WHEN PHIL CAME TO PARIS
As Helia felt, Phil was, indeed, no longer the same. This was no more
the Phil who had loved her in the old days.
When the Phil who did not go into “society,” and knew neither duke nor
Miss Rowrer,—when that Phil came to Paris, after parting from Helia in
the courtyard near the circus, he hastened to the Hôtel des Artistes,
of which Helia had told him, treasuring in his pocket her letter that
recommended him to Suzanne. Evening was falling, the street was dark,
the house somber. _Maillots_ were drying at windows. An invisible
musical clown was picking out on his bottles lugubrious tunes. But Phil
thought of Helia, and was gay.
That night he slept little. He was in a hurry for the morning, in
order that he might carry Helia’s letter to Mlle. Suzanne. He flung his
window wide, and heard Paris murmuring in the dark.
“Your name and profession,” said the landlady next morning, as he came
down. Phil signed the register, writing underneath:
“Artist-painter.”
“Artist-painter,” said the landlady. “I should have liked that trade.”
“It’s not a bad one,” Phil said.
“But very difficult,” replied the landlady. “We lately had a painter
here—a very famous one; he painted with his feet. He used to tell me
the hardest thing about it is to balance yourself on your hands while
you are painting! Ah, monsieur, the public no longer appreciates the
fine arts. If I were you, at your age, I’d learn to walk on a ball.”
“I’ll tell that to Mlle. Suzanne,” Phil said to himself. “She must be
a real artiste—Mlle. Suzanne. And then we’ll talk about Helia!”
He thought he should never get to Mlle. Suzanne, the city was so
enormous. He was meditating what he should say to her, when, all of a
sudden, the cab began jolting over an atrocious stretch of pavement.
Phil stuck his head through the window just as the cab drew up at the
end of a blind alley.
“Say, _cocher_,” said Phil, “I think you’ve made a mistake.”
“_Penses-tu, bébé!_” murmured the cabman.
“What do you say?”
“I say it’s all right.”
Phil got out. There were heads at all the windows; the cab had made a
stir in the little street.
“Perhaps she saw me come,” thought Phil, as he went into the house.
It was the right address, but Mlle. Suzanne was not at home.
[Illustration: Phil arrives at the Hotel]
“You’ll find Mlle. Suzanne in the Boulevard de Vaugirard, Number 13
_bis_. You go this way, turn to the right, then to the left; there’s a
door with plaster in front of it. Then ask for Mlle. Suzanne.”
Phil paid the cabman and set off on foot. He walked to the right,
then to the left, and found himself in the Boulevard de Vaugirard, at
that time of day deserted. Turning again to the left, he saw a heap of
plaster with a door behind it. Phil knocked timidly.
“_Entrez!_” cried a voice of thunder.
Phil had just time to pull down his cuffs. There was no time to push up
his cravat. “Come in!”—said in such a tone allowed of no delay.
He entered. It was an astonishing place, heaped up with mud, a chaos
of clay and plaster. There were buckets filled with dirty water,
sprinklers, hammers, pieces of old iron.
“Where am I?” thought Phil. “This must be a school for sculpture done
with the feet! Have I made a mistake?”
“Why don’t you come in?” roared the voice. “This side! Don’t upset my
statue! Look out for my ‘Fraternity’! _Troun de Diou!_ don’t tread on
my potatoes!”
Phil passed over all obstacles and came into the presence of the giant
of the place. He was a short, thick-set creature, whose gaping shirt
showed a breast as hairy as a monkey’s back. With his fingers he was
kneading clay, and he raised furious eyes to Phil. Behind him a little
monsieur lay stretched on a lounge, playing with his monocle; but where
was Suzanne?
“Monsieur—excuse me! I have made a mistake!” Phil stammered.
“No harm done!” said the hairy one, mollified by Phil’s correct dress
and high standing collar; and he added: “At your service, monsieur!”
Phil showed his letter. “I thought I should find here Mlle. Suzanne, an
actress,” he said.
“Suzanne! It’s me!” cried a gay voice from the ceiling.
Phil looked up in the air. A charming blonde with bare arms and
feet, in a white waist and black petticoat, was seated on top of a
scaffolding, looking at Phil with laughing eyes.
“Mlle. Suzanne, my model!” said the man.
“Let’s have the letter!” Suzanne cried.
“Catch!” said the sculptor, tossing up to her the envelop weighted with
a piece of clay.
“Well, I’m going!” said the little monsieur with the monocle.
“Wait! don’t go!” Suzanne cried, with her letter in her hand. “Let’s
be correct. Messieurs, I present to you Monsieur Phil, a young
Englishman—”
“American,” rectified Phil.
“A friend of one of my friends—the famous Helia—it’s too long to
explain. M. Caracal, who writes in the—the—what-do-you-call-it—well,
no matter—And Poufaille, sculptor, pupil of Boudin. There, the
introductions are made!”
“Monsieur—”
“Monsieur—”
“Monsieur—”
There were three bows.
“Ah! so you are an American and a painter,” Caracal said to Phil.
“_Tiens! tiens! tiens!_ I thought there were only pork-packers in that
country. _Salut, messieurs!_”
Before Phil could answer a word, Caracal had straddled over the rough
model of “Fraternity,” jumped across the potatoes, and gone out,
slamming the door behind him.
“He’s not polite—M. Caracal,” Suzanne remarked; “but you English don’t
care!”
“I am an American!”
“Well, then, M. l’Américain, what are you waiting for? Give me your
hand and help me down!”
But she was on the ground before Phil could assist her.
“Oh, my good Helia!” said Suzanne. “How glad I am she is so happy!”
“The friends of our friends are _our_ friends,” bawled Poufaille, as
he patted Phil on the shoulder with his great hairy hand. “Sit down,
Monsieur Phil.”
Phil sat down, much encouraged by their welcome.
Suzanne went and came lightly, moving things about. She took a
cigarette, lighted it, and threw it away. He saw her approach the stove
and raise the cover of the pot. A bubbling noise came from it.
“Make yourself at home,” said Poufaille. Phil profited by the
permission to look around him. A hunk of bread was lying on the model’s
table. In an empty plate a fork fraternized with a pipe. The shelves
on the wall were encumbered with rude canvases and rough models. The
sculptor was smoothing down his clay. The scene did not attract the
young American.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, preparing to retire, “I will pay you a visit
at the Impasse de Vaugirard.”
“So as not to find me? You’ll be taking something for your cold, sure!”
“But, mademoiselle, I—I haven’t a cold!”
There was an explosion of laughter. Suzanne choked and Poufaille
bellowed with joy.
“Ah _ça_,” Suzanne cackled. “_Hou! hou!_ but—_hou, hou!_ Helia taught
you nothing, then?”
Phil stood amazed, with his hat in his hand.
“He’s nice, all the same, _l’Angliche_—we can’t let him go away
alone—something would happen to him!” said Suzanne. “Put down your
hat,” she added, “and lunch with us!”
“Of course, of course!” shouted Poufaille.
“Now be polite, Monsieur Phil,” Suzanne went on: “sit there and act as
if you were in society. Help me peel my potatoes!”
“Certainly!” Phil answered.-
And so it was that Phil, seated on a block of plaster, was initiated by
Suzanne into the _belles manières Parisiennes_.
“You must take off only the skins of the potatoes, like this!” she
said, while posting him in the picturesque slang of the quarter.
“And to take something for your cold when you haven’t a cold?” Phil
asked.
“That means to be caught,” Suzanne answered. “_Dame!_ in Paris wit runs
the streets!”
“Then this morning,” said Phil, “this morning when a lady advised me to
give up art and learn to walk on a ball—it was to take something for my
cold, was it?”
[Illustration: “Hammering the clay with a terrific blow of his fist”]
“For sure!” replied Suzanne.
A noise started them. It was Poufaille working himself up to a fit of
anger. “_Troun de Diou!_ She was right, that lady of yours!” he cried,
hammering the clay with a terrific blow of his fist.
“Hello!” Phil said in a fright; “is he going crazy?”
The sculptor’s eyes were out of his head. With formidable blows he was
flattening the bust, shouting _rinforzando_: “Right a hundred times
over—a thousand times, a million times!”
“What’s the matter, M. Poufaille?” asked Phil, rising.
“What’s the matter? To think that those pigs of the jury refused my
statue of ‘Fraternity’ for the Salon! You understand my indignation,”
said Poufaille, taking Phil by the lapel of his coat. “Do you
understand? _Hein!_ do you understand?”
“I—I—I—understand your indignation—I—I share it,” Phil answered between
the shakes.
“It’s enough to set one crazy!” shouted Poufaille; “but—_sacré mille
tonnerres_!—Phil, take off your collar; the sight of you with that
instrument of torture chokes me!”
“Well, if that’s all that’s needed to calm you!” Phil answered, and
with a turn of the hand he pulled off cravat and collar.
“_À la bonne heure!_ I breathe!” said Poufaille.
“_Mon petit_ Poufaille, where’s the salt?” Suzanne asked, without
paying the slightest heed to the sculptor’s rage.
“There,” answered Poufaille, “in the tobacco-jar.”
“And now, to dinner!” Suzanne called. “Here’s pig’s rump ragout!”
“To dinner!” shouted Poufaille.
“To dinner!” repeated Phil.
During the meal Phil, who had had a French lesson from Suzanne, tried
to give her a lesson in geography. He spoke of America. But Suzanne
declared that all those names hurt her head. And besides, she didn’t
believe a word of it.
“Let’s talk of love instead,” she said. “Are you greatly in love with
my friend Helia?”
Phil blushed.
“She is so pretty,” Suzanne continued; “and she’s not been spoiled,
I can tell you! All the more merit in her to be good—she’s worth more
than all of us together!—not to speak of her being pretty—pretty! That
doesn’t hurt anything, does it, Monsieur Phil?”
Phil smiled.
“Oh, if I were a man!” Suzanne declared, enthusiastically, “I’d make
a fool of myself for Helia! Tell me all about her,” she went on.
“Love-stories are so amusing!”
Phil told about the little Saint John, the lamb, the game of Wolf,
the poster-umbrella, the dressing-room under the benches, and his last
interview with Helia, when she had given him the address of the Hôtel
des Artistes and his letter of introduction.
Suzanne drank in his words, turn by turn moved to tenderness or
laughter.
“Oh, it does me good to hear it! There’s love for you!” she cried,
putting her hand to her heart with a gesture of the stage.
“I see that you are an actress,” Phil observed.
“An actress? I? _Penses-tu, bébé?_ I appeared once in a _cabaret
artistique_—it disgusted me with the theater for the rest of my life!”
“You forget that you play the Muse at our reunion,” Poufaille
interrupted.
“Oh, yes! the Muse,” Suzanne replied. “You see, Phil, since they bore
themselves to death in Paris, those from each province meet together
and give balls and receptions and lectures and what not; and they give
dinners, too—and sing to the sound of the hurdy-gurdy.”
“I’m the hurdy-gurdy!” cried Poufaille.
“And I’m the one that sings,” added Suzanne. “I eat garlic that day and
improvise in _patois_—and every one thinks I belong to his province.
_Et aïe donc, et vive la joie!_”
“_Et vive la joie!_” took up Phil.
They were now a trio of friends.
“By the way, _mon cher_, where do you live?” asked Poufaille, who was
already saying “thou” to him and calling him _mon cher_ and _mon vieux_
without knowing either his name or address. Phil told the hotel he was
at.
“_Allons donc!_ but that’s a quarter of the _arrivés_!” Poufaille
said scornfully; “you have only bourgeois in that quarter, medal-men,
members of the jury—the pigs! You’re done for if you stay there!”
“You mustn’t stay there a day longer!” declared Suzanne. “Come over
here; we’ll present you to the _copains_ [comrades].”
Hesitation was impossible.
“All right,” Phil said, as he put on his collar and cravat. “I will
leave to-day.”
“Will you come to my house?” Suzanne asked. “No ceremony, you know!
I’ll bring you a mattress.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Phil.
“Or else here,” said Poufaille. “You can sleep in the corner beside the
potatoes, _hein_? Will that do?”
“No, thanks,” said Phil; “I’ll see you again to-morrow! _Au revoir!_”
The same evening, having found a room, Phil left his hotel.