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FATA MORGANA
[Illustration: “Helia at the very summit of the car”]
FATA MORGANA
A ROMANCE OF ART STUDENT
LIFE IN PARIS
BY
ANDRÉ CASTAIGNE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE AUTHOR
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1904
Copyright, 1904, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published November, 1904_
THE DE VINNE PRESS
TO HIS MANY FRIENDS IN AMERICA
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
PART I
PAGE
ETHEL AND HELIA 1
CHAPTER
I AFTER THE QUAT’Z-ARTS BALL 3
II THE FATA MORGANA 17
III REMEMBERING THE GOLDEN DAYS 29
IV WHEN PHIL CAME TO PARIS 51
V AN INITIATION INTO ART 65
VI THE HANGING GARDENS OF PARIS 83
VII A RUDE AWAKENING 99
VIII THE END OF THE GUITAR 102
IX ALAS! POOR HELIA! 117
X MISS ETHEL ROWRER OF CHICAGO 125
XI AN APARTMENT IN THE LATIN QUARTER 133
XII ETHEL’S IDEA OF A MAN 139
PART II
MORE THAN QUEEN 151
I WANTED—A DUCHESS! 153
II A PARISIAN DÉBUT 167
III PHIL, CHAMPION OF MISS ROWRER 185
IV ’TWIXT DOG AND POET 196
V LITTLE SISTER OF A STAR 201
VI THE OLD, OLD STORY 215
VII CARACAL’S NARROW ESCAPE 232
VIII A QUEEN FOR KINGS 249
PART III
YOUTHFUL FOLLIES 269
I TEUFF-TEUFF! TEUFF! BRRR! 271
II IN CAMP 284
III GRAND’MÈRE VERSUS GRANDMA 301
IV THROUGH THE COUNTRY FAIR 317
V A BANQUET ON THE SAWDUST 330
VI WAS POUFAILLE RIGHT? 347
VII “A TRUE HEART LOVES BUT ONCE” 360
PART IV
CONSCIENCE 377
I ON THE BLUE SEA 379
II ETHEL’S VICTORY 392
III A CASTLE OF THE ADRIATIC 398
IV THE LITTLE DUKE 410
V VISITING THE SORCERESS 417
VI THE FIGHT 431
VII THE FATEFUL DAY BEGINS 444
VIII FATA MORGANA TO THE RESCUE! 452
IX STRICKEN IN TRIUMPH 464
X “ON YOUR KNEES!” 478
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Helia at the very summit of the car _Frontispiece_
The Concierge 5
The Cow Painting 13
The Great Canvas 21
The Little Saint John 31
Helia and her “Professor” 35
Phil courting Helia in the Yard 43
Phil arrives at the Hotel 53
Hammering the clay with a terrific blow of his fist 59
Socrate at Deux Magots 69
Stripped to the waist 75
“They are pigs!” 79
On the Roofs of the Louvre 91
“Only put your soul into it!” 103
He encumbered the room 113
A magnificent guardian stopped her 123
Miss Ethel and Empress Eugénie 129
Ethel, who was their leader 145
“Here is the engraving” 159
Giving the Flower to the Child 169
Cemetery 173
At the Circus 181
Phil rose up, pale with anger 193
Suddenly Socrate recognized Phil 199
“To whom shall I write?” 205
He approached in visible embarrassment 217
Poufaille’s Goods Ready for Auction 227
The Punch d’Indignation 235
Suzanne and Poufaille at the Louvre 253
Ethel and the Royal Throne 265
Watching the Arrival of the Rowrers 273
The Arrival of the Rowrers 277
Ethel and the Little Peasant Girls 291
Phil listening to Ethel 297
They went down into the garden 311
Suzanne and Poufaille at the Country Fair 319
The Banquet in the Ring of the Circus 333
Phil watching Helia and Socrate 351
Ethel stood upright in the ruined colonnade 371
She dreamed under a sky studded with stars 389
She arose angrily 395
The Searchlight on the Castle 407
Visiting the Castle 413
“Does the sight of so many weapons make you nervous?” 421
Helia facing the Assailants 433
The Return to the City 439
The Delegates 447
“Help me!” he cried 457
The peddler of pious pictures 467
The duke stood alone 473
“My people await their duchess” 483
PART I
ETHEL AND HELIA
FATA MORGANA
CHAPTER I
AFTER THE QUAT’Z-ARTS BALL
At daybreak, Phil Longwill, the young American painter, entered
his studio, threw away his cigar, gulped down the contents of his
water-jug—and then slipped into an arm-chair and dozed.
What a night!
In his half-sleep he thought he was still at the Quat’z-Arts Ball,
from which he had just come; he still heard the murmuring noise of
the multitude, like the prolonged “moo-o-o” of oxen in the stable; and
there still moved before his eyes the restless throng, masked in the
skins of beasts or trailing gilt-embroidered mantles.
His dreaming had the sharp relief of life; but it was the car on
which Helia was drawn—Helia the circus-girl, the little friend of
his boyhood, whom he had not seen for so long and whom he found here
with surprise—it was this car, with the superb figure of Helia at its
summit, which eclipsed all the rest.
The car itself was an attention of Phil’s friends. They had chosen for
its subject the personages of the “Fata Morgana”—a great decorative
picture which Phil was finishing for the Duke of Morgania.
Helia, upright at the very summit of the car, like an idol at the
pinnacle of a temple, personified Morgana, the fairy, the saint,
the legendary Queen of the Adriatic. Lower down, seated at the four
corners, Thilda, Marka, Rhodaïs the slave, and Bertha the Amazon—the
four heroines of Morgania—kept watch and ward over their queen.
The car, drawn by knights, advanced amid hushed admiration. Helia
seemed to float above the sea of heads, and behind her the great hall
was ablaze with lights.
Phil, dozing in his arm-chair, saw himself, clad in his magnificent
Indian costume, marching at the head of the car, brandishing his
tomahawk in honor of Morgana. Then, at the breaking up of the cortège
when the procession was over, there were the supper-tables taken by
storm amid cries and laughter.
And the feast began.
Helmets and swords ceased to shine. Hands laid down battle-axes to
wield knives and forks; warriors fell upon the food as they might have
done after a night of pillage. Each man kissed his fair neighbor.
Poufaille, the sculptor, disguised as the prehistoric man, put his
hairy muzzle against the rosy cheeks of Suzanne, his model. Close
at hand, Phil, the Indian chief, seated at the table of the Duke of
Morgania, talked with Helia of old times, of the strolling circus in
which he had known her, of their meeting in her dressing-room below the
benches; and he said to her in a low voice:
[Illustration: The Concierge]
“Do you remember when I used to go to wait for you?”
“And you,” answered Helia, “the flowers you gave me—do you remember?”
But now it was full day and the sun was lighting up the studio. Phil’s
memories faded little by little, scattered by the early morning cries
of Paris. The shrill piping of the wandering plumber awakened him with
a start just as he was dropping off into real sleep and seeing in his
dream Helia soar through a strange world amid heavenly splendors.
“Here’s the morning paper, M. Longwill,” said the old concierge, who
came up with the mail; but he stopped short with open mouth at the
sight of Phil’s costume. To dress one’s self like that! _Etait-il Dieu
possible!_ They didn’t have such ideas in his time!
Certainly, Phil was an odd figure in his Indian dress. If he lowered
his head he risked scratching his chin against the bear’s claws of his
collar. He was clad in leather and glass beads. There were feathers
down his legs and a calumet was stuck in his belt. At his feet lay
the tomahawk which he had brandished a few hours before in honor of
beautiful Helia. He had the look of a veritable savage. No one would
have recognized in him the society painter, descendant of Philidor
de Longueville, the Protestant banished from France by Louis XIV, who
became a great proprietor in Virginia.
“Ah, monsieur,” the concierge began again, “in the old times when you
took walks with Mlle. Helia in my garden on the roofs of the Louvre,
where I was inspector, you didn’t need to dress up like that to amuse
yourself. Ah, it was the good time then! I remember one day—”
“I say, concierge,” interrupted Phil, in a solemn tone; “go down quick
and get me a bottle of seltzer water. I am dying of thirst!”
The concierge disappeared.
“Ouf!” Phil gave a sigh of relief. “The old man, with his good old
times, was starting off on his remembrances. He is in for two hours
when he begins with the Louvre garden. Bah! that’s all fol-de-rol,” he
added, smoothing his hair with his hand, “not to speak of my having so
many things to do this morning. Let’s see: first, Miss Rowrer; then
the duke is to bring Helia. It appears that Helia has the legendary
Morgana type,—so the duke told me, after seeing her last night,—and,
at the duke’s request, she agrees to pose for my picture. Oh, I was
forgetting! I am expecting Caracal also.”
Phil detested Caracal. This critic was his _bête noire_, a man sweet
and bitter at the same time, who talked of him behind his back as a
painter for pork-packers and a dauber without talent.
Phil had never forgotten his first impression of the critic. He met
him shortly after his arrival in Paris, in the studio of the sculptor
Poufaille, and later on in the Restaurant de la Mère Michel, and at the
Café des Deux Magots, during his student years. Caracal was outwardly
correct and an intimate friend of the duke, and he was received at the
Rowrers’; and Phil had to be agreeable to him. Nevertheless, he was
going to play him a trick.
As he opened the morning paper, Phil looked around to assure himself
that the pictures in his studio had their faces turned to the wall,
and that his painting of the Fata Morgana was covered with a veil.
It was for Caracal’s benefit that he had made these arrangements the
evening before; and he smiled as he gave a glance at the portière which
separated his studio from a little adjoining room, where his trick was
ready.
“Ah, I’m commonplace, am I—no originality? We shall see!” he said to
himself, laughing.
“What’s the news?” Phil went on, as he looked absently through the
paper. “‘A Description of the Bal des Quat’z-Arts.’ Pass!—‘A Case of
Treason.’ Pass!—‘War Declared.’ _Diable!_ ‘The Fleet of the Prince of
Monaco Threatening English Ports.’ Pass!—Good! Here’s another extract
from the ‘Tocsin’: ‘The Tomb of Richard the Lion-hearted to be Stolen
from France! Interference of Yankee Gold in French Politics,’ signed
‘An Indignant Patriot.’”
The foolishness of the article did not prevent Phil’s reading it to the
end.
“That’s all very amusing,” he thought; “but why these personal
allusions? What have the Rowrers to do with it? And who can be writing
such nonsense?”
Phil turned the page disdainfully, when a sound in the room made him
lift his eyes.
Caracal stood before him.
Phil had not heard him come in. Caracal entered without knocking, as
the concierge in his hurry had forgotten to close the door. The critic
looked mockingly at Phil, like those devils who, in German legends,
start up from a hole in the floor and offer you some crooked bargain
in exchange for your soul. He greeted Phil with an affectation of
politeness.
“How are you, _cher ami_?”
Caracal turned the glitter of his monocle on the Indian costume.
“Very, very curious—very amusing—very American! From last night’s ball,
doubtless?”
For once there was nothing to say, and Caracal was right. It was really
very American.
Occupied with his paper, Phil had forgotten to change his costume. He
rose, excused himself briefly, and asked after Caracal’s health.
“Thanks, _cher ami_, I’m very well; allow me to admire you!”
“Wait a bit,” thought Phil to himself. “I’ll give you something to
admire!”
But Caracal, with his squirrel-like activity, was already inspecting
the studio and the pictures which were turned with their faces to the
wall.
“Oh, ho!” he asked, “so you blush for your work, _mon cher_? Yet your
talent is very interesting, very American.”
“Don’t let us talk of such trifles,” said Phil; “I show them only
to the ignorant. You’re not really acquainted with my works, M.
Caracal—those which I paint for myself alone, those into which I put
my soul, as your friend, the painter-philosopher Socrate, used to say.
Allow me to show them to you. Enter, M. Caracal!”
Lifting the portière of the little room, Phil showed the way to
Caracal, who stopped on the threshold in amazement. Phil was fond
of practical jokes. With imperturbable seriousness he had gathered
in this room all the grotesque works which he had found among the
art-junk-dealers in his chance explorations. If he found a picture
cast aside,—provided it was utterly bad,—Phil bought it. There was one
canvas, among the others, which represented cows—something so fearful
that Phil, the first time he saw it, scarcely knew whether to groan, or
shout with laughter.
It was in his concierge’s lodge that Phil one day had conceived the
idea of this collection. The old man of “my time,” the former inspector
of the Louvre roofs, had on his chimney under bell-glasses two little
personages—Monsieur and Madame—made from lobster-shells; a claw formed
the nose, and the tail was turned into coat-skirts.
“Eureka!” thought Phil, when he saw them. “But I must have something
better still.” And he at once began a search through the slums of
impressionism and modern style; and he had found what he wanted.
“_Eh bien_, M. Caracal, what do you think of that?” asked Phil.
Caracal, at first upset, pulled himself together.
“Bravo, _mon cher_! you’ve found your line! You are revealed to
yourself! My congratulations, _cher ami_!”
“Does the ignoramus take it seriously?—No; that would be too funny!”
Phil said to himself amazed in his turn.
Phil, with his glass beads jingling at every step, took the cow
painting and set it in full light. The frightful beasts lowered their
crocodile heads to graze in a fantastic meadow whose daisies resembled
white plates with egg-yolks in the middle.
Phil looked at Caracal and winked his eye. Caracal answered by a
prudent shrug. Phil was one of those rare Americans who can shrug and
wink. The mute dialogue went on:
“That catches you, _mon vieux_ Caracal!” said the wink.
“Idiot!” answered the shoulders; “you’ll pay me for this—to make fun of
me—Caracal!”
“Each has his turn!” winked Phil.
Caracal fixed his eye-glass and stared at the picture.
“Very—very interesting—very original. That’s art—that ought to be at
the Luxembourg! Oughtn’t it, _cher ami_?”
“The deuce!” thought Phil.
“And this, look at this!” said Caracal, taking up an abominable sketch
for a pork-butcher’s sign. “Here’s the quintessence of animalism!
Bravo, _mon cher_, you’re the man I’m looking for!”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Phil, to himself.
“Let me explain. I am looking for an artist to illustrate my new novel.”
Phil made a gesture of protest.
“No commonplace book,” Caracal went on, “but a bitter, bleeding slice
of life—something which takes you by the throat, makes you weep and
shriek and pant!”
[Illustration: The Cow Painting]
Caracal explained his book. The general idea (an idea of genius,
according to him) was this: A vast house rises in the midst of Paris,
all of glass, transparent from top to bottom, without curtains. Therein
swarm all the vices; yet there are no crimes, so soft and weak-willed
are the personages, so incapable of anger or hatred. And they drag
themselves from floor to floor, on all-fours like swine. Title, “The
House of Glass”—and there you are!
“And you offer me collaboration in such nastiness?” said Phil.
“Do you know what you are saying?” replied Caracal.
“It’s my idea of your literature, and I say what I think.”
“Let it be so, _mon cher_; we’ll say no more about it. Rather let us
look at your beautiful works. That cow painting is superb! It’s as fine
as a Millet. If it’s for sale, I’ll buy it!”
“If you want it, take it. I won’t sell it. I’ll give it to you.”
They came back into the studio. Caracal, well pleased with the gift,
swung his monocle familiarly. Then they talked of other things, of
yesterday’s ball, of the “Tocsin,” whose sensational head-lines stared
at them from the floor.
“What do you think of that?” Phil asked, pointing to the newspaper.
“It’s idiotic, _mon cher_, utterly idiotic. I don’t know where
Vieillecloche picks up such asinine stuff.”
“Who does the articles for him?” demanded Phil.
“Who knows?” answered Caracal.
With a glance at the clock, Phil excused himself.
“Will you permit me? I must get ready—the concierge is going to do up
the studio. Be seated, please; I’ll be with you again in a moment.”
Caracal sat down on a lounge to wait for Phil, who went to his room to
change his Indian costume.
The concierge returned. He began dusting the studio, and in his zeal
rubbed off half a pastel with his feather duster. He pulled the veil
from sketches, and set the easels in place. The studio began to be
peopled with half-finished portraits, with designs, with studies of
every kind, representing an immense amount of labor. The canvas of
Morgana, in particular, rid of the cover which veiled it, illuminated
all with a glow of legend. The figure of the fairy queen was barely
indicated; but Helia was to pose for Phil, as she had promised, and
with a month’s work all would be finished.
Caracal, in spite of his jealous ignorance, could not help admiring the
superb production; but he rubbed his hands as he thought of the picture
of the cows which he was going to carry away with him. He glanced slyly
at Phil, who came back smartly dressed and refreshed from his bath, fit
and full of the joy of life, ready for work, in spite of his sleepless
night.