may I beg you to regard me as a friend and give me your
confidence?"
"I see no reason why I should refuse it," answered Tricotrin, on whom
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