IN Buda-Pesth three things happened.
First, Paragot slipped in the street and broke his ankle bone, so that
he lay seven weeks in hospital, during which time Blanquette and I and
Narcisse lived like sparrows on the housetops, dazed by the
incomprehensibilities of the strange city.
Secondly, Paragot's aunt, his mother's sister, died intestate leaving a
small sum of money which he inherited as her nearest surviving relative.
Thirdly, Paragot fell into the arms of Theodor Izelin the painter, an
old friend of Paris student days.
The consequences of the first accident, though not immediate, were
lasting. Paragot walked for ever afterwards with a slight limp, and his
tramps along the high-roads of Europe had to be abandoned.
The consequence of the second was that Paragot went to London. Some
legal formality, the establishment of identity or what not, necessitated
his presence. I daresay he could have arranged matters through consuls
and lawyers and such-like folk, but Paragot who was childishly simple in
business matters obeyed the summons to London without question.
As a consequence of the third I became an inmate of the house of Theodor
Izelin.
It was all very bewildering.
It was arranged that during Paragot's absence in England I should board
with Izelin, Blanquette with Izelin's elderly model, a lady of
unimpeachable respectability and a rough and ready acquaintance with the
French language, and that Narcisse should alternate between the two
establishments. Paragot's business concluded, he would return to
Buda-Pesth, collect us and go whither the wind might drift him. I was
provided with a respectable outfit and with detailed instructions as to
correct behaviour in a lady's house. Theodor Izelin's wife was a
charming woman.
Everything was arranged; but who could reckon on Paragot?
On the night before his departure--indeed it must have been two or three
in the morning--Paragot burst into my little attic bedroom, candle in
hand, and before I had time to rub my startled eyes, sat down on the bed
and began to speak.
"My son," said he, "I have had an inspiration!"
Who but Paragot would have awakened a boy at two or three in the morning
to announce an inspiration? And who but Paragot would alter the course
of human lives on the flash of an impulse?
"It came," he cried, "while I was supping with Izelin. I told him. I
worked it all out. He agreed. So it is settled."
"What, Master?" I asked, sitting up. His slouch felt hat and his swarthy
bearded face, his glittering eyes and the candle on his knees gave him
the air of an excited Guy Fawkes.
"Your career, my son. The money I am going to collect in London shall be
devoted to your education. You shall learn to paint, infant Raphael and
Izelin shall teach you. And you shall learn the manners of a gentleman,
and Madame Izelin shall teach you. And you shall learn what it is to
have a heart, and if you care a hang for Paragot two years' separation
shall teach you."
"Two years!" I cried aghast. "But master I can't live two years here
without you!"
"We find we can live without a devil of a lot of things when we have to,
my son. When I smashed my furniture with the crusader's mace I thought I
could not live anywhere without--something. But here I am as alive as a
dragon-fly."
He went on talking. It was for my good. His broken ankle bone had
compelled him to resign his peripatetic tutorship in the University of
the Universe. In a narrower Academy he would be but a poor instructor.
If he had taught me to speak the truth and despise lies and shams, and
to love pictures and music and cathedrals and books and trees and all
beautiful things, _nom de Dieu!_ he had accomplished his mission. It was
time for other influences. When an inspiration such as tonight's came to
him he took it as a command from a Higher Power (I am convinced that he
believed it), against which he was powerless.
"Providence ordains that you stay here with the Izelins. Afterwards you
shall go to Janot's studio in Paris. In the meantime you can attend
classes in the humanities at Buda-Pesth."
"I can't understand the beastly language!" I grumbled.
"You will learn it, my son."
"No one ever speaks it out of Hungary," I contended.
"My son," said he, "the value of a man is often measured by his useless
and fantastic attainments."
Then the candle end sputtered out and we were in darkness. Paragot bade
me good night, and left me to a mingled sense of burned candle grease
and desolation.
He departed the next day. Blanquette and I with a dejected Narcisse at
our heels, walked back from the railway station to the hotel, where
losing all sense of manly dignity I broke down crying and Blanquette put
her arm round my neck and comforted me motherwise.
Two months afterwards Paragot wrote to Blanquette to join him in Paris,
and when the flutter of her wet handkerchief from the railway carriage
window became no longer visible, then indeed I felt myself to be a
stranger in a strange land.
* * * * *
Two years! I can remember even now their endless heartache. The Izelins
were kind; Madame Izelin, a refined Hungarian lady, became my staunch
friend as well as my instructress in manners; my life teemed with
interests, and I worked like a little maniac; but all the time I longed
for Paragot. Had it not been for his letters I should have scented my
way back to him like a dog, across Europe. Ah those letters of
Paragot--I have them still--what a treasury they are of grotesque
fantasy and philosophic wisdom! They gave me but little news of his
doings. He had settled down in Paris with Blanquette as his housekeeper.
His floridly anathematised ankle kept him hobbling about the streets
while his heart was chasing butterflies over the fields. He had founded
a coenaculum for the cultivation of the Higher Conversation at the Café
Delphine. He had taken up Persian and was saturating himself with Hafiz
and Firdusi. His health was good. Indeed he was a man of iron
constitution.
Blanquette now and then supplemented these meagre details of objective
life. The master had taken a _bel appartement_. There were curtains to
his bed. Food was dear in Paris. They had been to Fontainebleau.
Narcisse had stolen the sausages of the concierge. The Master was always
talking of me and of the great future for which I was destined. But when
I became famous I was not to forget my little Blanquette. I see the
sprawling mis-spelt words now: "_Il ne fot jamés oublié ta petite
Blanquette_."
As if I could ever forget her!
I arrived in Paris one evening a day or two earlier than I was expected.
It had been ordained by Paragot that I should break my journey at
Berlin, in order to visit that capital, but affection tugged at my
heart-strings and compelled me to travel straight through from
Buda-Pesth. It was Paragot and Blanquette and Narcisse that I wanted to
see and not Berlin.
Yet when I stepped out of the train on to the Paris platform, I was
conscious for the first time of development. I was decently attired. I
had a bag filled with the garments of respectability. I had money in my
pocket, also a packet of cigarettes. A porter took my luggage and
enquired in the third person whether Monsieur desired a cab. The
temptation was too great for eighteen. I took the cab in a lordly way
and drove to No. 11 Rue des Saladiers where Paragot had his "bel
appartement." And with the anticipatory throb of joy at beholding my
beloved Master was mingled a thrill of vain-glorious happiness. Asticot
in a cab! It was absurd, and yet it seemed to fall within the divine
fitness of things.
The cab stopped in a narrow street. I had an impression of tall houses
looking fantastically dilapidated in the dim gas-light, of little shops
on the ground floor, and of little murky gateways leading to the
habitations above. Beside the gateway of No. 11 was a small workman's
drinking shop, sometimes called in Paris a _zinc_ on account of the
polished zinc bar which is its principal feature. Untidy, slouching
people filled the street.
Directed by the concierge to the _cinquième à gauche_, I mounted narrow,
evil smelling, badly lighted stairs, and rang at the designated door. It
opened; Blanquette appeared with a lamp in her hand.
"_Monsieur désire?_"
"_Mais c'est moi, Blanquette._"
In another minute she had ushered me in, set down the lamp and was
hugging me in her strong young arms.
"But my little Asticot, I did not know you. You have changed. You are no
longer the same. _Tu es tout à fait monsieur!_ How proud the Master will
be."
"Where is he?"
Alas, the Master did not expect me to-day and was at the Café Delphine.
She would go straightway and tell him. I must be tired and hungry. She
would get me something to eat. But who would have thought I should have
come back a _monsieur_! How I had grown! I must see the _appartement_.
This was the salon.
I looked around me for the first time. Nothing in it save the
rickettiness of a faded rep suite arranged primly around the walls, and
a few bookshelves stuffed with tattered volumes suggested Paragot. The
round centre table, covered with American cloth, and the polished floor
were spotless. Cheap print curtains adorned the windows and a cage
containing a canary hung between them. Three or four oleographs--one a
portrait of Garibaldi--in gilt frames formed the artistic decoration.
"It was I who chose the pictures," said Blanquette proudly.
She opened a door and disclosed the sleeping chamber of the Master, very
bare, but very clean. Another door led into the kitchen--a slip of a
place but glistening like the machine room of a man-of-war.
"I have a bedroom upstairs, and there is one also for you which the
Master has taken. Come and I will show you."
We mounted to the attics and I was duly installed.
"I would have put some flowers if I had known you were coming," said
Blanquette.
We went down again and she prepared food for me, her plain face beaming
as she talked. She was entirely happy. No one so perfect as the Master
had ever been the head of a household. Of course he was untidy. But such
was the nature of men. If he did not make stains on the floor with muddy
boots and lumps of meat thrown to Narcisse, and litter the rooms with
clothes and tobacco and books, what occupation would there be for a
housekeeper? As it was she worked from morning to night. And the result;
was it not neat and clean and beautiful? Ah! she was happy not to be
playing the zither in _brasseries_. All her dreams were realised. She
had a _ménage_. And she had the Master to serve. Now would she fetch him
from the Café Delphine.
* * * * *
Half an hour afterwards he strode into the room, followed by Blanquette
and Narcisse. He spoke in French and embraced me French fashion. Then he
cried out in English and wrung me by the hand. He was almost as excited
as Narcisse who leaped and barked frantically.
"It is good to have him back, eh Blanquette?"
"_Oui, Maître._ He does not know how sad it has been without him."
Blanquette smiled, wept and removed the remains of my supper. Then she
set on the table glasses and a bottle of _tisane_ they had bought on the
way home. We drank the sour sweet champagne as if it were liquid gold
and clinked glasses, and with Narcisse all talked and barked together.
It was a glad home-coming.
Paragot had changed very little. The hair on his temple was beginning to
turn grey and his sallow cheeks were thinner. But he was the same hairy
unkempt creature of prodigious finger nails and disreputable garments,
still full of strange oaths and picturesque fancy, and still smoking his
pipe with the porcelain bowl.
Presently Blanquette retired to bed and Paragot and I talked far into
the night. Before we separated, with a comprehensive wave of the hand he
indicated the primly set furniture and polished floor.
"Did you ever behold such exquisite discomfort?"
Poor Blanquette!