_Wherein we skip down the Highway of Youth_
Saturday night.
The Boule Miche was ablaze with light of frequent cafés; its roadway
vexed with roar of wheeled traffic; its pavements astir with shuffle of
many feet.
From the Place Saint Michel, where the black waters of the stealthy
river washed her quays in darkling passage to the far sea, the broad
thoroughfare of the Boule Miche, the students’ highway, flaring in the
black reek, swept upwards to the shadowy gardens of the Luxembourg,
topped the hill, and was lost amongst the stars. Riverwards, where
the Ile de la Cité, with sombre hint of law-courts and hospital,
arose from out the flood in the pitchy murk of the night, loomed the
dark cathedral towers of Notre Dame, gloomy with threat of eternal
punishment to transgressors--and low down and afar gleamed the weeping
lights of the Morgue, where sleep, after their last violence, the
disowned and discarded dead.
But neither above on the limitless blue, where are the stars, nor below
on the unthinking litanies of an outworn creed, nor upon the rude death
that ends alike the abstemious nun and the dizzy jig of Folly and
Crime, were bent the thoughts of the multitudinous students who ranged
the highway, making holiday--indeed, their eager eyes were wholly set
upon living the conventional unconventionalities of youth, skipping
down the highway of life with shout and laughter and song and merry
riot, arm in arm, in rollicking mood, reckless of the flitting years,
careless of the eternities.
It was midnight, and the Bal Bullier being at an end, its frantic
dancings done, and its doors closed, the youths were pouring into the
Boule Miche with much rustle of prettily dressed young women who hung
upon their arms--and were hovering about the lighted spaces where the
cafés blazed into the street.
The sombre academics enwrapped in the darkness of the alleys at either
hand, and the professors who snored in their staid beds--what mattered
they? Away with pompous thinking, when the blood’s jigging. And if they
were awake even the most learned of the old gentlemen, with fullest
sprinkling of dandruff on collar, shall he explain the thrill that is
in the kiss of a woman’s lips, or add a tittle to the glory of it in
the explaining, for all his learned researches? It is there, for the
getting, and it holds none the more magnificence for the dissecting
of it. Youth is theirs but for a fleeting too little while--and the
blood is a-jumping--and there is life--and the love of woman--and
the laughter of wine--and the joy of song--and pleasant comradeship.
Revelry if you will; but the dear earth is for the enjoying. Tush!
youth is not for the denying. And there is no time for arguments, or
the gladness of life is flown almost before the rubbing of bewildered
eyes.
God! what it is to breathe! to love God’s design by living it.
What hath philosophy done but make the world yawn, thou numbskull
dreamer of dreams that shouldst be living dreams?
This is life. The miracle is given to you. What is changing water
into wine to this? Take it in both hands. Grasp it. Live it. All the
thinking of all the academies cannot give you this. Grown old in mere
thinking upon life, you shall not call back the blithe days of your
youth. Dig your hands deep into the grave of your dead self, and you
shall not find the splendid years of the joy of life. Get you up to
the uttermost mountains’ tops, dive you to the bottom of the uttermost
deeps, you shall not find it. It was yours. Whilst you brooded
hesitant how to spend it, it hath slipped your fingers, passed like a
sunlit merriment, and become part of a sigh in the eternal mystery.
The lordship over vasty continents shall not yield you the glory of
it--neither ambition nor riches nor learning nor immortality shall
yield you a shred of that which, wholly unasked for, was yours.
God! how lavish, how wasteful, thou!
Why hug the skeleton of life? Fool! peer thou hard enough: yonder, at
the end of all, in the shadows, stands the Reaper--down the roadway
grimly smile the sombre mutes standing impatiently by a plumed hearse,
expectant of fees. Alike for saint and sinner and gay and sober they
smirk. They take your measure. ’Tis waste of time to protest with them.
The rascals have the last word.
Tush! Go hang to them!
So they sing in the tavern on youth’s highway--and toss off the
toast--and are merry.
Inside the Café Harcourt, at a table, in an angle somewhat apart from
the scintillating din, sat Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre and
the exquisite Aubrey. The Honourable Rupert Greppel also was there,
hidalgic, aloof, aristocratic; and Lord Monty Askew, leaning his chin
on the jade handle of his cane, and gloved with sleeved gloves, like
a woman’s--he, too, being aristocrat, could not live without the
attention of the crowd whom he despised in speech and verse. And as
Rupert Greppel uttered his splendid contempt of humanity, Askew would
nod, giving Greppel the polite attention of his eyes--his thoughts the
while on his own pose and poesies. Aubrey too was gazing at himself in
a mirror.
Greppel was airing his hidalgeries, regretting that all hope of
the hunting of peasants with dogs was lost in these vulgar days of
democracy.
Quogge Myre was about to yawn openly, when his roving gaze fell upon
the handsome face of Bartholomew Doome at a table near by, where, on
either side of him, there sat two of the most pronounced beauties of
the Latin Quarter. Myre caught the eyes of Horace Malahide, who with
Babette at his side also sat at Doome’s table; and he nodded and smiled
through his colourless untidy moustache at the young fellow.
The two beautiful young women were turned to Doome, gazing upon his
handsome face with hungry eyes of admiration. Gaston Latour, sitting
opposite, was leaning forward, stroking the gloved hand of one of them
where it lay upon the table, Doome listening to him with an amused
smile.
“Ah, Liane,” said Latour, “the English are good fellows, but they
cannot love.... Conjugate their verb: I lof, thou loffest, he lofs, ve
lof, you lof, zey lof--it is like coughing into a passionate woman’s
ecstatic ear--it is born of their fog--as well kiss a haddock!”
The two young women smiled away the sally pityingly, keeping their rapt
eyes on the Byronic Doome.
Gaston grinned:
“Mon Dieu!” said he, “he has not even an Englishman’s excuse for
existence--he is not even rich.”
The two women had arisen, scowling at each other’s handsome faces,
their beautiful lips set angrily, and began to quarrel about the seated
Doome, who thrust his hands into his pockets resignedly, and sat grimly
silent through it all.
Words were like to come to blows between the two women, for the
hot-blooded Liane, to reach the other, moved out to battle--the other
retired slowly up the café, her reckless rallies as she withdrew
bringing all eyes to the disturbance.
Women stood up on chairs and tables, to see the details; and the
students thundered applause, and threw in comic suggestions.
“The last word is with Liane,” shouted a great burly fellow with a big
laughing voice, an artist; and added: “Tiens! what a Juno, hein!”
Liane turned her pretty back upon them, and the wit ran down.
She came back to her seat beside Doome; sat down; and laid a hand upon
his sleeve:
“It was thy fault,” she said.
Doome looked at her grimly:
“Now call me a fool, Liane,” said he grimly.
The tears came to her eyes.
Gaston Latour went and sat down beside her, touched her hand:
“Hist!” said he--“Liane, you must not contradict him. It is the
privilege of genius to utter the truth.”
She turned to him, the tears in her eyes giving way to sad laughter.
Latour, with mock absent-mindedness, kissed her:
“Oh, pardon--I forgot,” said he; and so led back the laughter.
Doome smiled:
“You must forgive Gaston, Liane,” he said. “He forgets everything--he
even forgets himself.”
The girl leaned on Doome’s shoulder, turned to Latour:
“He says I am to forgive you, Gaston,” said she. “I love him.”
She took Doome’s hand in her lap, and stroked his fingers between her
gloved hands.
“I love the English,” she said.
Gaston looked shocked:
“Oh no--not so many as that!” said he, “it isn’t proper....”
As Betty, led by a waiter, and followed by Moll Davenant and Noll and
the Five Foolish Virgins, peering at the light, entered the flare of
the café, looking for places, unable to find seats under the awning
outside, she heard her name called, and, looking round upon the merry
crowd, she saw Babette signing to her to go to their table.
But Noll had been recognised, and there were loud shouts for him about
the café, and hands held out. His genial ways, his frank habits, his
kindly tact, had early won the hearts of the rollicking student crew,
and he had soon passed from “Monsieur” to surname, from surname to
Christian name, translated to heathen barbarianisms, to Noll, mon
vieux, old man.... Dick Davenant and the other Foolish Virgins came in
for a like ovation from “the boys.” And it was with some difficulty
that they managed to struggle through the genial riot after Betty and
join those that sat at Doome’s table. Quogge Myre and Aubrey took
advantage of the chance to join the party.
Babette held Betty’s hand now, and prattled happily. She pointed out to
Betty’s keen eyes the many beauties present, told their histories with
light touch, without malice and without exaggeration--just the simple
picturesque sketch. And always the end was the same. Suzanne yonder,
with the glorious hair like copper, she was the companion of that
artist--he would arrive--oh, yes, the world would hear of him. Suzanne
had been a model at the studios--but the hours were long--it was very
fatiguing--the walls of the studio were grey and bare--she hated dull
gowns--she went to the Bal Bullier--the next morning the studio was
very grey--she was cross and sleepy--the students were surly--it’s so
stupid to stand and be drawn--stupid and tedious and tiresome--she
would go no more--at the cafés one can do as one likes--the cafés were
gay--she had found a bourgeois--he was dull, but she had silk dresses
instead of gowns of stuff--still, he was a bore--so she left him and
came back to the cafés--the students were always gay--the café always
bright----
Ah, yes, that was Mimi--she had been a dressmaker--she too had gone to
the Bal Bullier--and had become the companion of a law student--it was
hard to keep the pot boiling, but she had been happy--then his five
years of _quartier latin_ were up, and he had gone home again and
married and become bourgeois and respectable--so she came to the café,
where the students are always gay and the lights are always bright, and
she liked to wear silks and fine linen.
Betty touched her arm:
“And after that?” she asked.
Babette shrugged her shoulders:
“Perhaps she will marry a tradesman,” she said. “Perhaps----” She gave
it up.
“And after that?”
Babette kissed Betty’s serious face:
“Thou odd inquirer,” said she. “If you ask after that and after that,
why we grow old one day--and after that die--and after that are
buried--and after that, who cares?”
She laughed, and stroked Betty’s hand:
“Ah, and that is Marcelle--she was apprentice to a sempstress--but the
work was hard, the hours long, oh so long, and the food scarce and
poor--and she has only once to live--and she has Titian red hair--she,
too, came to the cafés, where the students are always gay and the
lights are----”
There was a shout of laughter from the students.
Out of the riot the quavering voice of age rose in broken falsetto,
singing a snatch of song that was on the town in Betty’s childhood, a
soprano passage from an old Italian opera.
An old woman, with blear watery eyes, her tattered and rusty old
dress hanging in an untidy bunch about her shrunken body, a few grey
hairs straggling over her withered leaden face, was singing in the
full operatic manner. A strange pathetic sight. So an old harpsichord
sounds, awaking startled ghosts in some old-world room at the rude
touch of living hands.
The end of the broken song was received with loud laughter from the
students, who shrieked and coughed until the tears stood in their
eyes--they flung pence at the old woman’s feet. Women were standing on
tables, students were crowded in a ring about her.
“Thou hast danced with Victor Hugo, Margot, my pearl--show us how!”
cried a bearded cub from the schools.
She bowed--gathered up her seedy tattered skirts with something of
the old-world grand manner that went with the stately crinoline, and,
showing down-at-heel boots of the elastic-sided variety that are called
“jemimas,” her feet got shuffling to the steps of an old dance of the
quarter. In the sunken hollows of the wan old face hovered the ghost
of the set smile that dancers smile, baring toothless gums--the lights
flickered but feebly in her lamp of life--she skipped the steps now
right, now left, now back, now forward, with the stiff travesty of old
age--and set the tables in a roar. A grotesque attempt at high-kicking
brought down thunders of applause. The sous showered upon the floor.
She picked up the scattered money with pathetic weary old hands; bowed
to the applause, and taking her way stiffly through the café, passed
out into the night.
And to Betty it was as though the shadow of death had passed amongst
the revellers. Ay, even youth must come to that--the mockery and ghost
of its dead self.
“Ah, that is old Margot.” Babette touched Betty’s hand. “She comes out
so at night--it was here she had her triumphs fifty years ago.”
“And--the end?”
Babette shrugged:
“She is rich,” she said--“she comes out so at night--but in the day she
is rich. She has a villa in the country. Oh, but yes ... Gaston Latour
has seen it. Last year. Ah, she was so droll--she had sung a love-song
in the tenderest manner. Gaston gave her a gold piece by mistake for
silver. She was here the next night--Gaston also. He told her. “Bien!”
said old Margot, and gave him her card.... He went by rail--the villa
was on a lake--charming. He knocked. A servant opened the door. He was
shown into a salon. Madame would come in a moment. Madame Margot came.
Ah, yes, said she, the twenty-franc piece! She opened a cabinet and
gave it to him. Gaston, dumbfounded, thanked her, was retiring towards
the door thanking her, apologizing. She put her hand on his sleeve:
‘But, monsieur has forgotten the franc!’”
Betty smiled:
“Who is she?” asked she.
“The old woman once lived with a student who came to great fame,
and----”
She shrugged her shoulders. She turned suddenly and gazed hard at Betty:
“There are tears in your eyes,” she said. “What are you thinking of, my
dear?”
Betty sighed, and said hoarsely:
“The waste of women--the waste of women.”
That evening, Aubrey cast his evil eyes upon Moll Davenant.
He sat beside her, showered upon her the subtle flattery of his
whole attention, was soon in touch with her thwarted ambitions, was
sharing her dreams--and before the evening was out he had set a hedge
of confidences round about her that isolated her, with him as sole
companion, from the rest of her fellows. With all the moods of her
frail talents he was swiftly intimate; and, as he sat leaning forward,
his cheek on his hand, gazing intently at her, where she lolled back at
his side, his eyes took in every turn and line of the strange pallid
beauty of her hungry features. He put off his outward conceit and
interested her in herself--as he himself was interested----
There was a loud shout.
A number of the students and their young women rose, and each dragging
a chair behind him along the floor, they formed into line, and marched
round the café, singing a student song.
Thrice round the café, and flinging down the chairs, they streamed out
into the street....
At the door Betty kissed Babette good-night; and it was at this moment,
as their party stood about, that Betty, taking Moll Davenant’s arm,
was accosted by Quogge Myre, who at once assumed the tone towards
her that he considered so fascinating to women--a tone of chivalrous
condescension. Betty fretted under the attention of his repulsive eyes.
She did not like the man--his intent regard could not escape her. He
was asking if he might call upon her; and she was answering that she
was denying herself all social calls until she had finished a work on
which she was engaged, when he put out his hand familiarly and with his
fingers flipped the ends of the ruffle that she wore:
“You look nice and fresh,” he said.
Betty turned her back upon him. He always affected her like filth; when
he spoke it was as if filth could speak.
She slipped her hand through Molly’s arm.
Horace Malahide, who had watched the incident, laughed:
“Come, Babette!” said he--“we’ll see Noll and Betty and Moll home.”
Betty drew Moll Davenant away as Aubrey put his heels together and gave
his bow like a dancing-master.
“Come, Moll,” said she, and squeezing the girl’s arm, she added in a
laughing whisper--“and I’ll find Eustace to-morrow.”
To her surprise there was no answering smile.
As Aubrey and Myre turned out into the night together, Aubrey looked at
the other out of the corner of his eyes:
“That’s a very beautiful woman who--snubbed you--Myre,” said he.
Myre shrugged his shoulders:
“A woman should require winning,” he said. He licked his puffy underlip
sullenly.
They walked awhile in silence.
“They say that she’s Baddlesmere’s wife,” Aubrey said--“and a prude.”
Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre laughed:
“Oh, they all like their squeeze,” said he.
They walked some way down the street.
Aubrey sighed; and after awhile he said absently:
“I have never loved a consumptive woman yet. And I have found one--it
will be a strange emotional experience.”
“Oh, she’s consumptive, the faded lily, is she?” growled Myre. Aubrey
smiled:
“She is beautiful,” he said--“and she has a hectic mind.”