THE GREEN BENCH.
In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known
for the past fifty years or so--that the focal point of interest in the
inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country
around for miles, to circle close about her green bench.
The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between
dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on
her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could
enter or slip away beneath the open archway without undergoing
inspection from that omniscient eye, that seemed never to blink nor to
grow weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire
establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached
moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was
grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans
to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the
trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all
could be brought at an instant's call, into the open court. Were the
maids--were Marianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt with the
coachmen in the sheds yonder?
"_Allons, mes filles--doucement, là-bas--et vos lits? qui les fait--les
bons saints du paradis, peut-être?_" And Marianne and Lizette would
slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the _poule
sultane_ was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye
saw the trouble--a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple
had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious
lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither
were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the
noise in the court-yard. When madame had an unusually loquacious
moment, these more strictly professional conversationists were taught
their place.
"_E'ben, toi_--and thou wishest to proclaim to the world what a gymnast
thou art--swinging on thy perch? Quietly, quietly, there are also
others who wish to praise themselves! And now, my child, you were
telling me how good you had been to your old grandmother, and how she
scolded you. Well, and how about obedience to our parents, _hein_--how
about that?" This, as the old face bent to the maiden beside her.
There was one, assuredly, who had not failed in his duty to his
parents. Monsieur Paul's whole life, as we learned later, had been a
willing sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his mother's affection.
The son was gifted with those gifts which, in a Parisian atelier, would
easily have made him successful, if not famous. He had the artistic
endowment in an unusual degree; it was all one to him, whether he
modelled in clay, or carved in wood, or stone, or built a house, or
restored old bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world roundness of
artistic ability--his was the plastic renascent touch that might have
developed into that of a Giotto or a Benvenuto.
It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain at his mother's feet.
Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le
Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding
to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a
sacrifice? "_Parbleu!_" she would explode, when the subject was touched
on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to
keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want
with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, idle, shiftless,
dissipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons to powder, and
then scattered their ashes abroad like so many cinders. Oh, yes, Paris
couldn't get along without the provinces, to plunder and rob, to seduce
their sons away from living good, pure lives, and to suck these lives
as a pig would a trough of fresh water! But the provinces, if they
valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the devil. And as for
artists--when it came to the young of the provinces, who thought they
could paint or model--
"_Tenez, madame_--this is what Paris does for our young. My neighbor
yonder," and she pointed, as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb
into the air to designate a point back of her bench, "my neighbor had a
son like Paul. He too was always niggling at something. He niggled so
well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. Well, in ten years he comes
back, famous, rich, too, with a wife and even a child. The
establishment is complete. Well, they come here to breakfast one fine
morning, with his mother, whom he put at a side table, with his
nurse--he is ashamed of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks
and I hear her. '_Mais, mon Charles, c'est toi qui est le plus
fameux--il n'y a que toi! Tu es un dieu, tu sais--il n'y a pas deux
comme toi!_' The famous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his
breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it appears. The _Figaro_ had
placed his name second on a certain list, _after_ a rival's! He alone
must be great--there must not be another god of painting save him! He!
He! that's fine, that's greatness--to lose one's appetite because
another is praised, and to be ashamed of one's old mother!"
Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terrible to look upon. Even in
her kindliest moments hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the
true Norman curves in mouth and nostril--the laughter-loving curves.
Presently, however, the fierceness of her severity melted; she had
caught sight of her son. He was passing her, now, with the wine bottles
for dinner piled up in his arms.
"You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant whisper, "I've saved him
from all that--he's happy, for he still works. In the winter he can
amuse himself, when he likes, with his carving and paintbrushes. Ah,
_tiens, du monde qui arrive!_" And the old woman seated herself, with
an air of great dignity, to receive the new-comers.
The world that came in under the low archway was of an altogether
different character from any we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined
victoria, amid the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma.
Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a huge flower
decorating his coat lappel. This latter individual divided the seat
with an army of small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage stopped.
Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her bench. Her face was as
enigmatic as her voice, as it gave Suzette the order to show the lady
to the salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it picked its way
carefully after Suzette, never seemed more distinctly astray than when
its fair wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing of the
rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hour the frou-frou of her silken
skirts was once more sweeping the court-yard. She and her companion and
the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky for their
banqueting-hall. Soon all were seated at one of the many tables placed
near the kitchen, beneath the rose-vines.
Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. Her verdict was
delivered more in the emphasis of her shrug and the humor of her broad
wink than in the loud-whispered "_Comme vous voyez, chère dame, de
toutes sortes ici, chez nous--mais--toujours bon genre!_"
The laughter of one who could not choose her world was stopped,
suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box.
That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was
treated in quite a different spirit.
A dog-cart was briskly driven into the yard by a gentleman who did not
appear to be in the best of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden
fierceness; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. Monsieur Paul
bit his lip; but he composedly confronted the disturbed countenance
perched on the driver's seat. The gentleman wished.
"I want indemnity--that is what I want. Indemnity for my horse," cried
out a thick, coarse voice, with insolent authority.
"For your horse? I do not think I understand--"
"O--h, I presume not," retorted the man, still more insolently; "people
don't usually understand when they have to pay. I came here a week ago,
and stayed two days; and you starved my horse--and he died--that is
what happened--he died!"
The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of the assembled
household. The high, angry tones had called together the last
serving-man and scullery-maid; the cooks had come out from their
kitchens; they were brandishing their long-handled saucepans. The
peasant-women were shrieking in concert with the hostlers, who were
raising their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. Dogs, cats,
cockatoes swinging on their perches, peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and
every one of the cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden and
cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks to the universal babel.
Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly
similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the
common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on
with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into
great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were
assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded,
sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his
pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the point
of abuse before she crushed him.
Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy of silence. All her
people were also silent. What, the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the
still air--what, this gentleman's horse had died--and yet he had waited
a whole week to tell them of the great news? He was, of a truth,
altogether too considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also a short
one, since it told him nothing of the condition in which the poor beast
had arrived, dropping with fatigue, wet with sweat, his mouth all
blood, and an eye as of one who already was past the consciousness of
his suffering? Ah no, monsieur should go to those who also had short
memories.
"For we use our eyes--we do. We are used to deal with gentlemen--with
Christians" (the Hebrew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even more
plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree in proving its race, by
turning downward, at this onslaught of the mère's satire), "as I said,
with Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. "And do those
gentlemen complain and put upon us the death of their horses? No, my
fine sir, they return--_ils reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la
Conquête!_"
With this fine climax madame announced the court as closed. She bowed
disdainfully, with a grand and magisterial air, to the defeated
claimant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low archway.
"That is the way to deal with such vermin, Paul; whip them, and they
turn tail." And the mere shook out a great laugh from her broad bosom,
as she regaled her wide nostrils with a fresh pinch of snuff. The
assembled household echoed the laugh, seasoning it with the glee of
scorn, as each went to his allotted place.