"_Mais dis donc, Asticot_," said Blanquette holding a half egg-shell in
each hand while the yolk and white fell into the bowl, "who was the lady
that came last night and wanted to see the Master?"
"You had better ask him," said I.
"I have done so, but he will not tell me."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to ask the serpent. I don't know what he meant," said
Blanquette.
I explained the allusion to the curiosity of Eve.
"But," objected the literal Blanquette, "there is no serpent in the Rue
des Saladiers--unless it is you."
"You have beaten those eggs enough," I remarked.
"You can teach me many things, but how to make omelettes--ah no!"
"All right," said I, "when your inordinate curiosity has spoiled the
thing, don't blame me."
"She is very pretty," said Blanquette.
"Pretty? She is entirely adorable."
Blanquette sighed. "She must have a great many lovers."
"Blanquette!" cried I scandalised, "she is married."
"Naturally. If she weren't she could not have lovers. I wish I were only
half as beautiful."
The lump of butter cast into the frying-pan sizzled, and Blanquette
sighed again. I must explain that I had come, as I often did, to share
Paragot's midday meal, but as he was still abed, Blanquette had enticed
me into her tiny kitchen. The omelette being for my sole consumption I
may be pardoned for my interest in its concoction.
"So that you could be married and have lovers?" I asked in a superior
way.
"Too many lovers make life unhappy," she replied sagely. "If I were
pretty I should only want one--one to love me for myself."
"And for what are you loved now?"
"For my omelettes," she said with a deft turn of the frying-pan.
"Blanquette," said I, "_je t'adore_."
She laughed with an "_es-tu bête!_" and ministered to my wants as I sat
down to my meal at a corner of the kitchen table. She loved this. Great
as was her pride in the speckless and orderly salon, she never felt at
her ease there. In the kitchen she was herself, at home, and could do
the honours as hostess.
"Do you think the beautiful lady is in love with the Master?"
"You have been reading the _feuilletons_ of the _Petit Journal_ and your
head is full of sentimental nonsense," I cried.
"It is not nonsense for a woman to love the Master."
"Oho!" I exclaimed teasingly, "perhaps you are in love with him too."
She turned her back on me and began to clean a spotless casserole.
"_Mange ton omelette_," she said.
My meal over, I went to Paragot's room. I found him in bed, not as usual
pipe in mouth and a tattered volume in his hand, but lying on his back,
his arms crossed beneath his head, staring into the white curtains of
which Blanquette was so proud.
"My son," said he, after he had enquired after my welfare and my lunch
and advised me as to cooling medicaments wherewith to mitigate a certain
pimplous condition of cheek, "My son, I want you to make me a promise.
Swear that if a hitch occurs in your scheme of the cosmos, you will not
break up your furniture with a crusader's mace. Such a proceeding has
infinite consequences of effraction. It disrupts your existence and ends
with the irreparable smash of your porcelain pipe." Whereupon he asked
me for a cigarette and began to smoke reflectively.
"One ought to order one's scheme so that no hitch can occur," said I.
"As far as I can gather from the theologians that is beyond the power
even of the Almighty," said Paragot.
Blanquette appeared with the morning absinthe.
"The hitch, my son, in my case was beyond mortal control," he said
looking up at the bed-curtains. "You may think that I caused it in the
first place. You heard me last night accused of cruelty. You, discreet
little image that you are, know more about things than I thought. And
yet you must wonder, now that you are nearly a man, what can be, what
can have been between this disreputable hairy scallywag who is eating
the bread of idleness and," with a sip of his absinthe, "drinking the
waters of destruction, and that fair creature of dainty life. Don't
judge anyone, my little Asticot '_Hi sumus, qui omnibus veris falsa
quædam esse dicamus, tanta similitudine, ut in iis nulla insit certe
judicandi et assentiendi nota._' That is Cicero, an author to whom I
regret I have not been able to introduce you, and it means that the
false is so mingled with the true and looks so like it, that there is no
sure mark whereby we may distinguish one from the other. It is a damned
fool of a world."
In this chastened mood I left him.
I learned later in the day that the appearance of the Comtesse in the
Café Delphine and the exodus of Paragot had caused no small sensation.
Cazalet had peeped through the glass door.
"_Cré nom de nom_, she is driving him off in her own carriage!"
He returned to the table and drank a glass of anisette to steady his
nerves. Who was the lady? Evidently Paragot was leading a double life.
Madame Boin nodded her head mysteriously as though possessed of secrets
she would not divulge. They spent the evening in profitless conjecture.
The fact remained that Paragot, the hairy disreputable scallywag, had
relations with a high born and beautiful woman. It was stupefying.
_C'était abracadabrant!_ That was the final word. When the Quartier
Latin calls a thing _abracadabrant_ there is no more to be said.
The Café Delphine was far from being the school of discretion and good
manners that Paragot frequented in his youth, but such was his personal
influence that when he reappeared in his usual place no one dared allude
to the disconcerting incident. Paragot had recovered from the chastened
mood and was gay, Rabelaisian, and with great gestures talked of all
subjects under heaven. One of the International Exhibitions was in
prospect and many architects' offices were busy with projects for the
new buildings. A discussion on these having arisen--two of our company
were architectural students--Paragot declared that the Exhibition would
be incomplete without a Palais de Dipsomanie. Indeed it should be the
central feature.
"_Tiens!_" he cried, "I have an inspiration! Some one give me a soft
black pencil. Hercule, clear the table."
He caught the napkin from beneath Hercule's arm and as soon as the
glasses were removed, he dried the marble top, and holding the pencil
draughtsman's fashion, a couple of inches from the point, began to draw
with feverish haste. His long fingers worked magically. We bent over
him, holding our breath, as gradually emerged the most marvellous,
weird, riotous dream of drunken architecture the world could ever
behold. There were columns admirably indicated, upside down. The domes
looked like tops of half inflated balloons. Enormous buttresses
supporting nothing leaned incapable against the building. Bottles and
wine cups formed part of the mad construction. Satyrs' heads leered
instead of windows. The whole palace looked reeling drunk. It was a
tremendous feat of imagination and skill. The hour that he spent in
elaborating it passed like five minutes. When he had finished he threw
down his pencil.
"_Voilà!_"
Then he called for his drink and emptied the glass at a gulp. We all
clamoured our admiration.
"But Paragot," cried one of the architectural students in considerable
excitement, "you are a trained architect, and a great architect! It is
the work of a genius. Garnier himself could not have done it."
Paragot whipped up the napkin from the seat and, before we could
protest, rubbed the drawing into a black smudge.
"I am a poet, painter, architect, musician and philosopher, _mon petit_
Bibi," said he, "and my name is Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot."
It was growing late and we all rose in a body--except Paragot, who made
a point of remaining after everyone had gone. He caught me by the
sleeve.
"Stay a bit to-night, my little Asticot," said he.
Usually he would not allow me to remain late at the Café. It was bad for
my health; and indeed I was not supposed to waste my time thus more than
two evenings a week. Paragot did not include my seeing him make a Helot
of himself as part of my education. This was the theory at the back of
his mind. In practice it had occurred at intervals since the days (or
nights) of the Lotus Club.
Paragot ordered another drink. It was astonishing, said he, how
provocative of thirst was any diversion from the ordinary course of
life.
"If the pig of the Café Cordier had been human," he remarked, "he would
have sat down and consumed intoxicating liquors instead of throwing
himself under the wheels of an omnibus. My son," he said with solemn
eyes, "reverence that pig. It is few of us who have his courage and
single-heartedness."
He went on talking for some time in a semi-coherent strain, clouding
over with dim allusions the vital idea which, I verily believe, had I
been a kind woman of the world instead of a raw youth of nineteen, he
would have crystallised with flaming speech. I could only listen to him
dumbly, vaguely divinatory through my love for him and I suppose through
a certain temperamental sensitiveness, but alas! uncomprehending by
reason of my inexperience in the deeps of life.
Presently he announced that he was ready to start. He walked somewhat
unsteadily to the door, his hand on my shoulder.
"My little son Asticot," said he on the threshold, "I am so far on my
road to immortality that I ought to have vine-leaves in my hair; instead
of which I have wormwood in my heart. Will you kindly take me to the
Pont Neuf."
"But dear Master," said I, "what on earth are you going to do there?"
"I have something important to say to Henri Quatre."
"You can say it better," I urged, "in the Rue des Saladiers."
"To the Pont Neuf," said he brusquely, pushing me away.
I had to humour him. We started up the Boulevard Saint-Michel. It was
drizzling with rain.
"Master, we had better go home."
He did not reply, but strode on. I have a catlike dislike of rain. I
bear it philosophically, but that is all. To carry on a conversation
during a persistent downpour is beyond my powers. I might as well try to
sing under water. Paragot, who ordinarily was indifferent to the
seasons' difference, and would discourse gaily in a deluge, walked on in
silence. We went along amid the umbrella-covered crowd, past the
steaming terraces of cafés, whose lights set the kiosques in a steady
glare and sent shafts of yellow from the tops of stationary cabs, and
caught the wet passing traffic in livid flashes, and illuminated faces
to an unreal significance; down the gloom-enveloped, silent quais
frowned upon by the dim and monstrous masses of architecture, guarding
the Seine like phantasmagorical bastions, none visible in outline, but
only felt looming in the rain-filled night, until we reached the statue
of Paragot's tutelary King. And the rain fell miserably.
We were wet through. I put my hand on his dripping sleeve.
"Master, let me see you home."
He shook me off roughly.
"You can go."
"But dear Master," I implored. He put both hands behind his head and
threw out his arms in a great gesture.
"Boy! Can't you see," cried he, "that I am in agony of soul?"
I bent my head and went away. God knows what he said to Henri Quatre. I
suppose each of us has a pet Gethsemane of his own.
* * * * *
One night, a few weeks later, Blanquette appeared in my little student's
attic. Fired by the example of some of my comrades at Janot's who showed
glistening five-franc pieces as the rewards of industry, I was working
up a drawing which I fondly hoped I could sell to a comic paper. Youth
is the period of insensate ambitions.
I put down my charcoal as Blanquette entered, bare-headed--wise girl,
she scorned hats and bonnets--and as neatly dressed as her figure daily
growing dumpier would allow. She was laughing.
"Guess what your concierge said."
"That it was improper for you to come to see me at this hour of the
night."
"Improper? Bah!" cried Blanquette, for whom such conventions existed
not. "But she told me that it was _un joli petit amant_ that I had
upstairs. What an idea!" She laughed again.
"You find that funny?" I asked, my dignity somewhat ruffled. "I suppose
I am as pretty a little lover as anyone else."
"But you and me, Asticot, it is so droll."
"If you put it that way," I admitted, "it is. But the concierge doesn't
think it possible that you are not my _maîtresse_. Why otherwise should
you be running in and out of my room, as if it belonged to you?"
"You will be bringing a _maîtresse_ of your own here soon, and then you
won't want Blanquette any longer."
I dismissed the idea as one too remote for contemplation. At the same
time I reflected that I kissed a pretty model at Janot's when we met
alone on the stairs. I wondered whether the diabolical perspicacity of
women had seen traces of the kiss on my lips.
"I disturb you?" she asked drawing up my other wooden chair to the deal
table and sitting down.
"Why, no. I can work while you talk."
She put her elbow on a couple of pickled gherkins that remained casually
on the table after a perambulatory meal.
"Oh, how dirty men are! You are worse than the Master. Oh la! la! and he
puts his boots and his dirty plates together on his bed! It is time that
you did have a _maîtresse_ to keep the place in order."
"I believe you really do want to come here in that capacity," I said
laughingly.
She flushed at the jest and drew herself up. "You have no right to say
that, Asticot. I would sooner be the Master's servant than the mistress
or even the wife of any man living. He is everything to me, my little
Asticot, everything, do you hear? although he loves me just as he loves
you and Narcisse. _Il ne faut pas te moquer de moi._ You must not laugh
at me. It hurts me."
It was only then, for the first time, that I realised in Blanquette a
grown woman. Hitherto I had regarded her merely as a female waif picked
up like the dog and myself under Paragot's vagabond arm and attached to
him by ties of gratitude. Now, lo and behold! she was a woman talking of
deep things with a treacherous throb in her voice.
I reached across the table and took one of her coarse hands.
"_Mais tu l'aimes donc, ma pauvre Blanquette!_" I exclaimed in sympathy
and consternation.
She looked down and nodded. I did not know what to say. A tear fell on
my hand. I knew still less. Then crying out she was very unhappy, she
began to sob.
"He does not want me--even to pass the time. It has never entered his
head. I am too ugly. I do not demand that he should love me. It would be
asking for the moon."
"But he does love you, like a father," I said, in vain consolation. "I
love him like a son and you should love him like a daughter."
She did not even condescend to notice this counsel of perfection. She
was too ugly. She was built like a hayrick. The Master had never cast
his eyes on her, as doubtless he would have done, being a man, had she
any of the qualities of allurement. She suffered, poor Blanquette, from
the _spretæ injuria formæ_ with reason even more solid than the forsaken
Dido. She was humble, she sobbed; she did not demand a bit of love
bigger than that--and she clicked her finger nail. With that she would
be proud and happy.
"If the master were as gay as he used to be, I should not mind," she
said, lifting a grotesquely stained face. "But when he goes drinking,
drinking so as to drown his love for another woman, _c'est plus fort que
moi_. It is more than I can bear."
"Which other woman?"
"You know very well. That beautiful lady. She has come more than once to
fetch him away. She is a wicked woman, for she does not love him; she
even detests him; one can see that. I should like to kill her," cried
Blanquette.
The idea of anyone wanting to kill Joanna was so novel that I stared at
her speechless. It took some time for my wits to accommodate themselves
to the point of view.
"If I were a man I would not drink myself to death for the sake of a
woman who treated me so," she remarked, recovering her composure.
"Is it as bad as that?" I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. Men must drink. It is their nature. But
there should be limits. One ought to be reasonable, even a man. Did I
not think so? In her matter of fact way she gave me details of Paragot's
habits. The one morning absinthe had grown to two or three. There was
brandy too in his bedroom.
"And it eats such a deal of money, my little Asticot," she remarked.
After which, to relieve her feelings, she washed up my dirty plates, and
discoursed on the economics of catering.
I walked with her through the two or three streets that separated me
from the Rue des Saladiers, and went upstairs with her to see whether
Paragot had returned. It was past midnight. There was no Paragot. I went
to the Café Delphine profoundly depressed by Blanquette's story. Here
was Blanquette eating her heart out for Paragot, who was killing his
soul for Joanna, who was miserably unhappy on account of her husband,
who was suffering some penalty for his scaly-headed vulturedom. It was a
kind of House-that-Jack-built tale of misery, of which I seemed to be
the foundation.
Save for Paragot the café was empty. He was asleep in his usual corner,
breathing stertorously, his head against the wall. Madame Boin on her
throne was busy over accounts. Hercule dozed at a table by the door, his
napkin in the crook of his arm. He nodded towards Paragot as I entered
and made a helpless gesture. I looked at the huddled figure against the
wall and wondered how the deuce I was to take him home. I had no money
to pay for a cab. I tried in vain to rouse him.
"Monsieur had better let him stay here," said Hercule. "It won't be the
first time." My heart grew even heavier than it was before. No wonder
poor Blanquette was dismayed.
"He will catch his death of cold when the morning comes," said I, for
the night was fresh and three years of warm lying had softened the
Paragot of vagrant days.
"One must die sooner or later," moralised Hercule inhumanly.
I shook my master again. He grunted. I shook him more violently. To my
relief he opened his eyes, smiled at me and waved a limp salutation.
"The Palace of Dipsomania," he murmured.
"No, Master," said I. "This is the Café Delphine and you live in the Rue
des Saladiers."
"It is a nuisance to live anywhere. I was born to be a bird--to roost
on trees." I had considerable difficulty in disentangling the words from
his thick speech. He shut his eyes--then opened them again.
"How does a drunken owl stay on his twig?"
As I felt no interest in the domestic habits of dissolute owls, I set
about getting him home. I took his green hat from the peg and put it on
his head, and with Hercule's help drew away the table and set him on his
feet.
"A man like that! It goes to my heart," said Madame Boin in a low voice.
I felt unreasonably angry that any one, save myself or perhaps
Blanquette, should pity my beloved master. I did not answer, whereby I
am afraid I was rude to the good Madame Boin. Paragot lurched forward
and would have fallen had not Hercule caught and steadied him.
"Broken ankle," explained Paragot.
"You must try to walk, Master," I urged anxiously. How was I going to
get him to the Rue des Saladiers? His arm round my neck weighed cruelly
on my frail body.
"Put best foot forward," he murmured making a step and pausing. "That is
very easy; but the devil of it is when time comes for worst foot."
"Try it, for goodness sake," said I.
He tried it with a silly laugh. Then the swing door of the café opened
and Joanna with her sweet frightened face appeared on the threshold.