Such was the necessity to which I was at that time reduced! One has
heard that the North Americans invent the most singular advertising,
but I will not believe they surpass the Parisian. Myself, I say I cannot
express my sufferings under the notation of the crowds that moved about
the Cafe' de la Paix! The French are a terrible people when they
laugh sincerely. It is not so much the amusing things which cause
them amusement; it is often the strange, those contrasts which contain
something horrible, and when they laugh there is too frequently some
person who is uncomfortable or wicked. I am glad that I was born not a
Frenchman; I should regret to be native to a country where they invent
such things as I was doing in the Place de l'Opera; for, as I tell you,
the idea was not mine.
As I sat with my eyes drooping before the gaze of my terrible and
applauding audiences, how I mentally formed cursing words against the
day when my misfortunes led me to apply at the Theatre Folie-Rouge for
work! I had expected an audition and a role of comedy in the Revue; for,
perhaps lacking any experience of the stage, I am a Neapolitan by birth,
though a resident of the Continent at large since the age of fifteen.
All Neapolitans can act; all are actors; comedians of the greatest,
as every traveller is cognizant. There is a thing in the air of
our beautiful slopes which makes the people of a great instinctive
musicalness and deceptiveness, with passions like those burning in
the old mountain we have there. They are ready to play, to sing--or to
explode, yet, imitating that amusing Vesuvio, they never do this last
when you are in expectancy, or, as a spectator, hopeful of it.
How could any person wonder, then, that I, finding myself suddenly
destitute in Paris, should apply at the theatres? One after another,
I saw myself no farther than the director's door, until (having had no
more to eat the day preceding than three green almonds, which I took
from a cart while the good female was not looking) I reached the
Folie-Rouge. Here I was astonished to find a polite reception from the
director. It eventuated that they wished for a person appearing like
myself a person whom they would outfit with clothes of quality in all
parts, whose external presented a gentleman of the great world, not
merely of one the galant-uomini, but who would impart an air to a table
at a cafe' where he might sit and partake. The contrast of this with
the emplacement of the establishment on his bald head-top was to be the
success of the idea. It was plain that I had no baldness, my hair being
very thick and I but twenty-four years of age, when it was explained
that my hair could be shaved. They asked me to accept, alas! not a part
in the Revue, but a specialty as a sandwich-man. Knowing the English
tongue as I do, I may afford the venturesomeness to play upon it
a little: I asked for bread, and they offered me not a role, but a
sandwich!
It must be undoubted that I possessed not the disposition to make any
fun with my accomplishments during those days that I spent under the
awning of the Cafe' de la Paix. I had consented to be the advertisement
in greatest desperation, and not considering what the reality would be.
Having consented, honour compelled that I fulfil to the ending. Also,
the costume and outfittings I wore were part of my emolument. They had
been constructed for me by the finest tailor; and though I had impulses,
often, to leap up and fight through the noisy ones about me and run far
to the open country, the very garments I wore were fetters binding me to
remain and suffer. It seemed to me that the hours were spent not in the
centre of a ring of human persons, but of un-well-made pantaloons and
ugly skirts. Yet all of these pantaloons and skirts had such scrutinous
eyes and expressions of mirth to laugh like demons at my conscious,
burning, painted head; eyes which spread out, astonished at the sight
of me, and peered and winked and grinned from the big wrinkles above
the gaiters of Zouaves, from the red breeches of the gendarmes, the
knickerbockers of the cyclists, the white ducks of sergents de ville,
and the knees of the boulevardiers, bagged with sitting cross-legged at
the little tables. I could not escape these eyes;--how scornfully they
twinkled at me from the spurred and glittering officers' boots! How with
amaze from the American and English trousers, both turned up and creased
like folded paper, both with some dislike for each other but for all
other trousers more.
It was only at such times when the mortifications to appear so greatly
embarrassed became stronger than the embarrassment itself that I could
by will power force my head to a straight construction and look out
upon my spectators firmly. On the second day of my ordeal, so facing
the laughers, I found myself facing straight into the monocle of my
half-brother and ill-wisher, Prince Caravacioli.
At this, my agitation was sudden and very great, for there was no one
I wished to prevent perceiving my condition more than that old Antonio
Caravacioli! I had not known that he was in Paris, but I could have no
doubt it was himself: the monocle, the handsome nose, the toupee',
the yellow skin, the dyed-black moustache, the splendid height--it was
indeed Caravacioli! He was costumed for the automobile, and threw but
one glance at me as he crossed the pavement to his car, which was in
waiting. There was no change, not of the faintest, in that frosted
tragic mask of a countenance, and I was glad to think that he had not
recognized me.
And yet, how strange that I should care, since all his life he had
declined to recognize me as what I was! Ah, I should have been glad to
shout his age, his dyes, his artificialities, to all the crowd, so to
touch him where it would most pain him! For was he not the vainest man
in the whole world? How well I knew his vulnerable point: the monstrous
depth of his vanity in that pretense of youth which he preserved through
superhuman pains and a genius of a valet, most excellently! I had much
to pay Antonio for myself, more for my father, most for my mother.
This was why that last of all the world I would have wished that old
fortune-hunter to know how far I had been reduced!
Then I rejoiced about that change which my unreal baldness produced in
me, giving me a look of forty years instead of twenty-four, so that
my oldest friend must take at least three stares to know me. Also, my
costume would disguise me from the few acquaintances I had in Paris
(if they chanced to cross the Seine), as they had only seen me in the
shabbiest; while, at my last meeting with Antonio, I had been as fine in
the coat as now.
Yet my encouragement was not so joyful that my gaze lifted often. On
the very last day, in the afternoon when my observances were most and
noisiest, I lifted my eyes but once during the final half-hour--but such
a one that was!
The edge of that beautiful grey pongee skirt came upon the lid of my
lowered eyelid like a cool shadow over hot sand. A sergent had just made
many of the people move away, so there remained only a thin ring of
the laughing pantaloons about me, when this divine skirt presented its
apparition to me. A pair of North-American trousers accompanied it,
turned up to show the ankle-bones of a rich pair of stockings; neat,
enthusiastic and humorous, I judged them to be; for, as one may
discover, my only amusement during my martyrdom--if this misery can
be said to possess such alleviatings--had been the study of feet,
pantaloons, and skirts. The trousers in this case detained my
observation no time. They were but the darkest corner of the chiaroscuro
of a Rembrandt--the mellow glow of gold was all across the grey skirt.
How shall I explain myself, how make myself understood? Shall I be
thought sentimentalistic or but mad when I declare that my first
sight of the grey pongee skirt caused me a thrill of excitation, of
tenderness, and--oh-i-me!--of self-consciousness more acute than all my
former mortifications. It was so very different from all other skirts
that had shown themselves to me those sad days, and you may understand
that, though the pantaloons far outnumbered the skirts, many hundreds of
the latter had also been objects of my gloomy observation.
This skirt, so unlike those which had passed, presented at once the
qualifications of its superiority. It had been constructed by an artist,
and it was worn by a lady. It did not pine, it did not droop; there was
no more an atom of hanging too much than there was a portion inflated
by flamboyancy; it did not assert itself; it bore notice without
seeking it. Plain but exquisite, it was that great rarity--goodness made
charming.
The peregrination of the American trousers suddenly stopped as they
caught sight of me, and that precious skirt paused, precisely in
opposition to my little table. I heard a voice, that to which the
skirt pertained. It spoke the English, but not in the manner of the
inhabitants of London, who seem to sing undistinguishably in their
talking, although they are comprehensible to each other. To an Italian
it seems that many North-Americans and English seek too often the
assistance of the nose in talking, though in different manners, each
equally unagreeable to our ears. The intelligent among our lazzaroni
of Naples, who beg from tourists, imitate this, with the purpose of
reminding the generous traveller of his home, in such a way to soften
his heart. But there is some difference: the Italian, the Frenchman,
or German who learns English sometimes misunderstands the American: the
Englishman he sometimes understands.
This voice that spoke was North-American. Ah, what a voice! Sweet as the
mandolins of Sorento! Clear as the bells of Capri! To hear it, was like
coming upon sight of the almond-blossoms of Sicily for the first time,
or the tulip-fields of Holland. Never before was such a voice!
"Why did you stop, Rufus?" it said.
"Look!" replied the American trousers; so that I knew the pongee lady
had not observed me of herself.
Instantaneously there was an exclamation, and a pretty grey parasol,
closed, fell at my feet. It is not the pleasantest to be an object which
causes people to be startled when they behold you; but I blessed the
agitation of this lady, for what caused her parasol to fall from her
hand was a start of pity.
"Ah!" she cried. "The poor man!"
She had perceived that I was a gentleman.
I bent myself forward and lifted the parasol, though not my eyes I could
not have looked up into the face above me to be Caesar! Two hands came
down into the circle of my observation; one of these was that belonging
to the trousers, thin, long, and white; the other was the grey-gloved
hand of the lady, and never had I seen such a hand--the hand of an angel
in a suede glove, as the grey skirt was the mantle of a saint made by
Doucet. I speak of saints and angels; and to the large world these may
sound like cold words.--It is only in Italy where some people are found
to adore them still.
I lifted the parasol toward that glove as I would have moved to set a
candle on an altar. Then, at a thought, I placed it not in the glove,
but in the thin hand of the gentleman. At the same time the voice of the
lady spoke to me--I was to have the joy of remembering that this voice
had spoken four words to me.
"Je vous remercie, monsieur," it said.
"Pas de quoi!" I murmured.
The American trousers in a loud tone made reference in the idiom to my
miserable head: "Did you ever see anything to beat it?"
The beautiful voice answered, and by the gentleness of her sorrow for me
I knew she had no thought that I might understand. "Come away. It is too
pitiful!"
Then the grey skirt and the little round-toed shoes beneath it passed
from my sight, quickly hidden from me by the increasing crowd; yet I
heard the voice a moment more, but fragmentarily: "Don't you see how
ashamed he is, how he must have been starving before he did that, or
that someone dependent on him needed--"
I caught no more, but the sweetness that this beautiful lady understood
and felt for the poor absurd wretch was so great that I could have wept.
I had not seen her face; I had not looked up--even when she went.
"Who is she?" cried a scoundrel voyous, just as she turned. "Madame of
the parasol? A friend of monsieur of the ornamented head?"
"No. It is the first lady in waiting to his wife, Madame la Duchesse,"
answered a second. "She has been sent with an equerry to demand of
monseigneur if he does not wish a little sculpture upon his dome as well
as the colour decorations!"
"'Tis true, my ancient?" another asked of me.
I made no repartee, continuing to sit with my chin dependent upon my
cravat, but with things not the same in my heart as formerly to the
arrival of that grey pongee, the grey glove, and the beautiful voice.
Since King Charles the Mad, in Paris no one has been completely free
from lunacy while the spring-time is happening. There is something in
the sun and the banks of the Seine. The Parisians drink sweet and fruity
champagne because the good wines are already in their veins. These
Parisians are born intoxicated and remain so; it is not fair play to
require them to be like other human people. Their deepest feeling is
for the arts; and, as everyone had declared, they are farceurs in their
tragedies, tragic in their comedies. They prepare the last epigram in
the tumbril; they drown themselves with enthusiasm about the alliance
with Russia. In death they are witty; in war they have poetic spasms; in
love they are mad.
The strangest of all this is that it is not only the Parisians who are
the insane ones in Paris; the visitors are none of them in behaviour as
elsewhere. You have only to go there to become as lunatic as the rest.
Many travellers, when they have departed, remember the events they have
caused there as a person remembers in the morning what he has said and
thought in the moonlight of the night.
In Paris it is moonlight even in the morning; and in Paris one falls in
love even more strangely than by moonlight.
It is a place of glimpses: a veil fluttering from a motor-car, a little
lace handkerchief fallen from a victoria, a figure crossing a lighted
window, a black hat vanishing in the distance of the avenues of the
Tuileries. A young man writes a ballade and dreams over a bit of lace.
Was I not, then, one of the least extravagant of this mad people? Men
have fallen in love with photographs, those greatest of liars; was I
so wild, then, to adore this grey skirt, this small shoe, this divine
glove, the golden-honey voice--of all in Paris the only one to pity and
to understand? Even to love the mystery of that lady and to build my
dreams upon it?--to love all the more because of the mystery? Mystery
is the last word and the completing charm to a young man's passion. Few
sonnets have been written to wives whose matrimony is more than five
years of age--is it not so?