HOW far away it all seems; Paris; the Rue des Saladiers: the _atelier_
Janot where the illustrious painter called us his children and handed us
the sacred torch of his art for us to transmit, could we but keep it
aflame, to succeeding generations; the Café Delphine, with Madame Boin,
fat, pink, urbane, her hair a miracle of perrukery, enthroned behind the
counter; my dear Master, Paragot, himself! How far away! It is not good
to live to a hundred and fifty. The backward vista down the years is too
frighteningly long.
I found Paragot established as the Dictator of the Café Delphine. No one
seemed to question his position. He ruled there autocratically, having
instituted sundry ordinances disobedience to which had exile as its
penalty. The most generous of creatures, he had nevertheless ordained
that as Dictator he should go scot-free. To have declined to pay for his
absinthe or _choucroute_ would have closed the Café Delphine in a
student's face. He had a prescriptive right to the table under the lee
of Madame Boin's counter, and the peg behind him was sacred to his green
hat. To the students he was a mystery. No one knew where he lived, how
he subsisted, what he had been. Various rumours filled the _Quartier_.
According to one he was a Russian Nihilist escaped from Siberia.
Another, and one nearer the mark, credited him with being a kind of Rip
van Winkle revisiting old student scenes after a twenty years' slumber.
He seemed to pass his life between the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pont
Neuf and the Café Delphine. "Paris," he used to say, "it is the Boul'
Mich'!" Although he would turn to the absolute stranger who had been
brought as a privilege to his table and say, using the familiar second
person singular, "Buy me an evening paper," or addressing the company at
large, "Somebody is going to offer me an absinthe," and promptly order
it, he was never known to borrow money.
This eccentricity vexed the soul of the _Quartier_, where the chief use
of money is to be borrowed. To me the idea of Paragot asking needy
youngsters for the loan of five francs was exquisitely ludicrous; I am
only setting down the impression of the _Quartier_ regarding him. Not
only did he never borrow but sometimes gave whole francs in charity. One
evening an unseemly quarrel having arisen between two law-students from
Auvergne (the Boeotia of France) and the waiter as to an alleged
overcharge of two sous, Paragot arose in wrath, and dashing a louis on
the table with a "_Hercule paie-toi_," stalked majestically out of the
Café. A deputation waited on him next day with the object of refunding
the twenty francs. He refused (naturally) to take a penny. It would be a
lesson to them, said he, and they meekly accepted the rebuke.
"But what did you study here, before you went to sleep?" an impudent
believer in the Rip van Winkle theory once asked him.
"The lost arts of discretion and good manners, _mon petit_," retorted
Paragot, with a flash of his blue eyes which scorched the offender.
The students paid his score willingly, for in his talk they had full
value for their money. I found the Café Delphine a Lotus Club, with a
difference. Instead of being the scullion I was a member, and took my
seat with the rest, and, though none suspected it, paid for Paragot's
drinks with Paragot's money. Our real relations were never divulged. It
would affect both our positions, said he. To explain our friendship, it
was only necessary to say that we had met at Buda-Pesth where I had been
sent to study with the famous Izelin, who was a friend of Paragot's.
"My son," said he, "the fact of your being an Englishman who has studied
in Buda-Pesth and speaks French like a Frenchman will entitle you to
respect in the _Quartier_. Your previous acquaintance with me, on which
you need not insist too much, will bring you distinction."
And so it turned out. I felt that around me also hung a little air of
mystery, which was by no means unprofitable or unpleasant. To avoid
complications, however, and also in order that I should have the freedom
befitting my man's estate and my true education in the _Quartier_,
Paragot threw me out of the nest in the Rue des Saladiers, and assigning
to me a fixed allowance bade me seek my own shelter and make my way in
the world.
I made it as best I could, and the months went on.
* * * * *
Why I should have been dreaming outside the Hôtel Bristol that
afternoon, I cannot remember. If to Paragot Paris was the Boulevard
Saint-Michel, to me it spread itself a vaster fairyland through which I
loved to wander, and before whose magnificences I loved to dream. Why
not dream therefore in the Place Vendôme? Surely my aspirations in those
days soared as high as the Column, and surely the student's garb
(beloved and ordained by Paragot)--the mushroom-shaped cap, the tight
ankled, tight throated velveteens--rendered any eccentricity a
commonplace. Early Spring too was in the air, which encourages the young
visionary. Spruce young men and tripping _modistes_ with bandboxes under
their arms and the sun glinting over their trim bare heads hurried along
through the traffic across the Place and landed on the pavement by my
side. I must own to have been not unaffected by the tripping milliners.
Why should they not weave themselves too into a painter lad's spring
visions?
Suddenly a lady--of so radiant a loveliness as to send _modistes_
packing from my head--emerged from the Hôtel Bristol and crossed the
broad pavement to a waiting victoria. She had eyes like the blue of
glaciers and the tenderest mouth in the world. She glanced at me. A
floppy picturesque Paris student, lounging springlike in the Place
Vendôme, is worth a fair lady's glance of curiosity. I raised my cap.
She glanced at me again, haughtily; then again, puzzled; then stopped.
"If I don't know you, you are a very ill-bred young man to have saluted
me," she said in French. "But I think I have seen you before."
"If I had not met you before I should not have bowed. You are the
Comtesse de Verneuil," said I in English, very boyishly and eagerly. The
spring and the sight of Joanna had sent the blood into my pasty cheeks.
"I once played the tambourine at Aix," I added.
She grew suddenly pale, put her hand to her heart and clutched at a
bunch of Parma violets she was wearing. They fell to the ground.
"No, no, it is nothing," she said, as I stepped forward. "Only a slight
shock. I remember you perfectly. You said your name was Asticot. I
asked you to come and see me. Why haven't you?"
"You said I might come if I were in want. But thanks to my dear Master I
am not." I picked up the violets.
"Your master?" She looked relieved, and thanked me with a smile for the
flowers. "He is well? He is with you in Paris? Is he still playing the
violin?"
"He is well," said I. "He is in Paris, but he only plays the violin at
home when, as he says, he wants to have a conversation with his soul."
The frost melted from her eyes and they smiled at me.
"You have caught his trick of talking."
"You once called me an amazing parrot, Madame," said I. "It is quite
true."
"In the meantime," said she, "we can't stand in the Place Vendôme for
ever. Come for a drive and we can talk in the carriage."
"In the----" I gasped stupefied, pointing to the victoria.
"Why not?" she laughed. "Do you think it's dangerous?"
"No," said I, "but----"
But she was already in the carriage; and as I stepped in beside her I
noted the tips of her little feet so adored by Paragot.
"I'm glad you're English," she remarked, arranging the rug. "A young
Frenchman would have replied with the obvious gallantry. I think the
young Englishman rather despises that kind of obviousness."
The coachman turned on his seat and asked whither he should drive Madame
la Comtesse.
"Anywhere. I don't know"--then desperately, "Drive to the
fortifications. Where the fortifications are I haven't the remotest
idea. I believe they are a kind of pleasure resort for people who want
to get murdered. You hear of them in the papers. We'll cross the river,"
she said to the coachman.
We started, drove down the Rue Castiglione, along the Rue de Rivoli,
struck off by the Louvre and over the Pont Neuf. Standing in
conversation with Joanna, I had the gutter urchin's confidence of the
pavement, the impudence of the street. Seated beside Madame la Comtesse
de Verneuil in an elegant victoria I was as dumb as a fish, until her
graciousness set me more at my ease. As we passed through the _Quartier_
I trembled lest any of my fellow students should see me. "_Asticot avec
une femme du monde chic! Il court les bonnes fortunes ce sacré petit
diable. Ou l'as-tu pêchée?_" I shivered at their imagined ribaldries.
And all the time I was athrill with pride and joy--suffused therewith
into imbecility. Verily I must be a _monsieur_ to drive with Countesses!
And verily it must be fairyland for Asticot to be driving in Joanna's
carriage.
"That is Henri Quatre," said she pointing to the statue as we crossed
the bridge.
"It was the first thing my Master brought me to see in Paris--years
ago," I said, with the very young's curious mis-realisation of time. "He
is very fond of Henri Quatre."
"Why?" she asked.
I told her vaguely the story of the crusader's mace. She listened with a
somewhat startled interest.
"I believe your Master is mad," she remarked. "Indeed," she added after
a pause, "I believe everyone is mad. I'm mad. You're mad."
"Oh, I am not," I cried warmly.
"You must be to set up a human god and worship him as you do your
Master. You are the maddest of all of us, Mr. Asticot."
A touch of light scorn in her tone nettled me. Even Joanna should not
speak of him irreverently.
"If he had bought you from your mother for half-a-crown," said I, "and
made you into a student at Janot's, you would worship him too, Madame."
"I have been wondering whether you kept your promise to me," she said--I
wish women were not so disconcertingly irrelevant--"but now I am quite
sure."
"Of course I didn't tell my master," I declared stoutly.
"Good. And this little drive must be a secret too."
"If you wish," I said. "But I don't like to have secrets from him."
"Give me his address," she said after a pause, and I noticed she spoke
with some effort. "Does he still go by that absurd name? What was it?"
"His name is Berzélius Paragot, and he lives at No. 11 Rue des
Saladiers."
"Do you know his real name?"
"Yes, Madame," said I. "It is Gaston de Nérac. I only learned it lately
through Monsieur Izelin."
"Do you know Izelin, too?" she asked.
I explained my stay in Buda-Pesth. I also mentioned Monsieur Izelin's
reticence in speaking of Paragot's early days.
I think he was cautioned by my Master.
"And who do you think I am?" The sudden question startled me.
"You," said I, "are Joanna."
"Indeed? How long have you known that, pray?"
"When I came to you with the tambourine at Aix-les-Bains."
"I don't understand," she said, the frozen blue coming into her eyes.
"Did he tell you then--a child like you?"
"He has never mentioned your name to me, Madame," I said eagerly, for I
saw her resentment.
"Then how did you know?"
I recounted the history of the old stocking. I also mentioned Paragot's
appeal to me as a scholar and a gentleman.
A wan smile played about her lips.
"Was that soon after he bought you for half-a-crown?"
"Yes, Madame," said I.
"And an old stocking?"
"Yes, Madame. And since then we have never spoken of the papers."
"But how did you know I was the--the Joanna of the papers?"
"I guessed," said I. I could not tell her of the _petits pieds si
adorés_.
"You are an odd boy," she said. "Tell me all about yourself."
Unversed in woman's wiles I flushed with pleasure at her flattering
interest. I did not perceive that it was an invitation to tell her all
about Paragot. I related, however, artlessly the story of my life from
the morning when I delivered my tattered copy of "Paradise Lost" to
Paragot instead of the greasy washing book: and if my narrative glowed
rosier with poetic illusion than the pages on which it has been set
down, pray forgive nineteen for seeing things in a different light and
perspective from a hundred and fifty. In my description of the Lotus
Club, for instance, I felt instinctively that Madame de Verneuil would
wince at the sound of tripe; I conveyed to her my own childish
impression of the magnificence of Paragot's bedchamber, and the story of
our wanderings became an Idyll of No Man's Land.
"And what is he doing now?" We had grown so confidential that we
exchanged smiles.
"He is cultivating philosophy," said I.
Perhaps it was a sign of my development that I could detect a little
spot of clay in my idol.
We had gone south, past the Observatoire to Montrouge, and had turned
back before I realised that we were in the Boulevard Saint-Michel again
near the prearranged end of my drive.
"Do you know why I am so glad to have met you to-day?" she asked. "I
think--indeed I know I can trust you. I am in great trouble and I have
an idea that your Master can help me."
She looked at me so earnestly, so wistfully, her face seemed to grow of
a sudden so young and helpless, that all my boy's fantastic chivalry was
roused.
"My Master would lay down his life for you, Madame," I cried. "And so
would I."
"Even if I never, never, in this world forgave him?"
"You would forgive him in the next, Madame," I answered, scarce knowing
what I said, "and he would be contented."
The carriage stopped at the appointed place. I felt as if I were about
to descend from the side of an Olympian goddess to sordid humanity, to
step from the Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon on to the common
earth. It was I who looked wistful.
"May I come to see you, Madame?"
The quick fear came into her eyes.
"Not as yet, Mr. Asticot," she said holding out her hand. "My husband is
queer tempered at times. I will write to you."
The carriage drove off. For the second time she had left me with her
husband on her lips. I had forgotten him completely. I stamped my foot
on the pavement.
"He is a scaly vulture," said I, echoing Paragot. Gods! How I hated the
poor man.
* * * * *
One evening, about a week after this, some seven or eight of us were
gathered around Paragot's table at the Café Delphine. Two were
_rapins_--we have no word for the embryo painter--my companions in
Janot's _atelier_. Of the rest I only remember one--poor Cazalet. He
wore a self-tailored grotesque attire, a brown stuff tunic girt at the
waist by a leathern belt, shapeless trousers of the same material, and
sandals. He had long yellow hair and untrimmed chicken fluff grew
casually about his face. A sombre genius, he used to paint dark writhing
horrors of souls in pain, and in his hours of relaxation to drink litres
of anisette. At first he disliked and scoffed at me because I was an
Englishman, which grieved me sorely, for I regarded him as the greatest
genius, save Paragot, of my acquaintance. I found him ten years
afterwards a _sous-chef de gare_ on the Belgian frontier.
It was about half past eleven. Our table gleamed a motley wilderness of
glasses and saucers. Only two other tables were occupied: at the one two
men and a woman played _manille_, on the other a pair of players rattled
dominoes, Madame Boin, sunk into her rolls of fat, drowsed on her throne
behind the counter. Hercule stood by, his dirty napkin tucked under his
arm, listening to Paragot's discourse. Through the glass side of the
café one could see the moving, flaring lights of the Boulevard
Saint-Michel. Paragot sipped absinthe and smoked his eternal pipe with
the porcelain bowl, and talked.
"The _Quartier Latin_! Do you call this bourgeois-stricken aceldama the
_Quartier Latin_? Do you miserable little white mice in clean shirts
call this the _Vie de Bohème_? Is there a devil of a fellow among you,
save Cazalet whose chilblains make him indecent, who doesn't wear socks?
Haven't you all dress suits? Aren't you all suffocating with virtue?
Would any Marcel of you lie naked in bed for two days so that Rodolfe
could pawn your clothes for the wherewithal to nurse Mimi in sickness?
Is there a Mimi in the whole etiolated _Quartier_?"
"But yes, _mon vieux_," said my friend Bringard who prided himself on
his intimacy with life. "There are even a great many."
Paragot swept his skinny fingers in a circular gesture.
"Where are they? Here? You see not. It is a stunted generation, my
gentle little lambs. Why _sacré nom de Saint-Antoine_!" he cried, with
one of his apposite oaths, "the very pigs in the good days could teach
you lessons in the romantic. Vices you have--but the noble passions? No!
Did you ever hear of the Café du Cochon Fidèle? Of course not. What do
you know? It was situated in the Rue des Cordiers. Mimi la Blonde was
the _demoiselle du comptoir_. Ah _bigre_! There are no such _demoiselles
du comptoir_ now. Exquisite. Ah!" He blew a kiss from the tips of his
long nails.
"You are very impolite, Monsieur Paragot," cried Madame Boin from her
throne.
"Listen, Madame," said he, "to the story of the pig and you shall judge.
The whole quartier was mad for Mimi, including a pig. Yes, a great fat
clean pig with sentimental eyes. He belonged to the _charcutier_
opposite. I am telling you the authentic history of the _Quartier_.
Every day the devoted animal would stand at the door and gaze at Mimi
with adoration--ah! but such an adoration, my children, an adoration,
respectful, passionate, without hope. Only now and then his poor
sensitive snout quivered his despair. Sometimes happier rivals, with two
legs, _mais pour ça pas moins cochons que lui_, admitted him into the
café. He would sit before the counter, his little tail well arranged
behind him, his ears cocked up politely, his eyes full of tears--he wept
like a cow this poor Népomucène--they called him Népomucène--and when
Mimi looked at him he would utter little cries of the heart like a
strangulated troubadour. Ah, it was hopeless this passion; but for one
long year he never wavered. The _Quartier_ respected him. Of him it was
said: "Love is given to us as a measure to gauge our power of
suffering." Suddenly Mimi disappeared. She married a certain Godiveau, a
charcoal merchant in the vicinity. Népomucène stood all day by the door
with haggard eyes. Then knowing she would return no more, he walked with
a determined air to the roadway of the Boul' Mich' and cast himself
beneath the wheels of an omnibus. He committed suicide."
Paragot stopped abruptly and finished his absinthe. There was vociferous
applause. I have never met anyone with his gift of magical narration.
Hercule was summoned amid a confused hubbub and received orders for
eight or nine different kinds of drink. We were fantastic in our
potations in those days.
"Ah!" said Paragot, excited as usual by his success, "_ou sont les
neiges d'antan_? Where is the good Père Cordier of the Café Cordier? He
would play billiards with his nose, and a little pug nose at that, my
children. When it grew greasy he would chalk it deliberately. Once he
made a break of two hundred and forty-five. A champion! The Café Cordier
itself? Swept long ago into the limbo of dear immemorable dissolute
things. Then there was the Café du Bas-Rhin on the Boul' Mich' where
Marie la Démocrate drank fifty-five bocks in an evening against Hélène
la Sévère who drank fifty-three. Where are such women now, O generation
of slow worms? Where is----"
He stopped. His jaw dropped. "My God!" he exclaimed in English, rising
from his chair. We followed his gaze. Astounded, I too sprang up.
It was the Comtesse de Verneuil standing in the doorway and looking in
her frightened way into the café: Joanna in dark fitting toque and loose
jacket beneath which one saw a gleaming high evening dress. I noted
swiftly that she had violets in her toque. Her beauty, her rare
daintiness compelled a stupefied silence. I sped towards the door and
went with her into the street. A closed carriage stood by the kerb.
She took me by the front of my loose jacket and twisted it nervously.
"Get him out, Mr. Asticot. Tell him I must see him."
"But how did you come here?" I asked.
"I went first to the Rue des Saladiers. The servant told me I should
find him at the Café Delphine."
I left her outside, and re-entering, met him in the middle of the Café,
grasping his green hat in one hand and the pipe with the porcelain bowl
in the other. All eyes were turned anxiously towards us.
"She has come for you, Master," I whispered. "She needs you. Come."
"What does she want with me? It was all over and done with thirteen
years ago." His voice shook.
"She is waiting," said I.
I drew him to the door and he obeyed me with strange docility. He drew a
deep breath as soon as we emerged on to the wind-swept pavement.
"Gaston."
"Yes," said he.
They remained looking at each other for several seconds, agitated,
neither able to speak.
"You were very cruel to me long ago," she said at last.
My Master remained silent; the wooden stem of the pipe snapped between
his fingers and the porcelain bowl fell with a crash to the pavement.
"Very cruel, Gaston. But you can make a little reparation now, if you
like."
"I repair my cruelty to you?" He laughed as men laugh in great pain.
"Very well. It will be a fitting end to a topsy-turvy farce. What can I
do for Madame la Comtesse?"
"My husband is ill. Come to him. My carriage is here. Oh, put on your
hat and don't stand there French fashion, bareheaded. We are English."
"We are what you will," said my Master putting on his hat. "At present
however I am mystified by your lighting on me in the dustbin of Paris.
You must have done much sifting."
"I will tell you as we drive," she said.
I walked with them across the pavement and opened the carriage door.
"Goodnight, Mr. Asticot," said Madame la Comtesse holding out her hand.
Paragot looked from me to her, shrugged his shoulders and followed her
into the carriage. My master had many English attributes, but in the
shrug, the pantomime of Kismet, he was exclusively French.