he sadly called it (quoting from a strange and very beautiful poem
called "Faustine," which had just appeared in the _Spectator_--and which
our three enthusiasts already knew by heart), and beginning to love all
things that were old and regal and rotten and forgotten and of bad
repute, and to long to paint them just as they really were.
"Ah! they managed these things better in France, especially in the
twelfth century, and even the thirteenth!" said the Laird. "Still,
Howard of Norfolk isn't bad at a pinch--_fote de myoo_!" he continued,
winking at Little Billee. And they promised themselves that they would
leave cards on Zouzou, and, if he wasn't a duke, invite him to dinner;
and also Dodor, if they could manage to find him.
Then along the quay and up the Rue de Seine, and by well-remembered
little mystic ways to the old studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts.
Here they found many changes: A row of new houses on the north side, by
Baron Haussmann--the well-named; a boulevard was being constructed right
through the place; but the old house had been respected, and, looking
up, they saw the big north window of their good old abode blindless and
blank and black but for a white placard in the middle of it with the
words: "À louer. Un atelier, et une chambre à coucher."
They entered the court-yard through the little door in the porte
cochère, and beheld Madame Vinard standing on the step of her loge, her
arms akimbo, giving orders to her husband--who was sawing logs for
firewood, as usual at that time of the year--and telling him he was the
most helpless log of the lot.
She gave them one look, threw up her arms, and rushed at them, saying,
"Ah, mon Dieu! les trois Angliches!"
And they could not have complained of any lack of warmth in her
greeting, or in Monsieur Vinard's.
"Ah! mais quel bonheur de vous revoir! Et comme vous avez bonne mine,
tous! Et Monsieur Litrebili, donc! il a grandi!" etc., etc. "Mais vous
allez boire la goutte avant tout--vite, Vinard! Le ratafia de cassis que
Monsieur Durien nous a envoyé la semaine dernière!"
And they were taken into the loge and made free of it--welcomed like
prodigal sons; a fresh bottle of black-currant brandy was tapped, and
did duty for the fatted calf. It was an ovation, and made quite a stir
in the quartier.
_Le Retour des trois Angliches--cinq ans après!_
She told them all the news: about Bouchardy; Papelard; Jules Guinot, who
was now in the Ministère de la Guerre; Barizel, who had given up the
arts and gone into his father's business (umbrellas); Durien, who had
married six months ago, and had a superb atelier in the Rue Taitbout,
and was coining money; about her own family--Aglaë, who was going to be
married to the son of the charbonnier at the corner of the Rue de la
Canicule--"un bon mariage; bien solide!" Niniche, who was studying the
piano at the Conservatoire, and had won the silver medal; Isidore, who,
alas! had gone to the bad--"perdu par les femmes! un si joli garçon,
vous concevez! ça ne lui a pas porté bonheur, par exemple!" And yet she
was proud! and said his father would never have had the pluck!
"À dix-huit ans, pensez donc!
"And that good Monsieur Carrel; he is dead, you know! Ah, messieurs
savaient ça? Yes, he died at Dieppe, his natal town, during the winter,
from the consequences of an indigestion--que voulez-vous! He always had
the stomach so feeble!... Ah! the beautiful interment, messieurs! Five
thousand people, in spite of the rain! Car il pleuvait averse! And M. le
Maire and his adjunct walking behind the hearse, and the gendarmerie and
the douaniers, and a bataillon of the douzième chasseurs-à-pied, with
their music, and all the sapper-pumpers, en grande tenue with their
beautiful brass helmets! All the town was there, following: so there was
nobody left to see the procession go by! q'c'était beau! Mon Dieu,
q'c'était beau! c'que j'ai pleuré, d'voir ça! n'est-ce-pas, Vinard?"
"Dame, oui, ma biche! j'crois ben! It might have been Monsieur le Maire
himself that one was interring in person!"
"Ah, ça! voyons, Vinard; thou'rt not going to compare the Maire of
Dieppe to a painter like Monsieur Carrel?"
"Certainly not, ma biche! But still, M. Carrel was a great man all the
same, in his way. Besides, I wasn't there--nor thou either, as to that!"
"Mon Dieu! comme il est idiot, ce Vinard--of a stupidity to cut with a
knife! Why, thou might'st almost be a Mayor thyself, sacred imbecile
that thou art!"
And an animated discussion arose between husband and wife as to the
respective merits of a country mayor on one side and a famous painter
and member of the Institute on the other, during which _les trois
Angliches_ were left out in the cold. When Madame Vinard had
sufficiently routed her husband, which did not take very long, she
turned to them again, and told them that she had started a _magasin de
bric-à-brac_, "vous verres ça!"
Yes, the studio had been to let for three months. Would they like to see
it? Here were the keys. They would, of course, prefer to see it by
themselves, alone; "je comprends ça! et vous verrez ce que vous verrez!"
Then they must come and drink once more again the drop, and inspect her
_magasin de bric-à-brac_.
So they went up, all three, and let themselves into the old place where
they had been so happy--and one of them for a while so miserable!
It was changed indeed.
Bare of all furniture, for one thing; shabby and unswept, with a
pathetic air of dilapidation, spoliation, desecration, and a musty,
shut-up smell; the window so dirty you could hardly see the new houses
opposite; the floor a disgrace!
All over the walls were caricatures in charcoal and white chalk, with
more or less incomprehensible legends; very vulgar and trivial and
coarse, some of them, and pointless for _trois Angliches_.
[Illustration: "'AH! THE BEAUTIFUL INTERMENT, MESSIEURS!'"]
But among these (touching to relate) they found, under a square of
plate-glass that had been fixed on the wall by means of an oak frame,
Little Billee's old black-and-white-and-red chalk sketch of Trilby's
left foot, as fresh as if it had been done only yesterday! Over it was
written: "Souvenir de la Grande Trilby, par W. B. (Litrebili)." And
beneath, carefully engrossed on imperishable parchment, and pasted on
the glass, the following stanzas:
"Pauvre Trilby--la belle et bonne et chère!
Je suis son pied. Devine qui voudra
Quel tendre ami, la chérissant naguère,
Encadra d'elle (et d'un amour sincère)
Ce souvenir charmant qu'un caprice inspira--
Qu'un souffle emportera!
"J'étais jumeau: qu'est devenu mon frère?
Hélas! Hélas! L'Amour nous égara.
L'Éternité nous unira, j'espère;
Et nous ferons comme autrefois la paire
Au fond d'un lit bien chaste où nul ne troublera
Trilby--qui dormira.
"Ô tendre ami, sans nous qu'allez-vous faire?
La porte est close où Trilby demeura.
Le Paradis est loin ... et sur la terre
(Qui nous fut douce et lui sera légère)
Pour trouver nos pareils, si bien qu'on cherchera--
Beau chercher l'on aura!"
Taffy drew a long breath into his manly bosom, and kept it there as he
read this characteristic French doggerel (for so he chose to call this
touching little symphony in _ère_ and _ra_). His huge frame thrilled
with tenderness and pity and fond remembrance, and he said to himself
(letting out his breath): "Dear, dear Trilby! Ah! if you had only cared
for _me_, _I_ wouldn't have let you give me up--not for any one on
earth. _You_ were the mate for _me_!"
[Illustration: "PAUVRE TRILBY"]
And that, as the reader has guessed long ago, was big Taffy's "history."
The Laird was also deeply touched, and could not speak. Had he been in
love with Trilby, too? Had he ever been in love with any one?
He couldn't say. But he thought of Trilby's sweetness and unselfishness,
her gayety, her innocent kissings and caressings, her drollery and
frolicsome grace, her way of filling whatever place she was in with her
presence, the charming sight and the genial sound of her; and felt that
no girl, no woman, no lady he had ever seen yet was a match for this
poor waif and stray, this long-legged, cancan-dancing, quartier-latin
grisette, blanchisseuse de fin, "and Heaven knows what besides!"
"Hang it all!" he mentally ejaculated, "I wish to goodness I'd married
her _myself_!"
Little Billee said nothing either. He felt unhappier than he had ever
once felt for five long years--to think that he could gaze on such a
memento as this, a thing so strongly personal to himself, with dry eyes
and a quiet pulse! and he unemotionally, dispassionately, wished himself
dead and buried for at least the thousand and first time!
All three possessed casts of Trilby's hands and feet and photographs of
herself. But nothing so charmingly suggestive of Trilby as this little
masterpiece of a true artist, this happy fluke of a happy moment. It was
Trilbyness itself, as the Laird thought, and should not be suffered to
perish.
They took the keys back to Madame Vinard in silence.
She said: "Vous avez vu--n'est-ce pas, messieurs?--le pied de Trilby!
c'est bien gentil! C'est Monsieur Durien qui a fait mettre le verre,
quand vous êtes partis; et Monsieur Guinot qui a composé _l'épitaphe_.
Pauvre Trilby! qu'est-ce qu'elle est devenue! comme elle était bonne
fille, hein? et si belle! et comme elle était vive elle était vive elle
était vive! Et comme elle vous aimait tous bien--et surtout Monsieur
Litrebili--n'est-ce pas?"
Then she insisted on giving them each another liqueur-glass of Durien's
ratafia de cassis, and took them to see her collection of bric-à-brac
across the yard, a gorgeous show, and explained everything about it--how
she had begun in quite a small way, but was making it a big business.
"Voyez cette pendule! It is of the time of Louis Onze, who gave it with
his own hands to Madame de Pompadour(!). I bought it at a sale in--"
"Combiang?" said the Laird.
"C'est cent-cinquante francs, monsieur--c'est bien bon marché--une
véritable occasion, et--"
"Je prong!" said the Laird, meaning "I take it!"
Then she showed them a beautiful brocade gown "which she had picked up
at a bargain at--"
"Combiang?" said the Laird.
"Ah, ça, c'est trois cents francs, monsieur. Mais--"
"Je prong!" said the Laird.
"Et voici les souliers qui vont avec, et que--"
"Je pr--"
But here Taffy took the Laird by the arm and dragged him by force out
of this too seductive siren's cave.
The Laird told her where to send his purchases; and with many
expressions of love and good-will on both sides, they tore themselves
away from Monsieur et Madame Vinard.
The Laird, however, rushed back for a minute, and hurriedly whispered to
Madame Vinard: "Oh--er--le piay de Trilby--sur le mure, vous savvy--avec
le verre et toot le reste--coopy le mure--comprenny?... Combiang?"
"Ah, monsieur!" said Madame Vinard--"c'est un peu difficile, vous
savez--couper un mur comme ça! On parlera au propriétaire si vous
voulez, et ça pourrait peut-être s'arranger, si c'est en bois! seulement
il fau--"
"Je prong!" said the Laird, and waved his hand in farewell.
[Illustration: "'JE PRONG!'"]
They went up the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, and found that about
twenty yards of a high wall had been pulled down--just at the bend where
the Laird had seen the last of Trilby, as she turned round and kissed
her hand to him--and they beheld, within, a quaint and ancient
long-neglected garden; a gray old garden, with tall, warty, black-boled
trees, and damp, green, mossy paths that lost themselves under the brown
and yellow leaves and mould and muck which had drifted into heaps here
and there, the accumulation of years--a queer old faded pleasance, with
wasted bowers and dilapidated carved stone benches and weather-beaten
discolored marble statues--noseless, armless, earless fauns and
hamadryads! And at the end of it, in a tumble-down state of utter ruin,
a still inhabited little house, with shabby blinds and window-curtains,
and broken window-panes mended with brown paper--a Pavillon de Flore,
that must have been quite beautiful a hundred years ago--the once
mysterious love-resort of long-buried abbés with light hearts, and
well-forgotten lords and ladies gay--red-heeled, patched, powdered,
frivolous, and shameless, but oh! how charming to the imagination of
the nineteenth century! And right through the ragged lawn, (where lay,
upset in the long dewy grass, a broken doll's perambulator by a tattered
Punchinello) went a desecrating track made by cart-wheels and horses'
hoofs; and this, no doubt, was to be a new street--perhaps, as Taffy
suggested, "La Rue _Neuve_ des Mauvais Ladres!" (The _New_ Street of the
Bad Lepers!).
"Ah, Taffy!" sententiously opined the Laird, with his usual wink at
Little Billee, "I've no doubt the _old_ lepers were the best, bad as
they were!"
"I'm quite _sure_ of it!" said Taffy, with sad and sober conviction and
a long-drawn sigh. "I only wish I had a chance of painting one--just as
he really was!"
How often they had speculated on what lay hidden behind that lofty old
brick wall! and now this melancholy little peep into the once festive
past, the touching sight of this odd old poverty-stricken abode of
Heaven knows what present grief and desolation, which a few strokes of
the pickaxe had laid bare, seemed to chime in with their own gray mood
that had been so bright and sunny an hour ago; and they went on their
way quite dejectedly, for a stroll through the Luxembourg Gallery and
Gardens.
The same people seemed to be still copying the same pictures in the
long, quiet, genial room, so pleasantly smelling of oil-paint--Rosa
Bonheur's "Labourage Nivernais"--Hébert's "Malaria"--Couture's "Decadent
Romans."
And in the formal dusty gardens were the same pioupious and zouzous
still walking with the same nounous, or sitting by their sides on
benches by formal ponds with gold and silver fish in them--and just the
same old couples petting the same toutous and loulous![A]
[A] _Glossary._--Pioupiou (_alias_ pousse-caillou, _alias_
tourlourou)--a private soldier of the line. Zouzou--a Zouave. Nounou--a
wet-nurse with a pretty ribboned cap and long streamers. Toutou--a
nondescript French lapdog, of no breed known to Englishmen (a regular
little beast!) Loulou--a Pomeranian dog--not much better.
Then they thought they would go and lunch at le père Trin's--the
Restaurant de la Couronne, in the Rue du Luxembourg--for the sake of
auld lang syne! But when they got there the well-remembered fumes of
that humble refectory, which had once seemed not unappetizing, turned
their stomachs. So they contented themselves with warmly greeting le
père Trin, who was quite overjoyed to see them again, and anxious to
turn the whole establishment topsy-turvy that he might entertain such
guests as they deserved.
Then the Laird suggested an omelet at the Café de l'Odéon. But Taffy
said, in his masterful way, "Damn the Café de l'Odéon!"
And hailing a little open fly, they drove to Ledoyen's, or some such
place, in the Champs Élysées, where they feasted as became three
prosperous Britons out for a holiday in Paris--three irresponsible
musketeers, lords of themselves and Lutetia, _beati possidentes!_--and
afterwards had themselves driven in an open carriage and pair through
the Bois de Boulogne to the fête de St. Cloud (or what still remained of
it, for it lasts six weeks), the scene of so many of Dodor's and
Zouzou's exploits in past years, and found it more amusing than the
Luxembourg Gardens; the lively and irrepressible spirit of Dodor seemed
to pervade it still.
But it doesn't want the presence of a Dodor to make the blue-bloused
sons of the Gallic people (and its neatly shod, white-capped daughters)
delightful to watch as they take their pleasure. And the Laird (thinking
perhaps of Hampstead Heath on an Easter Monday) must not be blamed for
once more quoting his favorite phrase--the pretty little phrase with
which the most humorous and least exemplary of British parsons began his
famous journey to France.
When they came back to the hotel to dress and dine, the Laird found he
wanted a pair of white gloves for the concert--"Oon pair de gong blong,"
as he called it--and they walked along the boulevards till they came to
a haberdasher's shop of very good and prosperous appearance, and, going
in, were received graciously by the "patron," a portly little bourgeois,
who waved them to a tall and aristocratic and very well dressed young
commis behind the counter, saying, "Une paire de gants blancs pour
monsieur."
And what was the surprise of our three friends in recognizing Dodor!
The gay Dodor, Dodor l'irrésistible, quite unembarrassed by his
position, was exuberant in his delight at seeing them again, and
introduced them to the patron and his wife and daughter, Monsieur,
Madame, and Mademoiselle Passefil. And it soon became pretty evident
that, in spite of his humble employment in that house, he was a great
favorite in that family, and especially with mademoiselle.
[Illustration: "'OON PAIR DE GONG BLONG'"]
Indeed, Monsieur Passefil invited our three heroes to stay and dine then
and there; but they compromised matters by asking Dodor to come and dine
with _them_ at the hotel, and he accepted with alacrity.
Thanks to Dodor, the dinner was a very lively one, and they soon forgot
the regretful impressions of the day.
They learned that he hadn't got a penny in the world, and had left the
army, and had for two years kept the books at le père Passefil's and
served his customers, and won his good opinion and his wife's, and
especially his daughter's; and that soon he was to be not only his
employer's partner, but his son-in-law; and that, in spite of his
impecuniosity, he had managed to impress them with the fact that in
marrying a Rigolot de Lafarce she was making a very splendid match
indeed!
His brother-in-law, the Honorable Jack Reeve, had long cut him for a bad
lot. But his sister, after a while, had made up her mind that to marry
Mlle. Passefil wasn't the worst he could do; at all events, it would
keep him out of England, and _that_ was a comfort! And passing through
Paris, she had actually called on the Passefil family, and they had
fallen prostrate before such splendor; and no wonder, for Mrs. Jack
Reeve was one of the most beautiful, elegant, and fashionable women in
London, the smartest of the smart.
"And how about l'Zouzou?" asked Little Billee.
"Ah, old Gontran! I don't see much of him. We no longer quite move in
the same circles, you know; not that he's proud, or me either! but he's
a sub-lieutenant in the Guides--an officer! Besides, his brother's
dead, and he's the Duc de la Rochemartel, and a special pet of the
Empress; he makes her laugh more than anybody! He's looking out for the
biggest heiress he can find, and he's pretty safe to catch her, with
such a name as that! In fact, they say he's caught her already--Miss
Lavinia Hunks, of Chicago. Twenty million dollars!--at least, so the
_Figaro_ says!"
Then he gave them news of other old friends; and they did not part till
it was time for them to go to the Cirque des Bashibazoucks, and after
they had arranged to dine with his future family on the following day.
* * * * *
In the Rue St. Honoré was a long double file of cabs and carriages
slowly moving along to the portals of that huge hall, Le Cirque des
Bashibazoucks. Is it there still, I wonder? I don't mind betting not!
Just at this period of the Second Empire there was a mania for
demolition and remolition (if there is such a word), and I have no doubt
my Parisian readers would search the Rue St. Honoré for the Salle des
Bashibazoucks in vain!
Our friends were shown to their stalls, and looked round in surprise.
This was before the days of the Albert Hall, and they had never been in
such a big place of the kind before, or one so regal in aspect, so
gorgeously imperial with white and gold and crimson velvet, so dazzling
with light, so crammed with people from floor to roof, and cramming
itself still.
A platform carpeted with crimson cloth had been erected in front of the
gates where the horses had once used to come in, and their fair riders,
and the two jolly English clowns; and the beautiful nobleman with the
long frock-coat and brass buttons, and soft high boots, and four-in-hand
whip--"la chambrière."
In front of this was a lower stand for the orchestra. The circus itself
was filled with stalls--stalles d'orchestre. A pair of crimson curtains
hid the entrance to the platform at the back, and by each of these stood
a small page, ready to draw it aside and admit the diva.
The entrance to the orchestra was by a small door under the platform,
and some thirty or forty chairs and music-stands, grouped around the
conductor's estrade, were waiting for the band.
Little Billee looked round, and recognized many countrymen and
countrywomen of his own--many great musical celebrities especially, whom
he had often met in London. Tiers upon tiers of people rose up all round
in a widening circle, and lost themselves in a dazy mist of light at the
top--it was like a picture by Martin! In the imperial box were the
English ambassador and his family, with an august British personage
sitting in the middle, in front, his broad blue ribbon across his breast
and his opera-glass to his royal eyes.
Little Billee had never felt so excited, so exhilarated by such a show
before, nor so full of eager anticipation. He looked at his programme,
and saw that the Hungarian band (the first that had yet appeared in
western Europe, I believe) would play an overture of gypsy dances. Then
Madame Svengali would sing "un air connu, sans accompagnement," and
afterwards other airs, including the "Nussbaum" of Schumann (for the
first time in Paris, it seemed). Then a rest of ten minutes; then more
csárdás; then the diva would sing "Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre," of
all things in the world! and finish up with "un impromptu de Chopin,
sans paroles."
Truly a somewhat incongruous bill of fare!
[Illustration: GECKO]
Close on the stroke of nine the musicians came in and took their seats.
They were dressed in the foreign hussar uniform that has now become so
familiar. The first violin had scarcely sat down before friends
recognized in him their old friend Gecko.
Just as the clock struck, Svengali, in irreproachable evening dress,
tall and stout and quite splendid in appearance, notwithstanding his
long black mane (which had been curled), took his place at his desk. Our
friends would have known him at a glance, in spite of the wonderful
alteration time and prosperity had wrought in his outward man.
He bowed right and left to the thunderous applause that greeted him,
gave his three little baton-taps, and the lovely music began at once. We
have grown accustomed to strains of this kind during the last twenty
years; but they were new then, and their strange seduction was a
surprise as well as an enchantment.
Besides, no such band as Svengali's had ever been heard; and in
listening to this overture the immense crowd almost forgot that it was a
mere preparation for a great musical event, and tried to encore it. But
Svengali merely turned round and bowed--there were to be no encores that
night.
Then a moment of silence and breathless suspense--curiosity on tiptoe!
Then the two little page-boys each drew a silken rope, and the curtains
parted and looped themselves up on each side symmetrically; and a tall
female figure appeared, clad in what seemed like a classical dress of
cloth of gold, embroidered with garnets and beetles' wings; her snowy
arms and shoulders bare, a gold coronet of stars on her head, her thick
light brown hair tied behind and flowing all down her back to nearly her
knees, like those ladies in hair-dressers' shops who sit with their
backs to the plate-glass windows to advertise the merits of some
particular hair-wash.