_Wherein it is suspected that there has been Peeping through Windows_
August and September passed, and the fever went out of the hot breath
of the sun; October came into the city in cooler fashion and more
russet habit. The scent of autumn in the air brought the students
scrambling back from the country, and the Boule Miche knew their light
gait and cheery voice once more.
With the return of his boon companions to their old haunts, Noll was
out and away early and late again. The first day of October had seen
him taken off by Horace Malahide, with a set of drawings to Gérôme--had
seen him receive the letter which should admit him a _nouveau_ to the
great man’s _atelier_ in the State schools of the Beaux Arts. He had
only to wait until the fifteenth to be initiated into the riotous
mysteries of the French studio where Latour and Malahide were not the
least boisterous of its boisterous pupils.
As Noll came back, triumphant from his interview with the celebrated
painter, Horace and Latour singing him in, he flung down his drawings
upon the floor. Betty, glowing with delight at his delight, took
them up one by one, and was somewhat surprised at their technical
accomplishment. She had feared his days with Horace Malahide had
been but idle days. Yet, even with this evidence before her eyes,
she was not without shrinkings, for she knew the feverish energy
which Noll could put into any effort to gain what he wanted for the
time being--and she knew he had greatly fretted to get into Gérôme’s
_atelier_.
Beyond?
She knew his Beyond had been of the vaguest. The jovial comradeship of
the schools had roused him to effort. And even whilst she went up to
him and embraced him, she wondered whether his eyes had been fixed upon
any Beyond. She glowed to the pressure of his jovial embrace; she felt
the delight of his achievement--yet her clear-seeing eyes were afraid
for him. He was so easily successful.
They all sallied out together with Betty, roused the Five Foolish
Virgins (Moll Davenant’s door refused to open); and there was cackle
and riot as they took a restaurant by storm. The crude wine had
never seemed so mellow, the mystic dishes had not tasted finer at an
emperor’s banquet--ah! the mysteries of the cooking-pot never yield
such savour as to the palate of youth.
Early on the morning of the fifteenth, a fresh October day, Horace
Malahide and Gaston Latour came for Noll; and he, in mighty high
spirits, an easel over his shoulder and a couple of rush-bottomed
stools dangling therefrom, hugged Betty and sallied out with the others
to face the wild horseplay that greets the coming of the _nouveau_ on
the opening day in the art schools of Paris.
Betty, leaning over the balcony, kissed her hand to him as the three,
looking up, waved their hats, and departed out of the court.
She smiled as she thought of the devilments that would ensue; and she
smiled still more at the thought of Noll, returned from it all, helping
her on with her jacket and hurrying her off to dinner, telling her of
the amusing details in his rollicking humorous way, with his quaint eye
for the quips and oddities of droll situations.
But the day was heavy upon her--she could not bend her will to her
work--the hours passed with sullen tread....
As the sun set she began to listen for Noll’s footfall. The last
sunset glow of the eastern heavens passed into the grey twilight; the
chill breath of the evening warned her that her frequent roamings to
the balcony must cease; she shut the shutters and the window. But the
stairs echoed to no sound of Noll’s eager return.
It came to the girl for the first time--selfless as she was--that Noll
was finding the sufficient delights of life very well without her; and
the thought bit into her heart.
She sighed and arose wearily.
To-night she must dine alone, as she had so often dined alone of
late--yet to-night, for the first time, she resented it--was stung by
the whisper that it need not have been.
She took her way to the little street of l’Ancienne Comédie. She did
not trespass into Noll’s noisier cafés--the noise and the disturbance
and restlessness distressed her. Noll preferred “life” at the noisier
cafés--the greetings were louder.
Betty betook herself languidly now to her dinner, through the white
portals of the Café Procope. She stole into a quiet corner, where
she was used to sit and think her sweet thoughts, where the pen was
always busy. But her weary brain this night was branded with harsh
truths from which she could find no hiding-place. She wondered what the
great brooding brains that had known this ancient hostel had gnawed
upon within these very walls--what petty little insolences had been
thrust upon _them_ whilst they were “thinking in continents.” And she
felt it a relief when at last the old-world spirit of the place took
possession of her, and she found her wits roaming from herself through
the pageant of its past magnificence. The dark atmosphere of its sombre
peacefulness was lit for awhile with the glory of its ancient days; and
the dark corners of the Café Procope became haunted with the mighty
breath of its Great Dead. These had been no mediocrities, whatever
their faults and failings, but big full-blooded Men--their very sins
preposterously magnificent passports to Hell. These were not content to
play with the mere toys of life--juggling with echoes.
Fallen into the faded relic of bygone days, this peaceful place has
passed into the quietude of the neglected thoroughfare on the narrow
footway of which stand its white portals. The strenuous world goes
rattling past the end of the old road, unheeding of its one-time
magnificence; turns but seldom into its neglected way. Its noisy
history is now forgot, its splendid drama remembered by how few of them
that live in all this vast splendid city--nay, even by how few of such
as have their dingy habitation in this very street, or win the prizes
of learning in the illustrious schools of its neighbourhood!
Heretofore had been the very heart of all France--her hot blood had
leaped hottest here, sending the throb of its pulsing life to uttermost
valley and hamlet of this vast realm. In this little coffee-house, now
fallen into neglect, had met together the great wits of France, her
master-minds. Nay, rumour hath it that here indeed was very name of
coffee-house begotten, begun, made manifest; for here was first given,
to France, coffee to chase the dinner and to comfort the stomach of
France.
Hither wandering, our Orange William being just come to the throne of
England, there had entered into possession, in curly long peruke and
somewhat dandified exterior to his shrewd inner man, Master François
Procope, in that same year that the Comedy of France took possession
of the then Théâtre Français over the way; and, forthwith, glory and
fame came to his Café Procope--the wits gathering there to the sipping
of coffee and making of elaborate waggeries, not without wrangle, and
swords whipped from sullen scabbards, and the like follies manifold.
Here had descended from sedan-chair the bent lean figure of Voltaire,
his play _Irene_ being in rehearsal opposite, and sipped the cup of
coffee that was now become the mode in France, the maker of mode.
The keen eyes had roved over these panelled walls--here he had stood
sneering away the tawdry pretence of popes and kings and laughing to
death the diseased and putrid hereditary aristocracy of France. These
walls knew the lean mocker well. In yonder sombre little room you shall
see still the chair and table at which he was used to sit and write his
vitriol jibes, that were the severe medicine for the corrupt body of
the decayed nobility.
Here, in fantastic riot, had Rousseau been carried shoulder high after
a dramatic triumph; here had Condorcet, in intervals of writing upon
the Integral Calculus, been not above horseplay; here had sat Diderot,
scheming his encyclopædic schemes, talking tomfool solemn travesties of
dangerous talk with winking eye upon his fellow-wags, to lead on the
over-zealous police agents to the fussy discovery of large mares’ nests
of conspiracy.
Nor had jests and badinage been the only fare. In these ghostly dingy
mirrors had passed the faces of the great actors in the world tragedy
of France. Within these walls had intrigued the master conspirators of
the seventeen hundreds. Here had been put on the first bonnet rouge
that was symbol of the coming earthquake of Europe. Here had sat, in
yonder corner, fearless, massive great-souled Danton, shock-headed,
black haired, playing at chess with the crooked blear-eyed horse-doctor
Marat; here had stood, dark-browed, pock-marked, incontinent, bankrupt,
the great resolute sane strong man of the Revolution, Mirabeau, the
born ruler of men, destined to die of his youth’s vices at that very
moment when bewildered France was at his feet and had the sorest need
of him; here, too, that other pock-pitted fellow, the dandified sphinx
of the madness, “seagreen” Robespierre, crafty, merciless; here had
throbbed the heart of Camille Desmoulins, who lost his head in plea for
mercifulness, bearding the bloody madness of the Terror with proposal
for a Committee of Mercy that keeps his memory sweet as the mellow
syllables of his name to all eternity--here with d’Holbach he had sat
or paced, airing hot enthusiasms, plunging deeper into dangers their
clean souls scarce realized--moving forward to high dramatic destinies
none could foretell, godlike, to the guillotine and betrayal and death
and broken illusions. Here, too, forger, thief, and liar, had stood
Hébert, one of the foullest blots on the Revolution, stood at that
door upon that table of Voltaire’s, and, mouthing his Sacred Right
of Insurrection, harangued the fierce crowd that packed the narrow
thoroughfare, exciting them to the black brutalities of the Terror,
stamping his great vulgar foot in passionate frenzy of murderous
blasphemies upon the table top so that the heel of his heavy boot split
the marble across--he who most damnably lied away the fame of the
poor doomed foolish queen where she stood at trial alone amongst her
hellish enemies--he who “hated the word Mercy”--here he had sat, little
dreaming that his filthy neck should be slit in agony of craven appeal
by the very laws of his own planning.
Nay, within these very walls had been conspiracy within
conspiracy--massacres planned--the killing beginning at these demure
white doors.
Here, on that August day that the Monarchy fell, had sat Madame Roland
and Lucille Desmoulins, the sweet and beautiful and rich mate of famed
Camille, together with Madame Danton, their ears athrob with ringing of
bells and roar of cannon--the shadow of the guillotine not flung as yet
their way, unsuspected, their eyes as yet not seeing, their white necks
not feeling, that harsh doom either for themselves or their lords.
Hence one day a genial, dreamy, kindly young officer of artillery they
called Napoleon Buonaparte, that lived at a small lodging in a street
hard by, walked out bare-headed, leaving his cocked hat as security
for his reckoning, having forgotten his purse. Here, in days not so
long past, Gambetta fumed and raved and swore and dreamed and spouted,
holding the Republic together as best he could, a Republic broken with
a dozen warring internecine strifes and petty interests.
Here, the old café having fallen on more peaceful days and slow decay
in its neglected thoroughfare, the poor dirty shabby genius that was
called Paul Verlaine sat at the dead Voltaire’s table, and wrote on
scraps of paper his now world-famous lyrics.
The greatest of these had been mighty workers, men of iron toil. These
had not been content to thrum little five-fingered echoes of the great
music of the drama of life--these had created their own music, their
own methods, their own art. No man shall come to greatness through
juggling with echoes. These had made their own style to express
themselves--had no need of the elaborate polishing of the tricks and
ornaments of the mediocrities who, having nothing to express, filch
little movements and sounds from the vasty music of the masters to
cover their own little insignificance--who in toil to polish phrases
miss the statement. Nay, these men had not been content with praise of
mediocrities--had scorned even their approval.
When, an hour before midnight, Betty, going homewards, passed the house
where Moll Davenant lived, she became aware of hoarse whispers; looking
up the dark side street as she crossed the road, she saw a man standing
on another’s shoulder peering into the lighted room within--the widow
Snacheur’s room. The fellow leaped down, and the pair of them calmly
sauntered down the alley.
Betty hurried on, vaguely wondering. She reached the house where she
lodged, and found the great gates shut. It came to her that it was the
first time she had felt a certain shrinking from ringing the bell in
the concierge’s den--the first time she had felt alone; the first time
she had tried to find an excuse for being alone.
She rang--the postern opened with a clank--she stepped in, shut it,
called her name as she passed the concierge’s window, and climbed her
stairs wearily.
It was very late, yet she had no fear that Noll had returned to find no
welcome.
She laughed sadly.
It dawned upon her that it was she who had always returned unwelcomed
to the empty hearth. He was probably leading the laugh at some
fantastic tavern’s good-fellowship....
As she let herself into her room, her glance fell on a note that had
been slipped under the door. She picked it up, lit her lamp, and opened
the letter listlessly: it was from the Disturber of Funerals--her heart
warmed to the genial handwriting, at the thought of the big-hearted
kindly man. As she read, her own loneliness fell from her, her own
affairs as usual became as naught. Her eyes grew serious. Dick Davenant
was off to America, recalled by his people on urgent summons; he would
catch the Atlantic liner from England--would Betty, like the good
comrade she was, watch over Molly until he returned--she was grown full
of strange moods and kept him from her--he was at a loss....
“I will go to her at daybreak,” Betty said; and languidly she undressed.
She lay down on her bed; and the pillow that had known so many bright
dreams, ambitions, hopes, was for the first time wet with Betty’s
scalding tears.