_Which treats of a Farewell Banquet to Departing Youth--whereat Gaston
Latour glitters with at Hectic Glitter_
The light of many candles set in a row along the white napery of the
table showed but dimly in the large room, for the walls were hung
with the sombre black cloth hangings that are drawn across the doors
of churches in honour of the dead. The glint on plate and china and
glass was chastened and modified by the solemn blackness of decorating
black ribbons--large black bows upon the gilt necks of black bottles
of champagne, narrow black bows upon the handles of knives and forks
and stems of drinking glasses, and round salt-cellar and mustard-pot
and cruet and centre dish. The menus were printed on large black-edged
mourning-cards. Flower-bowls had given place to the painted wreaths of
wire flowers that are placed in graveyards. The tablecloth was strewn
with dead leaves.
The black figures of the waiters, who stood in solemn row to either
side of the table, tricked out in the gloomy garb of hearse-lackeys,
melted into the darkness behind them except for their pale faces, which
caught the up-flung light from the candles that played upon chin and
nostril and eye-pits, and sent shadows up their features, pronouncing
the frown of expectancy with which they waited for the belated guests.
There was a loud blare; a hunting-horn without began to bray the Dead
March in _Saul_.
“Mon Dieu!” said a waiter.
“Silence!” growled the head waiter.
The door was flung open, and Horace entered in black, wearing black
kid gloves, and followed by Gaston Latour, also in mourning and black
kid gloves, blowing all the emotion of which he was master into the
resounding brass of the great wind instrument that encircled his chest.
And as the guests trooped in after them, all in black and wearing black
kid gloves, students and their young womenfolk all taking their seats
at the table with a titter, Gaston Latour solemnly tramped round the
room behind the waiters in slow step, blaring the march of the dead,
taking his lips from the brass mouthpiece only to imitate the roll of
the kettle-drums and to give the big drum’s solemn announcement of
doom with a loud “boom!”
When Horace had seen them all seated, he sat down.
But, in spite of the vigorous lead given by Gaston Latour, the jests
did not come tripping to the call; laughter lost something of its
hilarity; tongues that were wont to wag with airy wit were barren of
banter; voices had a tendency to huskiness; quip and crank gave way
to tales of the days that were gone--so they feasted for awhile with
something of the fever gone out of their riot, and until the coffee
came they sat unwontedly staid and hushed, and in reminiscence and
story lived again their insolences and their rebuffs, their darings
and their hesitations, their enthusiasms and their hardships, their
glorious comradeships, their hero-worship, and their fantastic
revelries....
It was near midnight when a skull was passed round filled with little
folded papers, and they cast lots for Horace’s corduroy trousers.
Gaston won the breeches, and had to deliver the funeral oration.
He stood up, pulled on his black kid gloves, and blew his nose
strenuously, taking a long-sustained and melancholy note that sent a
titter round the solemn row of waiters:
“Friends of my youth, companions of my unmitigated follies! the ancient
figure that sits at the head of this table was once young--the years
cannot rob him of that. And it is because he has not been ashamed to
share his youngness with the lion and the ass that I rise to-night to
bid you drink to the Passing of Youth in the mirth-provoking wines of
France. This is the last mad moment of his splendid years; to-night
his heroic follies are done; this room, where have been revelry and
dance and song and wit and laughter and boon companionship, will know
him no more. He is called home--across the sea-sick channel. He goes
to shiver forlorn amidst the gloomy fogs of respectability. He will
marry a staid wife and beget staid children and dine with lord mayors
and wear white waistcoats over a self-conscious stomach. With the
corduroy breeches of his studentship he has no more to do. Whither he
goes there are no gay cafés--no riotous junketings. He will dance down
the streets no more--shout no more--to the stars no more. Whither he
goes the people are glum, grey-minded, commonplace--he must not sing,
except out of tune, or monotonously, for fear of sin in the music--he
must not dance, except with pre-arranged precision and with demure one,
two, three to tunes that are piously bereft of all ecstasy. Revelry
he will pass by with averted glance and eyes downcast. And yet, as
he sits at his plethoric ease before the fire, after a full dinner,
prosperous, rotund, bourgeois, he will nod, and nodding sleep--and in
the freedom of dreams his ranging memory, rid for awhile of its crude
discipline, will flit here, back to the old room, back to the bare
walls--he will live again the blithe days of his fantastic youth; he
will hear the echo of old laughter as his old jests set the ghosts
of his old companions in a roar about the table; at break of day, as
the mists rise from the river, he will skip down the Boule Miche,
the highway of youth; he will caper through the dawn to blow out the
stars above Montparnasse; he will recall with a glow and a bracing of
the nerves that he was acquainted with hardship and scarce knew it,
for the streets were paved with gladness, and kind eyes made stars in
his firmament on the blackest of nights, and he lodged amongst the
skies--and in Paris.... Fill your glasses, comrades, and drink.”
They all rose to their feet.
Latour raised his glass:
“Old man!” said he, with meaning accent on the threadbare words; and
“Old man!” cried they all, laughing, with a sob in the laugh.
Horace rose, when they sat down, telling them that he could not trust
himself to speak otherwise than to say that it warmed his heart as
it grieved his heart that he found himself seated amongst his dear
companions for the last time in his old room. He raised his glass to
Youth, to the comrades of youth, to the students’ quarter, to the
university, to the Boule Miche which was the highway of youth, to the
great dead, to Paris, to France.
They all stood up and drank the toast in solemn silence; and Horace
standing there at the head of his table, they each passed by, handing
him a keepsake for remembrance, grasped his hand, and after a husky
greeting, strode out of the room.
Babette was the last to go. She went up to Horace, drew down his face
between her white hands, and kissed him upon the mouth. He stroked her
head; they spake never a word. Her eyes filled with tears, and she
hastily followed the others out of the room.
Horace was left alone with the solemn waiters.
He stood for awhile, too much touched to speak.
He roused himself at last with an effort.
“Jean!” he said.
The old head waiter came to him.
Horace held out his hand and grasped the shy hand of the other.
“Jean,” said Horace--“you are an artist.”
The man’s face flushed with pleasure.
Horace took a banknote from his pocket and flung it on the table:
“Divide that amongst the waiters,” he said; “and, Jean, give this to
your good wife--it will help little Marie to her dowry.” He handed the
man a crisp banknote; and the old fellow’s eyes filled with tears....
As the door closed on Horace, one of them laughed:
“Ah, mon Dieu!” said he drily--“that they should ever grow wise!”
“Silence!” roared the old waiter.
Horace, as he passed through the doorway, was greeted by Gaston Latour:
“You must skip down the highway of youth for the last time, Horace,”
said he. “You must once again eat the dawn on the Boule Miche. Forward,
comrades!”
They, all hatted and cloaked, flung his cloak over his shoulders, set
his black slouch hat upon his head, and together tramped down the
stairs and out into the street; and, linking arms, the students and
their young women strolled along the roadway and made for the Boule
Miche, singing a rousing student song--the dark and deserted street
echoing to the racket.
They came out on the Place St. Michel, took hands, and in the dim
moonlight they danced in a wide ring before the fountain in the wall
where in his niche the bronze saint slays the dragon at the threshold
of the student’s world.
Out of breath, they went and leaned over the parapet of the bridge of
St. Michel, and then one sighed, and silence fell upon them all.
Out of the flood loomed the great towers of the Cathedral of Notre
Dame, and low down and beyond twinkled the lights of the Morgue; and,
beyond all, the waters of the river swirled into the mists sweeping on
to the restless sea--out into the night and the eternal mystery.
Gaston Latour leading, they clambered down to the river’s edge; and
they sprinkled Horace with the waters of the Seine, and made him for
ever a citizen of Paris.
Up they all clambered again, scaled the parapet, and joining hands,
along the Boule Miche they went, singing--now forming a ring to
dance round embarrassed policemen, now pounding shutters with their
fists, greeting with a cheer the sleepy heads that were thrust out
of open windows, blinking anxiously down into the night; and with
these and the like tomfooleries, saluting the closed cafés where they
had held their many light-hearted revels, they reached the garden of
the Luxembourg--stood before the Pantheon--in the paling night they
uncovered to the great dead. Thus silent, Horace stood for the last
time as a student on the heights of Montparnasse. The immensity of
the night was passing in purple majesty into the western heavens; and
beyond, where the students’ highway topped the hill, in the smoky
twilight glittered the morning star.