the end of the room opposite the jazz band.
“This noise,” began Ventrillon, promptly, to a negligible lady beside
him, “is it music?”
“Ah, no, monsieur,” confessed the lady; “but it is the fashion.”
“Then I must like it,” said Ventrillon.
“One has not met you before, I believe, monsieur?” said the lady.
“I have not been a success before,” said Ventrillon.
The lady laughed.
“Then you do not know anybody. I shall have to inform you. The little
woman with the red hair near the door is Madame Ribot, the wife of the
journalist. She has a wicked tongue; it is well to cultivate her. Her
husband controls public opinion, and she controls him. The man behind
her is the Minister of Public Services----”
A passing couple jostled the minister’s arm and, awkwardly, attempting
to save it, he dropped his teacup. Crimson even to the barren scalp of
his head, he stooped to mop with his handkerchief at the spilled tea in
the lap of Mme. Ribot. The little red-haired woman smiled, clenched her
teeth, and bided her time.
“Madame,” said Ventrillon, “I sit at your feet and learn. I had never
before known that a Minister of Public Services could drop a teacup.”
The lady laughed again.
“Monsieur,” she said, “you are delicious. Look! The tall blonde who
enters is the Belletaille----”
With a resounding metallic crash, the jazz band happened at that moment
to stop short. Short of breath, the dancing couples separated. In the
gap of the portières stood a lean, hawk-nosed woman in black, with a
dead-white face of astonishing and fascinating ugliness. One shoulder
was held higher than the other, one chalky hand rested with fingers
wide-spread upon her uncorseted hip, and the other caressed at her waist
the enormous bunch of scarlet amaryllis without which she was never
seen. Everybody turned to look. The Belletaille, as usual, had achieved
an entrance.
“‘Allo evreebodee!” she cried in English, showing all her fine white
teeth. “Ah, there you are, my Marianne! Kiss me! And, oh, my dear Madame
Sutrin, how pleased I am to come! _C’est épatant!_ A jazz band! _Bon
dieu_, but it is ravishing! Aha! Théodule--_ça gaz?_” She had called the
Minister of Public Services Théodule and asked him how he was in slang.
“That,” thought Ventrillon, “is success.”
Taking for granted that everybody was overwhelmed with delight at seeing
her, on she came, with a bow here and a handshake there, until in the
centre of the room she halted abruptly.
“Théodule,” she cried, “I forgot to tell Madame Hortense to send up
that gown this evening. Telephone her for me. And hasten, or the shop
will be closed.” The Minister of Public Services obeyed and left the
room.
Then she turned and on she came again. With the sinuous step of the walk
she had learned at the Conservatoire, on and on, smiling, smiling, her
eyelids painted sky blue, her alizarin lips smiling apart like something
unreal, jingle by jingle, faintly clicking her high heels on the
parquetry, on and on, smiling always, came the great Gabrielle
Belletaille of the Opéra Comique.
Ventrillon had never before in his life made an effort to please, and
now his mind refused to work. In fact, it was scattered into tiny little
bits all over the salon of Mme. Sutrin. “What a marvellous subject to
paint!” was the only idea his devastated brain could hold. He could do
naught but stare at the extraordinary creature and breathe with
difficulty. She was almost upon him.
Now she was speaking to him in that golden voice, a single intonation of
which could break a thousand hearts, and was extending one of those
chalk-white hands, a single gesture of which could from a thousand
bodies draw a thousand souls.
“And this,” she was saying, “must be the Adonis of whom Madame Sutrin
spoke.”
Ventrillon grasped his impudence and yearned for his breath and his
voice; but everything he could conceive was either too long or too
obvious, and with every fraction of a second it was swiftly becoming too
late. One of those terrible tea-silences had fallen when nobody can
think of anything more to say.
“Ah, Madame Venus,” he heard his voice stammer at last, resounding in
his ears above the tinkle of teaspoons, as if he had been shouting,
“n-n-not Adonis; for that f-foolish Adonis ran away!”
He saw her narrow her eyes as she looked at him, and heard the sharp
intake of her breath. “Oh, my God!” thought Ventrillon, “I am ruined! I
have gone too far!”
“Audacious!” she murmured. “I like audacity.” She flashed all her teeth
upon him and for the moment blinded him. “Come and talk to me.”
She sat down, letting her long arms drift from the arms of her chair. “I
hope you don’t fox trot. I refuse to fox trot. It is so vulgar. When
that Fanny Max began to fox trot, the Belletaille ceased. Now tell me
all about yourself. I am a person in whom one can confide. Everybody
tells me everything. I am always so interested in other people. It is my
character. That is why I am never bored. Only the stupid are bored. And
then my life has been so interesting, so full of such strange
coincidences and such fascinating episodes.” Then, before allowing him
one word of the telling all about himself, or herself the time to catch
her breath, she shrieked the length of the room to the Minister of
Public Services, who had at that moment entered again, “What did she
say, Théodule?”
“She will send the gown at once,” said the minister, mopping his
forehead. “But what a devil of a time I had getting her! Telephonists
have lost all respect. I did not remember the number and I did not want
to waste the minutes, so I said to the telephonist, ‘I know, my girl, it
is forbidden to call without a number, but this is the Minister of
Public Services who speaks.’ And figure to yourselves what she says!
‘_Flute alors!_’ she says. ‘Go on with you! That is what they all say!’”
“Oh,” laughed red-haired little Mme. Ribot, “that is exactly what
happened to Fanny Max, the new soprano everybody is talking about, you
know.” Ventrillon saw Mme. Sutrin give the little woman a warning
glance, and knew that Belletaille had stiffened at the mention of the
name. But Mme. Ribot wore a gown which had been ruined by the Minister
of Public Services, and she was about to make him pay through the nose.
Nothing could have stopped her. “Excepting that _she_ said she was the
_wife_ of the Minister of Public Services; and the telephone girl
said----”
Mme. Sutrin, having not the vaguest idea what that telephone girl had
said, but knowing Mme. Ribot’s tongue only too well, made a desperate
gesture to the leader of the jazz band, hoping to drown it in cacophony.
The Negro had gone out for a drink. Mme. Sutrin subsided hopelessly.
“The telephone girl said,” Mme. Ribot continued calmly and
deliberately--“she said, ‘Oh, the pig! _He has deceived me!_’”
The minister went a violent shade of royal purple.
“And that very day,” the shameless red-haired little creature went on,
“Fanny Max went to the telephone bureau with a riding whip, and it
required six men to eject her. Ministers of public services must be
fascinating.” She looked up wickedly at the minister, who looked down at
her in turn as if he would have liked to bite her. She was obtaining
royal indemnities for her gown.
“Oh, spare me!” cried the Belletaille. “I suffocate! All one hears is
Fanny Max! Fanny Max! Fanny Max! The newspapers are full of her. Why
people will discuss such a creature I cannot understand. Such vulgarity!
It makes me ill. And she will do anything for notoriety. I abhor
notoriety myself. I loathe notoriety. And voice? It is like the screech
of a rusty hinge. Really, Madame Sutrin, if we are to have nothing but
Fanny Max----”
“I assure you, madame,” said the minister to Mme. Ribot, striving to
keep his rage from his voice, “that I have not the honour of knowing
Mademoiselle Max----”
“Oh,” she cried quickly, “never fear! Your wife will not hear it from
_me_.”
“Ugh!” said the Belletaille to Ventrillon, “it continues! It is
disgusting! It is unspeakable! It is----”
“Mademoiselle,” interrupted Ventrillon, “why speak of her? She exists
only to be ignored by you.”
The Belletaille gave him her grateful full face. “I knew it the moment I
saw you,” she declared. “You are a mystic, and I think mysticism is so
fascinating. You have the eyes. I am a mystic myself. Everybody notices
it. Sometimes I think we mystics alone know the true soul of things.
What a truth that is, ‘She exists only to be ignored by me!’ You are a
painter, aren’t you? It is these young ones, these young mystics, who do
the great things. Why do you not paint my portrait?”
Ventrillon gulped.
“I dared not ask it,” he said.
“Then that is settled. We shall begin to-morrow afternoon. But come,
take me to my car. It is evident that these surroundings are not for us.
Ah, Madame Sutrin,” she said sweetly as she took her hostess’s hand, “it
has been _so_ interesting! One finds so many people at your house one
would never dream of meeting anywhere else.”
When she passed the minister, Ventrillon heard her hiss something into
his face. It sounded extraordinarily like, “Never speak to me again!”
But Ventrillon was never sure of this, for the jazz band had begun anew.
Nevertheless, he distinctly saw little Mme. Ribot look up from under her
red hair to observe this brief passage, and then down to contemplate a
large wet stain on her satin skirt with a smile of enormous
satisfaction.
“After all,” reflected Ventrillon, “the great are all ridiculous. It is
easier than I had thought.”
FOURTH REFLECTION
At the curb Ventrillon handed the Belletaille into her limousine.
“Till to-morrow,” she said graciously as he stood there bowing, with the
hat of eight reflections in his hand. The car, purring, was about to
move off, but she signalled the driver with a vibratory gesture of both
her long white hands, and then tore with them at the vivid bouquet at
her waist. She leaned from the car and thrust a scarlet amaryllis into
Ventrillon’s buttonhole. “It is my flower,” she said, “the guaranty of
our bargain.”
As the car rolled silently from the curb into the traffic, he raised the
lapel of his coat and gallantly pressed his lips to the flaming lily. He
saw her smile with all her teeth and wave her hand.
“Undoubtedly,” he said to himself as he strolled leisurely on down the
Avenue des Champs-Élysées, “it is because I happened to be designed by
nature to wear a hat of eight reflections.”
His recent success ran in his blood like champagne. The scarlet badge of
it was brave in his buttonhole, and if he had been wearing his old black
felt and strolling down the Boulevard St.-Michel, he would have sung.
But such behaviour was not for the man he had become. Neither was the
company at the Closerie des Lilas.
In the Champs-Élysées he passed his good old friend Sabrin, who was
promenading Clo-clo on his arm. Clo-clo shook her golden ringlets and
giggled.
“Regard me that, if you please!” she cried. “Ventrillon has become a
bourgeois! Ventri in a hat of eight reflections!”
How shabby they looked!
Ventrillon lifted the hat of eight reflections and bowed--with a grace,
and hoped nobody saw him do it. Sabrin’s mild eyes deepened as if he had
been a dog and Ventrillon had struck him, but Clo-clo gave a delighted
little scream of amusement.
“I do not think,” reflected Ventrillon, his ears blazing as he walked
on, “that I shall frequent the Closerie des Lilas any more.”
As that was the only place in Paris where might be found a friend to buy
him a dinner, and the reason for his walking the long distance from the
Étoile to the Rue Jacob was that he had not even the price of a Métro
ticket, Ventrillon went to bed early that night, imploring sleep to
quiet his hunger.
FIFTH REFLECTION
If it had not been for the sandwiches the Belletaille served with her
tea and the suppers to which she had him invited, Ventrillon might have
starved. But in the smart company at those suppers in fashionable
restaurants he had begun to wonder how he had ever been able to endure
the shabbiness of the Closerie des Lilas. And every day he could glimpse
his image in the shop windows as he wore the hat of eight reflections
along the boulevards to the doorway of the greatest singer in Paris.
She had arranged with Volland for a public exhibition of the portrait in
his celebrated galleries on the day after it was finished. Volland well
knew that the portrait of such a woman could not fail to bring _tout
Paris_ in crowds to his doors. After the _cachet_ of a commission from
the Belletaille and an exhibition at Volland’s, other commissions would
begin to pour in to Ventrillon, and complete success would follow
rapidly. He who now wore a hat of eight reflections with bravado could
then wear it with authority. Ventrillon would be a personage of _tout
Paris_. Cannot one well bear one’s hunger for that?
Enthroned in a tall-backed Spanish chair draped with cloth of gold, the
Belletaille sat in emerald green and all her make-up. She insisted upon
the make-up.
“Without it,” she said, “the portrait would not be decent. You might as
well paint me in the nude.”
Ventrillon worked in rapt absorption. He was doing the most brilliant
bit of painting he had ever done, and this youth with the bright face of
an archangel could paint like the devil himself. “It is my chance,” he
said to himself as the composition took form on the canvas with which
the Belletaille had supplied him, “and I am going to startle the
natives.”
She refused to look at the portrait.
“The Belletaille is beautiful,” she said, “and an unfinished painting is
not. I shall wait until it is hung in a good light at Volland’s.”
During the _repos_ she would sing to him, or feed him with sandwiches
and tea. The number of sandwiches he ate astonished and delighted her.
“He is a true original,” she thought. “They always eat like that.
Besides, he has such nice eyes.”
She sang for him, without accompaniment, songs which she said she
reserved from the public for her dearest friends alone. It was a curious
collection of unknown things: strange, wild songs of the Sicilian
peasants, weird, lonesome songs of Siberian slaves; and sad, earthy
songs from the Hebrides, all unwritten, and passed down by tradition.
“These songs are old; God knows how old,” she would say. “They are
ageless, cosmic things. That is why they are so amusing.”
“One must confess,” thought Ventrillon, “that it is better than hearing
Pinettre squeal ‘O Sole mio!’ at the Closerie. And to think that I am
hearing it all free! Evidently I was born for this.”
They worked in the music room, and whenever she sang she opened the
windows, all of which faced the street.
“It is for my children,” she would say, “the people of Paris. Sometimes
they gather in crowds beneath my windows, and it is touching to hear
their applause. You will not envy them the crumbs of your feast.”
On the last day Ventrillon placed a slender high light down the length
of the nose, and heightened the green reflection of her gown under the
curve of the chin. With these two strokes the portrait sprang into
solidity and completion. Ventrillon stood back, astonished.
“_Nom de dieu!_” he swore, completely forgetting how far he had risen
out of the atmosphere of the Closerie des Lilas. “I shall not only
startle the natives, but, _ma foi_, I have startled myself!”
“Is it really like that!” cried the Belletaille, eagerly, and ran to the
easel. But she restrained herself, covering her eyes with her hands.
“No, I shall not look! My children must see me when I look upon it for
the first time at Volland’s. I must give them that privilege. But I know
that you have done me a great portrait. I said at the beginning that you
had the eyes. I shall sing for you. I shall sing for you a song I almost
never sing. It was written for me by Rimsky-Korsakof himself. Even
Rimsky had no copy. ‘It is for you alone,’ he said to me; but, my
friend, I shall sing it for you!” She opened the windows, and went to
stand in the curve of her piano.
“Ah,” she said, “but this song is _bitter_! Bitter, bitter. You will
hear how bitter it is.” She thrust one bony knee forward, and clasped
her long thin hands upon her head, crushing her hair down into her eyes.
Her rouged lips taut, she sang through her teeth, and her eyes became
malignant slits under her hair. Slowly, in the deepest, the most
troubling tones of all her extraordinary range, she began:
“Tr-r-r-r-a...................... la! La!
Tr-r-r-r-a...................... la! La!
I will not allow my heart to br-reak!
Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la!”
She stopped.
“Now, do you hear? Is it not _bitter_? Is there anything else so bitter
in all the world? But wait until you hear the A in altissimo at the end!
That is the bitterest of all. I give it my full voice, and it is
terrible. You will never hear anything like it as long as you live.
Never! Listen!
“Her lamplight shines upon his face, Tra-la-la!
His mouth is hot against her throat, Tra-la-la!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I do not care! Tr-r-r-r-a-la-la!
Tra!--_La!_--LA!”
Her full voice, loud, hard, and colourless, cut the last syllable out of
its shrill heights like an ominous, sharp-edged knife. Shiver followed
shiver down Ventrillon’s spine. He sat spellbound. When she sang she was
truly great.
Outside the windows rose a burst of applause from a crowd which had
gathered in the street.
“Listen!” cried the Belletaille, shaking her widespread, long white
fingers above her head with joy. “My children!” She darted to a window.
As she stood in the window, holding the draperies apart with her hands,
the radiance upon her face flickered and died. Her chin thrust steadily
forward from between her thin shoulders, and the cords of her neck stood
out like wires under her skin.
“Ah-h-h-h!” she gasped, hoarse with rage, “the cow! the camel! the pig!
the poiasse! The’--the--agh-h-h-h-h-h!” She could not think of words
terrible or scorching enough to soothe the hot desire of her throat for
exacerbation. Ventrillon felt like stopping his ears against what she
would say next. “The--the _species of indelicate_!” she cried at last,
and subsided, thwarted by the French language.
Ventrillon went to her side and looked out. One side of the street was
packed with a mass of excited people, gesticulating, laughing,
applauding. The other was deserted save for a little Dresden-china
figure in a ridiculous frilly frock, with a tiny absurdity of a hat
cocked down above her impertinent, tip-tilted nose, and the two huge
black leopards she was promenading through the streets of Paris on a
leash. The muscles of the black beasts slid like snakes beneath their
sleek hides, their soft muzzles slobbered, their red tongues lolled, and
their jade-green eyes shifted uneasily as they dragged the foolish
little creature behind them along the pavement on her stilted heels. She
was laughing with delight, and flicking them frivolously with a jewelled
riding whip. It was Fanny Max.
Four _gendarmes_ stood in the street, consulting in whispers. The one
with the longest moustache took his courage in his hands and advanced
with his chest out. The others gallantly followed. The crowd cheered
again. Fanny Max touched her beasts toward the _gendarmes_. One leopard
snarled. The _gendarmes_ ignominiously fell back. Fanny Max laughed a
silvery little “ha! ha!” and continued her triumphant progress. The
crowd cheered wildly and howled with delight. The Belletaille burst into
wild tears.
“T-to think,” she sobbed, “that she would have the impudence to come
_here_! In _my_ street! She does it purposely! I _know_ she does it
purposely. Oh, but she is vulgar! And her notoriety! How it is
disgusting! How I ab-b-bominate n-n-notoriety!”
Suddenly the Belletaille straightened. She turned to clutch both
Ventrillon’s arms with hands like steel fetters.
“Tell me,” she demanded hungrily, “it is true that this portrait is
great, is it not? It is something incredible, it is an amazing portrait,
it is true that it will startle them, is it not?”
“Mademoiselle,” said Ventrillon, “have I not said that it startles even
me?”
“Ah,” murmured the Belletaille, reassured, “then to-morrow! To-morrow! I
will not look. I could not recapture the emotion. I must give them that
emotion to-morrow! To-morrow at Volland’s! Let me kiss you upon your
forehead--like a mother.”
Ventrillon had not fully realized that no more than a single day lay
between him and his triumph. Thus far, to _tout Paris_, he had been only
a protégé of the Belletaille. That in itself was no small distinction.
But within twenty-four hours, to-morrow, to-morrow at Volland’s, he
would be Ventrillon, the most celebrated portrait-painter in Paris. As
the Belletaille pressed her painted lips to his forehead, the
remunerative applause of _tout Paris_ already resounded in his youthful
ears. His heart began to beat faster, and his blood throbbed in his
temples.
“To-morrow!” he said, with eyes like stars. “To-morrow at Volland’s!”
SIXTH REFLECTION
Ventrillon brushed the hat of eight reflections until it shone again. He
had eaten no luncheon, and was compelled to walk all the way, but he had
become accustomed to both these facts. Besides, from under the gay
awnings of the cafés along the boulevards people pointed him out to one
another as he passed, and that was a compensation. As he neared the
doorway of Volland’s his heart was beginning to swell in his chest, and
his head was growing dizzy beneath the refulgent hat.
To the point of discomfort the great exhibition salon was packed with
_tout Paris_. Volland shoved his way about amid richly dressed
shoulders, beaming upon them with his little pig-like eyes, and tugging
at his goatee with joy. Luminous with electric light, and the only
ornament of the barren gray expanse of his walls, the portrait dominated
the hall. It was a tremendous success. Not only was it the portrait of
the most conspicuous figure in Paris, but the brilliancy of colour and
design was sensational. On every hand one heard: “Superb! Magnificent!
One expects her to speak!” The crowd, already too closely pressed,
increased, but nobody left the salon; for _tout Paris_ was waiting for a
still greater sensation. The morning papers had announced that the
Belletaille would arrive that afternoon to look upon her portrait for
the first time. The Belletaille had seen to that.
A new enthusiasm developed near the door and spread rapidly through the
entire assembly. “It is she herself!” they whispered, and made way for
her. It was the Belletaille. She was entering.
She advanced to within a few yards of the portrait and halted for a
magnificent moment, confronting her painted self.
A young girl whispered excitedly:
“It is exactly like her! One knows not which is which!” Then she gave a
little frightened shriek and shrank back into the crowd, for the
Belletaille had turned on her like an angry tigress.
It is a curious fact that every one of us carries in his secret heart an
image of himself totally different from the person that others see. The
hardened portrait painter strives to approximate that image. But the
portrait which Ventrillon, the novice, had painted was more like the
Belletaille than was the Belletaille herself. For that great lady was,
in every moment of her life, hard at work being something else. Perhaps
that is the true cause of what followed, and perhaps it is not.
She collected herself. Opening her vanity case with splendid quick
movements of those famous chalk-white hands, she took out a little
ivory-handled manicure implement to do with it a thing for which it had
not been designed.
She advanced upon the portrait, and with the gesture that she had until
that moment reserved for slaying the baritone, slashed the tiny knife
through and through the canvas until it dangled from the frame in
twisting, slattern shreds. Then she turned to face her awestruck
audience.
“The Belletaille is beautiful!” she cried in a sonorous middle voice.
“None but the hand of time shall dare to deface her!”
Whereupon, with the magnificent walk of her second act of “Tosca,” she
strode toward the door. As she reached it, Ventrillon was entering, his
young cheeks hot, and his eyes shining with elated expectancy.