"I sell hats," Marie said, "in a _boutique_ on the _rue d'Antin_--the
second shop from the avenue, an exclusive little place. But I haven't
worked for three weeks. Business was bad. This is why I have had so
much time for the witch. But I never work very steadily, even when
Americans are thick. I don't like to work. Do you know what I like to
do?
"I like to get up in the morning about ten, after I have had a nice
little breakfast in bed. I don't like to stand up in a café bar gulping
a cup of chocolate in a half minute and then go running to catch the
next underground train for the _Madeleine_ station! I don't like to
stand jammed between a fat _bourgeois_ and a _charbonier_ who has had
_soupe à l'oignon_ for breakfast, while some skinny little clerk winks
at me over his tooth-pick, and maybe pinches my _derrière_. I don't
like that. I like to get up, as I said, about ten o'clock and not get
dressed, but just throw my _peignoire_ over my shoulders, and look out
the window. My room is not large, but it has this about it--one can see
from its window the tops of trees growing in the _Parc Montsouris_. I
look at the trees, and then if I stick my head out I can see the corner
of the street and people passing.
"I like it sunny so that when I sit near the window the sunshine warms
my knees; and then I like to look over my clothes and do a little
mending, but not very much mending. And when it is very sunny I like
to wash my hair. I go into the hall to get water from the faucet, and,
m'sieu, it is very strange, as soon as the water begins to splash I
begin to sing. Or if I pour water in the--in any other place I begin to
sing just the same. I sing while I am washing my hair, and soap gets
into my mouth.
"The songs I sing are the doodily-woodily-wuppity-wox kind. I make them
up as I go along.
"I like to go out about one o'clock and have a nice little lunch in a
restaurant run by an Alsatian woman, and then I like to buy two little
pastries with cream in them at a bakeshop and carry them to the café on
the corner. I like to have the same table always. Before I sit down I
get a paper off the rack, and then I drink my coffee and read and watch
people going by.
"In the afternoons I like to look in the windows of shops and maybe
talk to a blonde girl named Anne who is my friend. Or walk in the
Gardens. And pretty soon it is time for dinner. That's what I like to
do instead of selling hats!
"And I like it much better when--I would like it much better if there
was some reason to go through the day to the night-time. Then it would
all be better. Then I would mend my clothes and wash my hair not
just for myself; sitting in the café would be a time for remembering
and thinking; and when I talked to Anne I would have something to
talk about. Do you see? It's like having some kind of sickness to do
everything you do just for yourself. I don't like it!
"I was not working and so I liked calling on the witch in the
afternoon, only it was so far, and sometimes I would have to walk. I
could see she was crazy to have me come. She is very lonely.
"Sometimes she would tell me stories, but the conversation always came
round to you. She told me about your room and your clothes and what you
did before you went to bed,--what kind of pajamas you wore--Wednesday
night, remember, you didn't wear any because it was so hot!..."
Spike's neck and face turned red. He watched an aproned grocer's boy
pedal by on a tricycle.
"... She told me what books you read; how you stood at your window and
looked at the roofs. How you would suddenly get ideas and run to your
easel to make a sketch, how long you looked at yourself in the mirror."
Spike emptied his glass. He started to hum a tune. But Marie serenely
continued.
"The witch noticed a strange thing you did with your shoes. If you took
the left one off first on Monday, on Tuesday you would take the right
one off first. She rubbed her hands together and said, 'Oh, I like
that little ritual of justice. Oh, he is so nice. He wants definition,
justice, balance. He wants to change everything. He is like me--he
is alone, he is filled with divine discontent. This world is not his
home!'"
Marie moved in her chair, stretched her arms, and looked back at the
clock inside the café. She drank to Spike with a bow of mock reverence.
For a moment she watched the rising bubbles in the wine.... Then burst
out laughing.
"Tuesday the witch solemnly said to me: 'I will be frank with you,
my friend!... Watching him through his window, following him in the
street--listening to his talk in the White Hen, but most of all sitting
on his little green bed in the night gazing upon his sleeping face--I
have fallen in love with Spike Flecker!'"
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Spike. "She didn't say that!"
"Of course she did! But I knew it before she told me.
"'Now at last,' the witch added solemnly, 'at last I have a beginning
and an ending! Toward this, toward the conjunction of all-power with an
absolute passion for an absolute, everything in history has tended and
contributed.'
"The old witch stood up beside her desk and stabbed her pen down in the
middle of a note-book.
"'I shall write my history of the world,' she said in a loud voice,
'with everything leading up to Spike Flecker's birth in Waterville,
Minnesota!'"
"Jesus!" breathed Spike.