come once more to Svengali, and he shall take it away from you, and keep
it himself for a soufenir of you when you are gone. And when you have it
no more, he shall play you the 'Rosemonde' of Schubert, all alone for
you; and then, 'Messieurs les étutiants, montez à la chaumière!' ...
because it is gayer! _And you shall see nothing, hear nothing, think of
nothing but Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!_"
Here he felt his peroration to be so happy and effective that he thought
it well to go at once and make a good exit. So he bent over Trilby's
shapely freckled hand and kissed it, and bowed himself out of the room,
without even borrowing his five-franc piece.
"He's a rum 'un, ain't he?" said Trilby. "He reminds me of a big hungry
spider, and makes me feel like a fly! But he's cured my pain! he's cured
my pain! Ah! you don't know what my pain is when it comes!"
"I wouldn't have much to do with him, all the same!" said the Laird.
"I'd sooner have any pain than have it cured in that unnatural way, and
by such a man as that! He's a bad fellow, Svengali--I'm sure of it! He
mesmerized you; that's what it is--mesmerism! I've often heard of it,
but never seen it done before. They get you into their power, and just
make you do any blessed thing they please--lie, murder, steal--anything!
and kill yourself into the bargain when they've done with you! It's just
too terrible to think of!"
So spake the Laird, earnestly, solemnly, surprised out of his usual
self, and most painfully impressed--and his own impressiveness grew upon
him and impressed him still more. He loomed quite prophetic.
Cold shivers went down Trilby's back as she listened. She had a
singularly impressionable nature, as was shown by her quick and ready
susceptibility to Svengali's hypnotic influence. And all that day, as
she posed for Durien (to whom she did not mention her adventure), she
was haunted by the memory of Svengali's big eyes and the touch of his
soft, dirty finger-tips on her face; and her fear and her repulsion grew
together.
And "Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!" went ringing in her head and ears
till it became an obsession, a dirge, a knell, an unendurable burden,
almost as hard to bear as the pain in her eyes.
"_Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!_"
At last she asked Durien if he knew him.
"Parbleu! Si je connais Svengali!"
"Quest-ce que t'en penses?"
"Quand il sera mort, ça fera une fameuse crapule de moins!"
"CHEZ CARREL."
Carrel's atelier (or painting-school) was in the Rue Notre Dame des
Potirons St. Michel, at the end of a large court-yard, where there were
many large dirty windows facing north, and each window let the light of
heaven into a large dirty studio.
The largest of these studios, and the dirtiest, was Carrel's, where some
thirty or forty art students drew and painted from the nude model every
day but Sunday from eight till twelve, and for two hours in the
afternoon, except on Saturdays, when the afternoon was devoted to
much-needed Augean sweepings and cleanings.
One week the model was male, the next female, and so on, alternating
throughout the year.
A stove, a model-throne, stools, boxes, some fifty strongly built low
chairs with backs, a couple of score easels and many drawing-boards,
completed the mobilier.
The bare walls were adorned with endless caricatures--_des charges_--in
charcoal and white chalk; and also the scrapings of many palettes--a
polychromous decoration not unpleasing.
[Illustration: "'ÇA FERA UNE FAMEUSE CRAPULE DE MOINS'"]
For the freedom of the studio and the use of the model each student paid
ten francs a month to the massier, or senior student, the responsible
bellwether of the flock; besides this, it was expected of you, on your
entrance or initiation, that you should pay for your footing--your
_bienvenue_--some thirty, forty, or fifty francs, to be spent on cakes
and rum punch all round.
Every Friday Monsieur Carrel, a great artist, and also a stately,
well-dressed, and most courteous gentleman (duly decorated with the red
rosette of the Legion of Honor), came for two or three hours and went
the round, spending a few minutes at each drawing-board or easel--ten
or even twelve when the pupil was an industrious and promising one.
He did this for love, not money, and deserved all the reverence with
which he inspired this somewhat irreverent and most unruly company,
which was made up of all sorts.
Graybeards who had been drawing and painting there for thirty years and
more, and remembered other masters than Carrel, and who could draw and
paint a torso almost as well as Titian or Velasquez--almost, but not
quite--and who could never do anything else, and were fixtures at
Carrel's for life.
Younger men who in a year or two, or three or five, or ten or twenty,
were bound to make their mark, and perhaps follow in the footsteps of
the master; others as conspicuously singled out for failure and future
mischance--for the hospital, the garret, the river, the Morgue, or,
worse, the traveller's bag, the road, or even the paternal counter.
Irresponsible boys, mere rapins, all laugh and chaff and
mischief--"blague et bagout Parisien"; little lords of misrule--wits,
butts, bullies; the idle and industrious apprentice, the good and the
bad, the clean and the dirty (especially the latter)--all more or less
animated by a certain _esprit de corps_, and working very happily and
genially together, on the whole, and always willing to help each other
with sincere artistic counsel if it were asked for seriously, though it
was not always couched in terms very flattering to one's self-love.
Before Little Billee became one of this band of brothers he had been
working for three or four years in a London art school, drawing and
painting from the life; he had also worked from the antique in the
British Museum--so that he was no novice.
As he made his début at Carrel's one Monday morning he felt somewhat shy
and ill at ease. He had studied French most earnestly at home in
England, and could read it pretty well, and even write it and speak it
after a fashion; but he spoke it with much difficulty, and found studio
French a different language altogether from the formal and polite
language he had been at such pains to learn. Ollendorff does not cater
for the quartier latin. Acting on Taffy's advice--for Taffy had worked
under Carrel--Little Billee handed sixty francs to the massier for his
_bienvenue_--a lordly sum--and this liberality made a most favorable
impression, and went far to destroy any little prejudice that might have
been caused by the daintiness of his dress, the cleanliness of his
person, and the politeness of his manners. A place was assigned to him,
and an easel and a board; for he elected to stand at his work and begin
with a chalk drawing. The model (a male) was posed, and work began in
silence. Monday morning is always rather sulky everywhere (except
perhaps in judee). During the ten minutes' rest three or four students
came and looked at Little Billee's beginnings, and saw at a glance that
he thoroughly well knew what he was about, and respected him for it.
Nature had given him a singularly light hand--or rather two, for he was
ambidextrous, and could use both with equal skill; and a few months'
practice at a London life school had quite cured him of that
purposeless indecision of touch which often characterizes the prentice
hand for years of apprenticeship, and remains with the amateur for life.
The lightest and most careless of his pencil strokes had a precision
that was inimitable, and a charm that specially belonged to him, and was
easy to recognize at a glance. His touch on either canvas or paper was
like Svengali's on the key-board--unique.
As the morning ripened little attempts at conversation were made--little
breakings of the ice of silence. It was Lambert, a youth with a
singularly facetious face, who first woke the stillness with the
following uncalled-for remarks in English very badly pronounced:
"Av you seen my fahzere's ole shoes?"
"I av not seen your fahzere's ole shoes."
Then, after a pause:
"Av you seen my fahzere's ole 'at?"
"I av not seen your fahzere's old 'at!"
Presently another said, "Je trouve qu'il a une jolie tête, l'Anglais."
But I will put it all into English:
"I find that he has a pretty head--the Englishman! What say _you_,
Barizel?"
"Yes; but why has he got eyes like brandy-balls, two a penny?"
"Because he's an Englishman!"
"Yes; but why has he got a mouth like a guinea-pig, with two big teeth
in front like the double blank at dominos?"
"Because he's an Englishman!"
[Illustration: "'AV YOU SEEN MY FAHZERE'S OLE SHOES?'"]
"Yes; but why has he got a back without any bend in it, as if he'd
swallowed the Colonne Vendôme as far up as the battle of Austerlitz?"
"Because he's an Englishman!"
And so on, till all the supposed characteristics of Little Billee's
outer man were exhausted. Then:
"Papelard!"
"What?"
"_I_ should like to know if the Englishman says his prayers before going
to bed."
"Ask him."
"Ask him yourself!"
"_I_ should like to know if the Englishman has sisters; and if so, how
old and how many and what sex."
"Ask him."
"Ask him yourself!"
"_I_ should like to know the detailed and circumstantial history of the
Englishman's first love, and how he lost his innocence!"
"Ask him," etc., etc., etc.
Little Billee, conscious that he was the object of conversation, grew
somewhat nervous. Soon he was addressed directly.
"Dites donc, l'Anglais?"
"Kwaw?" said Little Billee.
"Avez-vous une soeur?"
"Wee."
"Est-ce qu'elle vous ressemble?"
"Nong."
"C'est bien dommage! Est-ce qu'elle dit ses prières, le soir, en se
couchant?"
A fierce look came into Little Billee's eyes and a redness to his
cheeks, and this particular form of overture to friendship was
abandoned.
Presently Lambert said, "Si nous mettions l'Anglais à l'échelle?"
Little Billee, who had been warned, knew what this ordeal meant.
They tied you to a ladder, and carried you in procession up and down the
court-yard, and if you were nasty about it they put you under the pump.
During the next rest it was explained to him that he must submit to this
indignity, and the ladder (which was used for reaching the high shelves
round the studio) was got ready.
Little Billee smiled a singularly winning smile, and suffered himself to
be bound with such good-humor that they voted it wasn't amusing, and
unbound him, and he escaped the ordeal by ladder.
Taffy had also escaped, but in another way. When they tried to seize him
he took up the first _rapin_ that came to hand, and, using him as a kind
of club, he swung him about so freely and knocked down so many students
and easels and drawing-boards with him, and made such a terrific rumpus,
that the whole studio had to cry for "pax!" Then he performed feats of
strength of such a surprising kind that the memory of him remained in
Carrel's studio for years, and he became a legend, a tradition, a myth!
It is now said (in what still remains of the quartier latin) that he was
seven feet high, and used to juggle with the massier and model as with a
pair of billiard balls, using only his left hand!
To return to Little Billee. When it struck twelve, the cakes and rum
punch arrived--a very goodly sight that put every one in a good temper.
The cakes were of three kinds--Babas, Madeleines, and Savarins--three
sous apiece, fourpence half-penny the set of three. No nicer cakes are
made in France, and they are as good in the quartier latin as anywhere
else; no nicer cakes are made in the whole world, that I know of. You
must begin with the Madeleine, which is rich and rather heavy; then the
Baba; and finish up with the Savarin, which is shaped like a ring, very
light, and flavored with rum. And then you must really leave off.
The rum punch was tepid, very sweet, and not a bit too strong.
They dragged the model-throne into the middle, and a chair was put on
for Little Billee, who dispensed his hospitality in a very polite and
attractive manner, helping the massier first, and then the other
graybeards in the order of their grayness, and so on down to the model.
Presently, just as he was about to help himself, he was asked to sing
them an English song. After a little pressing he sang them a song about
a gay cavalier who went to serenade his mistress (and a ladder of ropes,
and a pair of masculine gloves that didn't belong to the gay cavalier,
but which he found in his lady's bower)--a poor sort of song, but it was
the nearest approach to a comic song he knew. There are four verses to
it, and each verse is rather long. It does not sound at all funny to a
French audience, and even with an English one Little Billee was not good
at comic songs.
[Illustration: TAFFY À L'ÉCHELLE!]
He was, however, much applauded at the end of each verse. When he had
finished, he was asked if he were _quite_ sure there wasn't any more of
it, and they expressed a deep regret; and then each student, straddling
on his little thick-set chair as on a horse, and clasping the back of it
in both hands, galloped round Little Billee's throne quite
seriously--the strangest procession he had ever seen. It made him laugh
till he cried, so that he couldn't eat or drink.
Then he served more punch and cake all round; and just as he was going
to begin himself, Papelard said:
"Say, you others, I find that the Englishman has something of truly
distinguished in the voice, something of sympathetic, of
touching--something of _je ne sais quoi_!"
Bouchardy: "Yes, yes--something of _je ne sais quoi_! That's the very
phrase--n'est-ce pas, vous autres, that is a good phrase that Papelard
has just invented to describe the voice of the Englishman. He is very
intelligent, Papelard."
Chorus: "Perfect, perfect; he has the genius of characterization,
Papelard. Dites donc, l'Anglais! once more that beautiful song--hein?
Nous vous en prions tous."
Little Billee willingly sang it again, with even greater applause, and
again they galloped, but the other way round and faster, so that Little
Billee became quite hysterical, and laughed till his sides ached.
Then Dubosc: "I find there is something of very capitous and exciting in
English music--of very stimulating. And you, Bouchardy?"
Bouchardy: "Oh, me! It is above all the _words_ that I admire; they have
something of passionate, of romantic--'ze-ese glâ-âves, zese
glâ-âves--zey do not belong to me.' I don't know what that means, but I
love that sort of--of--of--_je ne sais quoi_, in short! Just _once_
more, l'Anglais; only _once_, the _four_ couplets."
So he sang it a third time, all four verses, while they leisurely ate
and drank and smoked and looked at each other, nodding solemn
commendation of certain phrases in the song: "Très bien!" "Très bien!"
"Ah! voilà qui est bien réussi!" "Épatant, ça!" "Très fin!" etc., etc.
For, stimulated by success, and rising to the occasion, he did his very
utmost to surpass himself in emphasis of gesture and accent and
histrionic drollery--heedless of the fact that not one of his listeners
had the slightest notion what his song was about.
It was a sorry performance.
And it was not till he had sung it four times that he discovered the
whole thing was an elaborate impromptu farce, of which he was the butt,
and that of all his royal spread not a crumb or a drop was left for
himself.
It was the old fable of the fox and the crow! And to do him justice, he
laughed as heartily as any one, as if he thoroughly enjoyed the
joke--and when you take jokes in that way people soon leave off poking
fun at you. It is almost as good as being very big, like Taffy, and
having a choleric blue eye!
Such was Little Billee's first experience of Carrel's studio, where he
spent many happy mornings and made many good friends.
No more popular student had ever worked there within the memory of the
grayest graybeards; none more amiable, more genial, more cheerful,
self-respecting, considerate, and polite, and certainly none with
greater gifts for art.
Carrel would devote at least fifteen minutes to him, and invited him
often to his own private studio. And often, on the fourth and fifth day
of the week, a group of admiring students would be gathered by his easel
watching him as he worked.
"C'est un rude lapin, l'Anglais! au moins il sait son orthographe en
peinture, ce coco-là!"
Such was the verdict on Little Billee at Carrel's studio; and I can
conceive no loftier praise.
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
Young as she was (seventeen or eighteen, or thereabouts), and also
tender (like Little Billee), Trilby had singularly clear and quick
perceptions in all matters that concerned her tastes, fancies, or
affections, and thoroughly knew her own mind, and never lost much time
in making it up.
On the occasion of her first visit to the studio in the Place St.
Anatole des Arts, it took her just five minutes to decide that it was
quite the nicest, homeliest, genialest, jolliest studio in the whole
quartier latin, or out of it, and its three inhabitants, individually
and collectively, were more to her taste than any one else she had ever
met.
[Illustration: "THE FOX AND THE CROW"]
In the first place, they were English, and she loved to hear her
mother-tongue and speak it. It awoke all manner of tender recollections,
sweet reminiscences of her childhood, her parents, her old home--such a
home as it was--or, rather, such homes; for there had been many
flittings from one poor nest to another. The O'Ferralls had been as
birds on the bough.
She had loved her parents very dearly; and, indeed, with all their
faults, they had many endearing qualities--the qualities that so often
go with those particular faults--charm, geniality, kindness, warmth of
heart, the constant wish to please, the generosity that comes before
justice, and lends its last sixpence and forgets to pay its debts!
She knew other English and American artists, and had sat to them
frequently for the head and hands; but none of these, for general
agreeableness of aspect or manner, could compare in her mind with the
stalwart and magnificent Taffy, the jolly fat Laird of Cockpen, the
refined, sympathetic, and elegant Little Billee; and she resolved that
she would see as much of them as she could, that she would make herself
at home in that particular studio, and necessary to its "locataires";
and, without being the least bit vain or self-conscious, she had no
doubts whatever of her power to please--to make herself both useful and
ornamental if it suited her purpose to do so.
Her first step in this direction was to borrow Père Martin's basket and
lantern and pick (he had more than one set of these trade properties)
for the use of Taffy, whom she feared she might have offended by the
freedom of her comments on his picture.
Then, as often as she felt it to be discreet, she sounded her war-cry at
the studio door and went in and made kind inquiries, and, sitting
cross-legged on the model-throne, ate her bread and cheese and smoked
her cigarette and "passed the time of day," as she chose to call it;
telling them all such news of the quartier as had come within her own
immediate ken. She was always full of little stories of other studios,
which, to do her justice, were always good-natured, and probably
true--quite so, as far as she was concerned; she was the most literal
person alive; and she told all these "ragots, cancans, et potins
d'atelier" in a quaint and amusing manner. The slightest look of gravity
or boredom on one of those three faces, and she made herself scarce at
once.
She soon found opportunities for usefulness also. If a costume were
wanted, for instance, she knew where to borrow it, or hire it or buy it
cheaper than any one anywhere else. She procured stuffs for them at cost
price, as it seemed, and made them into draperies and female garments of
any kind that was wanted, and sat in them for the toreador's sweetheart
(she made the mantilla herself), for Taffy's starving dress-maker about
to throw herself into the Seine, for Little Billee's studies of the
beautiful French peasant girl in his picture, now so famous, called "The
Pitcher Goes to the Well."
Then she darned their socks and mended their clothes, and got all their
washing done properly and cheaply at her friend Madame Boisse's, in the
Rue des Cloîtres Ste. Pétronille.
And then again, when they were hard up and wanted a good round sum of
money for some little pleasure excursion, such as a trip to
Fontainebleau or Barbizon for two or three days, it was she who took
their watches and scarf-pins and things to the Mount of Piety in the
Street of the Well of Love (where dwelt "ma tante," which is French for
"my uncle" in this connection), in order to raise the necessary funds.
[Illustration: THE LATIN QUARTER]
She was, of course, most liberally paid for all these little services,
rendered with such pleasure and good-will--far too liberally, she
thought. She would have been really happier doing them for love.
Thus in a very short time she became a _persona gratissima_--a sunny and
ever welcome vision of health and grace and liveliness and unalterable
good-humor, always ready to take any trouble to please her beloved
"Angliches," as they were called by Madame Vinard, the handsome
shrill-voiced _concierge_, who was almost jealous; for she was devoted
to the Angliches too--and so was Monsieur Vinard--and so were the little
Vinards.
She knew when to talk and when to laugh and when to hold her tongue; and
the sight of her sitting cross-legged on the model-throne darning the
Laird's socks or sewing buttons on his shirts or repairing the
smoke-holes in his trousers was so pleasant that it was painted by all
three. One of these sketches (in water-color, by Little Billee) sold the
other day at Christie's for a sum so large that I hardly dare to mention
it. It was done in an afternoon.
Sometimes on a rainy day, when it was decided they should dine at home,
she would fetch the food and cook it, and lay the cloth, and even make
the salad. She was a better saladist than Taffy, a better cook than the
Laird, a better caterer than Little Billee. And she would be invited to
take her share in the banquet. And on these occasions her tremulous
happiness was so immense that it would be quite pathetic to see--almost
painful; and their three British hearts were touched by thoughts of all
the loneliness and homelessness, the expatriation, the half-conscious
loss of caste, that all this eager childish clinging revealed.
And that is why (no doubt) that with all this familiar intimacy there
was never any hint of gallantry or flirtation in any shape or form
whatever--bonne camaraderie, voilà tout. Had she been Little Billee's
sister she could not have been treated with more real respect. And her
deep gratitude for this unwonted compliment transcended any passion she
had ever felt. As the good Lafontaine so prettily says,
"Ces animaux vivaient entre eux comme cousins;
Cette union si douce, et presque fraternelle,
Edifiait tous les voisins!"
And then their talk! It was to her as the talk of the gods in Olympus,
save that it was easier to understand, and she could always understand
it. For she was a very intelligent person, in spite of her wofully
neglected education, and most ambitious to learn--a new ambition for
her.
So they lent her books--English books: Dickens, Thackeray, Walter
Scott--which she devoured in the silence of the night, the solitude of
her little attic in the Rue des Pousse-Cailloux, and new worlds were
revealed to her. She grew more English every day; and that was a good
thing.
Trilby speaking English and Trilby speaking French were two different
beings. Trilby's English was more or less that of her father, a
highly-educated man; her mother, who was a Scotch woman, although an
uneducated one, had none of the ungainliness that mars the speech of so
many English women in that humble rank--no droppings of the h, no
broadening of the o's and a's.
[Illustration: CUISINE BOURGEOISE EN BOHÈME]
Trilby's French was that of the quartier latin--droll, slangy, piquant,
quaint, picturesque--quite the reverse of ungainly, but in which there
was scarcely a turn of phrase that would not stamp the speaker as
being hopelessly, emphatically "no lady!" Though it was funny without
being vulgar, it was perhaps a little _too_ funny!