In the Square d'Iéna, which teems with little Parisians in charge of
English nurses, Vera Simpson wheeled the baby-carriage to a bench on
fine mornings, and exchanged patriotic sentiments with her compeers.
When disparagement of France flagged, Vera Simpson occasionally
observed. So as she always entered the square at the same end and
nearly always chose the same bench, she observed the eccentric
proceedings of a young man who took to coming every morning to stare at
the statue on the opposite grass plot. After standing before it as if
he were glued there, the young man would reverse one of the chairs that
faced the path in an orderly line, and then sit mooning at the statue,
with his back to everybody, for nearly an hour. It was, Miss Simpson
surmised, a statue to a departed Frenchy. She had never approached it
to ascertain what name it bore, and could see nothing about the thing
to account for the fellow's taking such stock of it. Some time before
he had appeared for nine days in succession, she and her circle had
nicknamed him the "rum 'un."
On the tenth day, instead of the young man, a woman went to the statue,
and stood before it just as stupidly and as long as the man had done.
The most comical bit was that, when she turned away at last, it was
seen that the statue had been making the woman cry. After that, neither
of the funny pair came back to the Square d'Iéna; but as Vera Simpson
chooses the same bench still, she sometimes recalls their queerness
and, before her mind wanders, tries again to guess their game. This was
the game that Vera Simpson tries to guess.
* * * * *
Gaby Dupuy was wishing that the summer were over; she was a model. Not
one of the wretched models that wait at the corner of the boulevards
Raspail and Montparnasse on Mondays, to crave the vote of students in
academies; she went by appointment to the ateliers of the successful.
But now the painters and the sculptors were all at the seaside, and her
appointment book had shown no sitting for ever so long.
Gaby's qualities had never placed her among the stars of her
profession. Nobody had ever said of her, as a great man said of one
of the most celebrated of models, that he had only to reproduce her
faithfully; still less could it be asserted that she had the genius to
penetrate an artist's purport and present the pose that was eluding
him. But if she had neither the beauty of a Sarah Brown, nor the
intuition of a Dubosc, her face possessed a certain attractiveness,
and she could achieve the expression demanded of her when it was
laboriously explained.
Once upon a time her face had been more attractive still; Gaby wasn't
so young as she used to be.
While the woman was regretting that her scanty provision for the
dreaded summer would not allow her a more adequate menu, she received
a letter. A stranger, who signed himself Jacques Launay, earnestly
desired an interview. He wrote that, being unfamiliar with Paris, he
had had great difficulty in ascertaining her address, and added that,
as his stay in the capital was drawing to a close, he would deeply
appreciate the favour of an early reply. Her eyebrows climbed as she
saw that, in lieu of requiring her to betake herself to his studio,
he "begged for the privilege of calling upon her at any hour that she
might find convenient." Probably, though, as a provincial, he hadn't
got a studio here. Still, what deference! he had written to her as if
she were of the ancienne noblesse.
But if he hadn't a studio, where did he expect her to pose? Did he want
her to go to him in the country? Yes, that must be it. Flûte! Gaby
didn't think it would be good enough--the end of the dead season was in
sight at last, and in Paris she would often be booked for two studios a
day. Nevertheless she was eager to hear what he had to say for himself.
She answered that he could see her at seven o'clock the following
evening at the Paradis des Artistes, round the corner. To meet him at a
restaurant, she reflected, would at least ensure his asking her to have
something to drink; and as the tables would be laid, by seven o'clock,
he might even spring to a meal.
The Paradis des Artistes was a small establishment where, for three
francs, one found a homely dinner, inclusive of wine, and a cripple
who wore a red jacket, to look like a Tzigane, and chanted to a
mandoline. The "artistes" were chiefly models, and the lesser lights
of a café-concert. As most of the company knew one another, and the
proprietress called many of the ladies by their Christian names, and
played piquet with them between midnight and 2 a.m., the tone of the
restaurant was as informal as a family party. When Gaby arrived,
the only person present whom she had never seen there before was a
young man, who sat at a table near the door, solitary and seemingly
expectant. Their gaze met, but although he looked undecided, he did not
salute her. Then, as she was greeted by acquaintances, somebody cried,
"Gaby, comment va?" and the young man's head was turned again. If he
was her correspondent, it was rather odd that he didn't know her when
he saw her. But she gave him another opportunity.... He approached with
marked hesitation.
"Mademoiselle Gabrielle Dupuy?"
"Mais oui, monsieur," she said, smiling graciously. "It is monsieur
Launay?"
"Oh, mademoiselle, it is most kind of you!" faltered the stranger. His
confusion was extraordinary, considering his age, for he could not have
been less than eight- or nine-and-twenty. They stood mute for some
seconds. As he remained too much embarrassed to suggest her taking a
seat at his table, "I hope I have not kept you waiting?" she asked,
carelessly moving towards it.
They sat down now, and the waitress, whose tone was informal too,
whisked over with, "And for mademoiselle Dupuy?"
"Give me a glass of madère, Louise," she said.
Still the young man seemed unable to find his tongue, and she went on:
"I am afraid this place was rather out of the way for you? But I have
got into the habit of dropping in here about this time; and it is cosy
and one can talk."
"Yes," he assented. He stole a timid glance at her, and looked quickly
away. "Oh yes."
"Who was it who gave you my address at last, monsieur?"
"I do not know," he said awkwardly. "It was a man who heard me
inquiring. I had immense trouble to find it out."
"It is not a dead secret, however."
"I suppose not--no--but I have no friends in Paris; I have never been
in Paris before. And at the start I did not even know who you were."
"You did not know who I was? Oh, you had seen something I had posed
for?"
"Yes, it was like that. I was anxious to find you, but I did not
know your name. And I had no one to help me," he stammered; "it was
enormously difficult."
"You are a painter, monsieur Launay?"
"No, mademoiselle."
"Ah, a sculptor! That interests me still more."
"I am not a sculptor either, mademoiselle," he admitted. "I am a
composer."
"A composer?" she echoed. "But--but a composer does not employ models."
"No, mademoiselle, but I beg you not to think my motive impudent,"
exclaimed the young man, with the first touch of spontaneity that he
had shown yet.
"Mysterious merely," she smiled. Her expression offered him
encouragement to elucidate the mystery, but nervousness seemed to
overcome him again. He was boring her. She exchanged remarks across the
room with a lady who wore one of the figured veils then in vogue, under
which the victim of fashion appeared to have lost portions of her face.
"Going to feed, Gaby?"
"Yes, my dear, in a minute," she answered.
She saw her correspondent regard the announcement "DINER 3 Fr." His
invitation was constrained, and her acceptance listless.
It no doubt surprised the young man to discover that the veiled lady
was his guest as well; he must have wondered how it had happened. Also
it may have startled him, when he made to fill Gaby's glass from one of
the little decanters that stood before them, to learn that she "did not
take it" and to see a bottle labelled "Pouilly Fuissé" display itself
before he could say "Why?" for he had not heard it ordered. He heard no
order given for the second bottle that he beheld, nor for the tarte aux
cérises that graced their repast--a delicacy that was not a feature
of the other people's. But though these incidents may have caused
him disquietude, since he was far from having an air of wealth, he
manifested no objection to them. Gaby allowed that that was _gentil_.
A singularly taciturn host, but an amenable one. And, briefly as he
spoke, he yielded continuous attention to her prattle to the lady with
the veil. It was queer that the more she prattled, the more despondent
he grew. She found him piquing her curiosity.
When a bill for twenty-nine francs fifty was presented to him, after
the café filtré and Egyptian cigarettes, Gaby put out her hand for it
and knocked off four francs without discussion. "I don't let them make
their little mistakes with friends of mine," she told him languidly,
rising. "I am going home to get my coat--you can come with me." He
accepted her invitation with as scant enthusiasm as she had shown for
his own; and by way of a hint, forgetful of her earlier statement, she
added, "This place is rotten--it's so noisy and one can't talk."
But he proved no more talkative in the street. One might almost have
imagined that the task of explaining his petition for the interview was
a duty that he sought to escape.
Her lodging was so close that the doorway took him aback. He followed
her up the stairs submissively. She was not impatient for the coat.
After lighting the lamp, she lit another of the cigarettes, and sat.
The young man stood staring from the window.
"Well, chatterbox?" she said.
He swung round with unexpected vehemence. "I know I look a hopeless
idiot," he cried.
"But ... what an idea!" Her gesture was all surprised denial.
"I prayed to see you--I said nothing all the evening, I stand like a
dummy here. I must tell you why I wrote. But--but it is not so easy as
I thought it would be."
"You make me curious."
"Listen," he exclaimed. "I had had two passions in my life--music, and
the poetry of Richardière! No other poet has meant half--a tithe--so
much to me as he. His work inspired me when I was a boy; if I had had
the means, I would have taken the journey to Paris just to wait on the
pavement and see his face when he went out. When he died----Of course
all France mourned his loss, but none but his dearest friends, I think,
could have felt as I did. Well, since I have been a man I have made an
opera of his _Arizath_, and I came to Paris last week because there was
a prospect of its being produced. Five minutes after I had found a room
at an hotel, I was asking my way to the Square d'Iéna to see the statue
to him. I knew nothing about it excepting that it had been erected
there--and as I approached it my heart sank: I had always pictured a
statue of the man, and I saw merely a bust of him--the statue was of a
woman, recalling a verse."
She nodded. "I know. Beauvais kept me posing for three hours and a half
without budging, and I had a chilblain that itched like mad on the
finger inside the book."
"The disappointment was keen. I almost wished I had not come, for it
had been a long walk, and I was very tired. And then, after I had stood
looking at the bust, noting how handsome he had been, and thinking
of his genius, I looked down at the statue of the woman, and I felt
that it would have been worth coming simply to see that. It was so
wonderful, so real! The naturalness of the attitude, the perfection of
the toilette--I had never realised that the sculptor's art could do
such things; I think I looked for minutes at the slippers. I admired
the sleeves, the sweep of the gown, that seemed as if it must be soft
to touch; I was amazed by a thousand trifles before my glance lingered
on the face. And after my glance lingered on the face I saw nothing
else; I could not even move to look at it in profile--it held me fixed."
"It is Beauvais' masterpiece," said Gaby; "they all say it is the
finest thing he has done."
"It is a masterpiece, yes. But I was not thinking of the sculptor and
his art any more--I was thinking of the face, without remembering how
it had come about. It was as if a beautiful mind were really pondering
behind that brow. The character of the mouth and chin impressed me as
if the marble had been flesh and blood; the abstracted eyes couldn't
have stirred me to more reverence if they had had sight. And while
I looked at them, they seemed, by an optical illusion, to meet my
own. Not with interest; with an unconsciousness that mortified
me--they seemed to gaze through my insignificance into the greatness
of Richardière. I blinked, I suppose, for the next instant they had
been averted. I wanted them to come back, to realise my presence. I
concentrated all my will upon the effort to trick myself once more--and
I could have sworn they turned. Now, too, they seemed to notice me;
there was a smile in them, an ironical smile--they smiled at the
presumption of my linking an immortal poet's work with mine! Insane?
But I felt it, I shrank from the derision. Again I raised my head to
Richardière, and for the first time I remarked that his expression was
a poor acknowledgment of the figure's homage. It was consequential
and impertinent. A tinge of cruelty in it, even. He had an air of
sensualism, of one who held women very light. I could imagine his
having said horrible things to women. He was not worthy of the look in
the statue's eyes....
"I went there the next day, after vowing that I would not go. The eyes
discerned me sooner this time, and I contrived to fancy that their gaze
was gentler. I was happy in the fancy that their gaze was gentler. When
the eyes wandered from me I was humbled, and when they looked in mine
I held my breath. I persuaded myself--no, I did not 'persuade myself,'
the thought was born--that there was comprehension in the gaze, that
my worship, though undesired, was understood. In the afternoon I had
a business appointment that I had been thinking about for weeks, but
instead of being excited by its nearness, I regretted that it obliged
me to leave the Square d'Iéna. When I kept the appointment, the bad
news that there had been a delay in the arrangements hardly troubled
me--I was impatient only to be outside. Originally my plan had been to
see the Louvre as soon as the business was over--now my one desire was
to return to the statue. It was a delight to hasten to it; people must
have thought me bound for a rendezvous, as I strode smiling through
the streets. Not once did I regard the arrogance of Richardière on the
pedestal, but it was only in moments that the musing figure ceased
to remind me that her god was there. Though I never looked at it,
an intense repugnance to the face of Richardière was in my blood--a
jealousy, if you will! It possessed me while I was away--while I was
reiterating that I had made my last visit to the square, knowing
nevertheless that on the morrow I should yield again. The jealousy
persisted when I turned the pages of my opera now, and the magic of
the master's poetry was gone. I could not forget his domination of the
figure--I wanted to think of the beautiful statue freed, aloof from
him!"
He had left the window, and was moving restlessly about the room.
Intent, her face propped by her hands, the model for the statue sat and
watched him. The cigarette between her lips was out.
"The fact that there must have been a model for it was borne upon me
quite suddenly. It had the thrill of a revelation, and nearly dazed
me. This woman lived! Somewhere in the world she was walking, speaking!
It was as if a miracle had happened, as if the statue had come to life.
I repeated breathlessly that it was true, but it appeared fabulous. I
had attributed emotions to the marble figure with ease--to grasp the
simple truth of the woman's existence was inconceivably difficult. I
trembled with the marvel of it; Pygmalion was not more stupefied than
I. When my heart left off pounding so hard, I began to question how
long it would take me to discover who she was. I did not even know the
way to set about it. But I knew that if she was in France I meant to
find her.... I need not talk about the rest."
After a silence Gaby stirred and spoke:
"It was a triumph to pose for the statue--your story makes me very
proud."
"I could not avoid telling it to you," answered the young man drearily.
"But how you say it--as if you had done wrong! Shall I tell you what
would have been wrong? Not to let me know. That would have been
pathetic. Mon Dieu! it would be atrocious for a woman to have done all
that and never to hear. And to think that at the beginning I fancied
you were----You were so quiet while we dined."
"I was listening to you," he sighed.
"That's true. You were entitled to it by then--you had done much to get
the chance!"
"Yes, I had done much to get the chance."
"It was beautiful of you. I mean it. Because you have spoken earnestly,
from your heart, and I could see--I could see very well that what you
were saying was true, that you were not exaggerating to please me. Oh,
I am moved, believe me, I am really moved!" She put out her hand to him
impulsively, and he took it, as in duty bound. But he did not raise it
to his lips. Her body stiffened a little as the hand drooped slowly to
her lap. A shade of apprehension aged her face. Again there was silence.
"Well?" she murmured.
"Well?"
"Enfin, when you sought the chance, when you wrote to me at last, you
foresaw--what?"
"Infinitely less than you have granted, mademoiselle," he returned,
with an obvious effort. "A briefer meeting, a more formal one. I thank
you most gratefully for your patience, your kindness, the honour you
have done me."
She gave a harsh laugh. "And now you 'regret that you must say good
night'?"
"It is a fact that I have to see my man again this evening," he
acknowledged hurriedly, glancing at his watch. "I had forgotten the
time."
"Yes," said the woman, "you had forgotten the time--you had forgotten
that the statue was modelled eleven years ago.... So you did not find
her, after all! You began your search too late."
"It is not that!" he cried, distressed.
"Ah!" She had sprung to her feet, and stood panting. "Why lie to me? I
am sorry for you, in a way--you haven't been a brute consciously."
"A brute?"
"What do you imagine you have been? A fool, you think, to yourself: I
have changed, and you should have known I must have changed; it would
have spared you the bother of seeking me, the disillusion when we
met--there are no wrinkles creeping on the statue. Oh, it has been a
fraud for you, I realise the sell! But you are not the only sufferer by
your folly. A man can't talk to a woman as you have talked to me and
leave her cold. He can't say, 'I felt all this for you before I saw
you--now, good-bye,' and leave her proud; he can't adore her in the
marble and disdain her in the flesh without her being ashamed. You have
degraded me, jeered at me--you have taunted me with every blemish on my
skin!"
"It isn't that!" he cried again. "I was a fool, I own it--a brute, if
you choose to call me one--but it isn't that."
"What then? Is it my frock that alters me? I am poor, I can't afford
such gowns as Beauvais put on me for the statue. Is it the way my hair
is dressed? I can dress it like the statue again. The brow? You liked
the brow. Well, look! time hasn't been so rough on me there--the brow
is young. And you need not be jealous of my thoughts of Richardière,
for I have never read a single word he wrote. What is there lacking in
me? Tell me what you miss."
"I can't tell you," he groaned. But he had started.
"You _have_ told me," she said, shrinking. "I know now. My face is
ignorant--the statue has more _mind_ than I!"
He no longer said, "It isn't that." He drooped before her, dumb,
contrite.
After a long pause she quavered, dabbing at her eyes:
"Well, I'm not an idiot--I should improve."
"Is it an imbecile like me who could teach you?"
"I should be content."
"Never in a single hour! I fell in love with an ideal and went to look
for it--failure was ordained. It is I who lack sense, not you."
A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. "It was all the fault of that
Beauvais; he stuck an expression on me, with the clothes. I did look
like that in his studio, though the chilblain was itching. But even
if I made myself look like it now, it wouldn't take you in, would it?
Don't look so frightened of me, I shan't go on at you again. Poor boy,
you have had a deuce of an evening!... Well, I suppose you are right,
failure was ordained--and it is wise to cut one's failures short. You
may go. And don't flatter yourself that you have hurt me so much as I
said--my vanity was stung for a minute, that's all; to-morrow I shall
have forgotten all about you.... You can find your way downstairs?"
He hesitated--and took an irresolute step towards her, with half-opened
arms.
"Good night," she said, not moving. "Good-bye."
* * * * *
On the tenth day, instead of the young man, a woman went to the statue,
and stood before it just as stupidly and as long as he had done. The
most comical bit was that, when she turned away at last, it was seen
that the statue had been making the woman cry. After that, neither of
the funny pair came back to the Square d'Iéna; but as Vera Simpson
chooses the same bench still, she sometimes recalls their queerness
and, before her mind wanders, tries again to guess their game. This was
the game that an English nursemaid tries to guess.
V