One day he was at work in his room, Marguerite and the parrot in the
other room, the door between them shut. Marguerite had found a way of
keeping the parrot quiet when Albert was at work. A family with small
children had recently moved in on the floor below and their noises were
irritating Albert beyond endurance, so Marguerite was taking pains to
keep the parrot quiet. She was feeding him bonbons and carrying on a
deaf-and-dumb conversation with the hook-nosed chatterer.
“You mustn’t make a sound,” she whispered in a soft lisp, as if talking
to a babe, and waved an admonishing finger. “Not the least bit of sound,
for we don’t want Albert to be angry, do we?”
The parrot buried his beak in the down under his left wing and muffled
his suppressed laughter.
“There goes the postman! That fool, he rings the doorbell as if the
house were on fire! Albert has told him a thousand times not to do it in
the morning as it disturbs his thoughts——”
The door soon opened with an abrupt jerk and Albert, in a long
_Schlafrock_ (lounging robe) appeared in the doorway. His hair
dishevelled, a look of unendurable annoyance on his face, his eyes
contracted and intense, he clenched his fists and almost shouted—“Can’t
you tell that fool to stop ringing? I can hear every bell in the
neighborhood when that imbecile makes his rounds. I was in the midst of
a sentence and, bah!—that fool comes along with his clamor and I forget
what I was going to say—my whole drift of thought is lost—just when my
writing was coming along so easily he comes along and kills my morning’s
work—that idiot!”
“I told him a number of times not to ring so loud,” Marguerite struck
in.
“You told him! You don’t think he is doing it to spite me! That postman
and the parrot are a pair!”
“The parrot! He never opened his month. He was as quiet as a mouse all
morning. You blame him for everything.—” Marguerite’s voice was
becoming lachrymose. “You hate him because I love him so. Poor dear!”
She nestled close to the parrot’s cage. “It is about time that both you
and I go—Albert loves neither of us any longer——”
Marguerite’s chin began to quiver, the dimples in her cheeks appeared
and disappeared, and presently the deluge. She dropped into a chair and
the tears soon flowed through her fingers, with which she covered her
eyes.
He rushed up to her with a gesture of helplessness.
“What are you crying about? It’s I who ought to cry—a fine morning’s
work gone because that stupid postman rings the doorbell as if he were a
Prussian officer. Am I blaming you?”
“If—you—loved—me—you—wouldn’t—talk—that—way—” Her words came
between sobs.
He strode across the room and waved his arms in despair. He gnashed his
teeth but said nothing.
“You see, you wouldn’t even deny it—you know you don’t love me any
longer. I know, I know, yesterday at the_ Café des Ambassadeurs_ with
those funny Germans of yours you sat at the table and talked of nothing
but the Princess Pompani. You think because I don’t understand German
you can talk of your other loves with impunity—but I understand what
_Prinzessin_ means—every minute it was _Prinzessin_ this and
_Prinzessin_ that—”
She lapsed into convulsive sobbing.
Suddenly he burst out laughing.
“Yes, you laugh because you have no heart and because you make me
suffer——”
The next moment he walked up to her, gently passed his hand over her
hair and tried to embrace her but she pushed him away——
“Don’t touch me—I know when you touch me you are thinking you are
passing your hands over the Princess—”
Albert was still laughing softly and trying to remove her hands from her
face.
“Don’t you come near me—don’t——”
He had succeeded in pulling her hands away from her face and in giving
her a grazing kiss on her lips.
“Aren’t you silly, my sweet little Nonette (one of his endearing
nicknames)”. “Look at me!” He was holding her face between his hands,
trying to make her look at him, but she tightened her eyelids and pulled
away from him.
“No, I won’t look at you until you stop loving that Princess——”
He laughed indulgently.
“What a child you are. You know I don’t love anybody but my sweet little
kitten with those dear little dimples”—he kissed her on both cheeks,
and catching her unawares, pressed a kiss on her mouth.
“Aren’t you silly?” he continued as he wiped her gathered tears. “Here I
am working so hard to get a little more money so that we may be able to
move away from this clattering neighborhood to a cozy little apartment
on Rue St. Honoré and you blame me for getting angry at that stupid
postman!”
“I told the _concierge_ only yesterday that unless she made the children
behave we would have to move.” Her voice sounded half reconciled but her
eyes were still averted from him.
“You sweet little monkey!”
He embraced her affectionately and she rested on his arms without
resistance.
“Ha—ha! Ha—ha!—Ha—ha!”
“Shut up, you fool!” she turned angrily upon the laughing parrot.
“No one is a fool who can laugh,” Albert said wistfully, with a sad
smile on his face. “Come on, let’s all laugh—Ha—ha! Ha—ha!” he
mimicked the parrot, and Marguerite presently joined in the laughter.
“I am nearly through with my book” he presently consoled her, “and I
think I can make that miserly publisher in Berlin advance me five
thousand francs on my royalties, and I have my eye on a beautiful
apartment on Rue St. Honoré overlooking a garden. I think I’ll be able
to buy you the earrings you saw in the display window the other day
and——”
There was a knock on the door and they both jumped up, Albert went to
the door.
The _concierge_ was standing with a packet of letters and newspapers.
Albert thanked the _concierge_ profusely, tipped her liberally, and
scanned the envelopes.
“Here is a letter from the publisher,” he exclaimed jubilantly. “I’ll
bet the rascal offers me only three thousand francs as an advance for my
next volume. He always likes to bargain. If I had asked for three
thousand he would have offered me one——”
“Why didn’t you ask him for ten, he might have then offered you five,”
she counselled.
“I didn’t want him to get apoplexy—” he laughed.
He tore the envelope and while removing the contents continued talking
half to himself, half to Marguerite.
“What a long letter—I know—he is telling me, I suppose, how much he
has lost on my other books. That rogue! He has grown rich on my sweat
and blood and is always whining how little there is in the publishing
business and throws me a pittance! Huh! What’s that!” His eyelids came
close together as he continued turning the pages and there was a deep
dent between his eyes. “The dogs!——”
“What’s the matter, my dear?” she looked up anxiously at Albert’s
agitated countenance.
For a moment he did not answer her. Then, with the loose sheets of the
letter in one hand, the large square envelope in the other, he paced up
and down the room, frowning, uncontrollable rage in his eyes.
“Those vultures are trying to wrest the very bread from my mouth, but
they shall see, I won’t sit idle either.” He still talked half to
himself, half to the puzzled Marguerite.
He suddenly remained standing stock still in the middle of the room, his
eyes barely open. Then, without saying a word, he rushed to the
adjoining room, put the sheets of manuscript in order and stowed them
safely into a drawer, exchanged his _Schlafrock_ for a more fitting coat
for the street, and was presently ready to leave, Marguerite following
him attentively, almost mutely, and helping him with his toilet. She
knew that something was irritating her Albert but he had often told her
she could not understand his inner disturbances so she did not press him
with further questions. But presently he volunteered enlightenment.
“They have forbidden my books in Prussia, and not only those I have
published but even those I might publish. The publisher says he can’t
send me a _sou_ under the circumstances, and that he, too, will be
ruined.”
The want of money was quite intelligible to Marguerite. She knew that
without money they could not move to the cozy little apartment on Rue
St. Honoré and she wouldn’t be able to get those coveted earrings.
“What’s the difference?” she soon consoled him, “you can write for the
French papers. The Germans are queer anyhow.”
For a bare second Marguerite’s stupidity and simplicity irritated him
but before his anger had gathered he glanced at her child-like face, her
doting eyes, clasped her in his arms and dashed out of the house.
“Yes, I’ll be back in time for dinner. We’ll go to the _Ambassadeurs_
tonight,” he comforted her as he closed the door.