And then--well, I happen to forget what sort of a day this particular
day turned into, about six of the clock.
If it was decently fine, the most of them went off to dine at the
Restaurant de la Couronne, kept by the Pere Trin, in the Rue de
Monsieur, who gave you of his best to eat and drink for twenty sols
Parisis, or one franc in the coin of the empire. Good distending
soups, omelets that were only too savory, lentils, red and white
beans, meat so dressed and sauced and seasoned that you didn't know
whether it was beef or mutton, flesh, fowl, or good red herring,--or
even bad, for that matter,--nor very greatly care.
And just the same lettuce, radishes, and cheese of Gruyere or Brie as
you got at the Trois Freres Provencaux (but not the same butter!). And
to wash it all down, generous wine in wooden "brocs," that stained a
lovely aesthetic blue everything it was spilled over.
And you hobnobbed with models, male and female, students of law and
medicine, painters and sculptors, workmen and blanchisseuses and
grisettes, and found them very good company, and most improving to
your French, if your French was of the usual British kind, and even to
some of your manners, if these were very British indeed. And the
evening was innocently wound up with billiards, cards, or dominoes at
the Cafe du Luxembourg opposite; or at the Theatre du Luxembourg, in
the Rue de Madame, to see funny farces with screamingly droll
Englishmen in them; or still better, at the Jardin Bullier (la
Closerie des Lilas), to see the students dance the cancan, or try and
dance it yourself, which is not so easy as it seems; or best of all,
at the Theatre de l'Odeon, to see Fechter and Madame Doche in the
'Dame aux Camelias.'
Or if it were not only fine, but a Saturday afternoon into the
bargain, the Laird would put on a necktie and a few other necessary
things, and the three friends would walk arm-in-arm to Taffy's hotel
in the Rue de Seine, and wait outside till he had made himself as
presentable as the Laird, which did not take very long. And then
(Little Billee was always presentable) they would, arm-in-arm, the
huge Taffy in the middle, descend the Rue de Seine and cross a bridge
to the Cite, and have a look in at the Morgue. Then back again to the
quays on the Rive Gauche by the Pont Neuf, to wend their way westward;
now on one side to look at the print and picture shops and the
magasins of bric-a-brac, and haply sometimes buy thereof, now on the
other to finger and cheapen the second-hand books for sale on the
parapet, and even pick one or two utterly unwanted bargains, never to
be read or opened again.
When they reached the Pont des Arts they would cross it, stopping in
the middle to look up the river towards the old Cite and Notre Dame,
eastward, and dream unutterable things and try to utter them. Then
turning westward, they would gaze at the glowing sky and all it glowed
upon--the corner of the Tuileries and the Louvre, the many bridges,
the Chamber of Deputies, the golden river narrowing its perspective
and broadening its bed, as it went flowing and winding on its way
between Passy and Grenelle to St. Cloud, to Rouen, to the Havre, to
England perhaps--where _they_ didn't want to be just then; and they
would try and express themselves to the effect that life was
uncommonly well worth living in that particular city at that
particular time of the day and year and century, at that particular
epoch of their own mortal and uncertain lives.
Then, still arm-in-arm and chatting gayly, across the court-yard of
the Louvre, through gilded gates well guarded by reckless imperial
Zouaves, up the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as far as the Rue Castiglione,
where they would stare with greedy eyes at the window of the great
corner pastry-cook, and marvel at the beautiful assortment of bonbons,
pralines, dragees, marrons glaces--saccharine, crystalline substances
of all kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an illumination;
precious stones, delicately frosted sweets, pearls and diamonds so
arranged as to melt in the mouth; especially, at this particular time
of the year, the monstrous Easter eggs of enchanting hue, enshrined
like costly jewels in caskets of satin and gold; and the Laird, who
was well read in his English classics and liked to show it, would
opine that "they managed these things better in France."
Then across the street by a great gate into the Allee des Feuillants,
and up to the Place de la Concorde--to gaze, but quite without base
envy, at the smart people coming back from the Bois de Boulogne. For
even in Paris "carriage people" have a way of looking bored, of taking
their pleasure sadly, of having nothing to say to each other, as
though the vibration of so many wheels all rolling home the same way
every afternoon had hypnotized them into silence, idiocy, and
melancholia.
And our three musketeers of the brush would speculate on the vanity of
wealth and rank and fashion; on the satiety that follows in the wake
of self-indulgence and overtakes it; on the weariness of the pleasures
that become a toil--as if they knew all about it, had found it all out
for themselves, and nobody else had ever found it out before!
Then they found out something else--namely, that the sting of healthy
appetite was becoming intolerable; so they would betake themselves to
an English eating-house in the Rue de la Madeleine (on the left-hand
side near the top), where they would renovate their strength and their
patriotism on British beef and beer, and household bread, and bracing,
biting, stinging yellow mustard, and horseradish, and noble
apple-pie, and Cheshire cheese; and get through as much of these in an
hour or so as they could for talking, talking, talking; such happy
talk! as full of sanguine hope and enthusiasm, of cocksure
commendation or condemnation of all painters, dead or alive, of modest
but firm belief in themselves and each other, as a Paris Easter egg is
full of sweets and pleasantness (for the young).
And then a stroll on the crowded, well-lighted boulevards, and a bock
at the cafe there, at a little three-legged marble table right out on
the genial asphalt pavement, still talking nineteen to the dozen.
Then home by dark old silent streets and some deserted bridge to their
beloved Latin Quarter, the Morgue gleaming cold and still and fatal in
the pale lamplight, and Notre Dame pricking up its watchful twin
towers, which have looked down for so many centuries on so many happy,
sanguine, expansive youths walking arm-in-arm by twos and threes, and
forever talking, talking, talking....
The Laird and Little Billee would see Taffy safe to the door of his
_hotel garni_ in the Rue de Seine, where they would find much to say
to each other before they said good-night--so much that Taffy and
Little Billee would see the Laird safe to _his_ door, in the Place St.
Anatole des Arts. And then a discussion would arise between Taffy and
the Laird on the immortality of the soul, let us say, or the exact
meaning of the word "gentleman," or the relative merits of Dickens and
Thackeray, or some such recondite and quite unhackneyed theme, and
Taffy and the Laird would escort Little Billee to _his_ door, in the
Place de l'Odeon, and he would re-escort them both back again, and so
on till any hour you please.
Or again, if it rained, and Paris through the studio window loomed
lead-colored, with its shiny slate roofs under skies that were ashen
and sober, and the wild west wind made woeful music among the
chimney-pots, and little gray waves ran up the river the wrong way,
and the Morgue looked chill and dark and wet, and almost uninviting
(even to three healthy-minded young Britons), they would resolve to
dine and spend a happy evening at home.
Little Billee, taking with him three francs (or even four), would dive
into back streets and buy a yard or so of crusty new bread, well
burned on the flat side, a fillet of beef, a litre of wine, potatoes
and onions, butter, a little cylindrical cheese called "bondon de
Neufchatel," tender curly lettuce, with chervil, parsley, spring
onions, and other fine herbs, and a pod of garlic, which would be
rubbed on a crust of bread to flavor things with.
Taffy would lay the cloth English-wise, and also make the salad, for
which, like everybody else I ever met, he had a special receipt of his
own (putting in the oil first and the vinegar after); and indeed, his
salads were quite as good as everybody else's.
The Laird, bending over the stove, would cook the onions and beef into
a savory Scotch mess so cunningly that you could not taste the beef
for the onions--nor always the onions for the garlic!
And they would dine far better than at le Pere Trin's, far better than
at the English Restaurant in the Rue de la Madeleine--better than
anywhere else on earth!
And after dinner, what coffee, roasted and ground on the spot, what
pipes and cigarettes of "caporal," by the light of the three shaded
lamps, while the rain beat against the big north window, and the wind
went howling round the quaint old medieval tower at the corner of the
Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres (the old street of the bad lepers),
and the damp logs hissed and crackled in the stove!
What jolly talk into the small hours! Thackeray and Dickens again, and
Tennyson and Byron (who was "not dead yet" in those days); and Titian
and Velasquez, and young Millais and Holman Hunt (just out); and
Monsieur Ingres and Monsieur Delacroix, and Balzac and Stendhal and
George Sand; and the good Dumas! and Edgar Allan Poe; and the glory
that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome....
Good, honest, innocent, artless prattle--not of the wisest, perhaps,
nor redolent of the very highest culture (which by the way can mar as
well as make), nor leading to any very practical result; but quite
pathetically sweet from the sincerity and fervor of its convictions, a
profound belief in their importance, and a proud trust in their
lifelong immutability.
Oh happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and friendship! oh happy
times of careless impecuniosity, and youth and hope and health and
strength and freedom--with all Paris for a playground, and its dear
old unregenerate Latin Quarter for a workshop and a home!