perfectly understand the choice I have to offer you. Follow me, I
beseech you, to this window.” And he led the way to one of the large
windows which stood open on the night. “You observe,” he went on,
“there is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that, a
very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words; if you should find your
disinclination to my niece’s person insurmountable, I shall have you
hanged out of this window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to such
an extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me. For it is
not at all your death that I desire, but my niece’s establishment in
life. At the same time, it must come to that if you prove obstinate.
Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way; but if you
sprang from Charlemagne, you should not refuse the hand of a Malétroit
with impunity—not if she had been as common as the Paris road—not if
she were as hideous as the gargoyle over my door. Neither my niece nor
you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this matter. The
honour of my house has been compromised; I believe you to be the guilty
person; at least you are now in the secret; and you can hardly wonder
if I request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood be
on your own head! It will be no great satisfaction to me to have your
interesting relics kicking their heels in the breeze below my windows;
but half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I cannot cure the
dishonour, I shall at least stop the scandal.”
There was a pause.
“I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among
gentlemen,” said Denis. “You wear a sword, and I hear you have used it
with distinction.”
The Sire de Malétroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the
room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of
the three doors. It was only a moment before he let it fall again; but
Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men.
“When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honour
you, Monsieur de Beaulieu,” said Sire Alain; “but I am now too old.
Faithful retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the
strength I have. This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man
grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this becomes
habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the salle for what remains of
your two hours; and as I have no desire to cross your preference, I
shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world. No
haste!” he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look come
into Denis de Beaulieu’s face. “If your mind revolts against hanging,
it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out of the
window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always
two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while as
that. And, besides, if I understand her appearance, my niece has still
something to say to you. You will not disfigure your last hours by a
want of politeness to a lady?”
Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.
It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom
of an understanding; for he smiled on both, and added sweetly: “If you
will give me your word of honour, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my
return at the end of the two hours before attempting anything
desperate, I shall withdraw my retainers, and let you speak in greater
privacy with mademoiselle.”
Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.
“I give you my word of honour,” he said.
Messire de Malétroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment,
clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had
already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Beaulieu. He first
possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he went
to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an order to the men
behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out through the door by which
Denis had come in, turning upon the threshold to address a last smiling
bow to the young couple, and followed by the chaplain with a hand-lamp.
No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced towards Denis with her
hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone
with tears.
“You shall not die!” she cried, “you shall marry me after all.”
“You seem to think, madam,” replied Denis, “that I stand much in fear
of death.”
“Oh no, no,” she said, “I see you are no poltroon. It is for my own
sake—I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple.”
“I am afraid,” returned Denis, “that you underrate the difficulty,
madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to
accept. In a moment of noble feeling towards me, you forgot what you
perhaps owe to others.”
He had the decency to keep his eyes upon the floor as he said this, and
after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She stood
silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and falling on her
uncle’s chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme of
embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for inspiration, and
seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something to do. There he sat,
playing with the guard of his rapier, and wishing himself dead a
thousand times over, and buried in the nastiest kitchen-heap in France.
His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found nothing to arrest
them. There were such wide spaces between the furniture, the light fell
so baldly and cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so
coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church
so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de
Malétroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read
the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became
obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were
swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he awoke with a
start, to remember that his last two hours were running, and death was
on the march.
Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on the
girl herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her hands,
and she was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccup of grief. Even
thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so plump and yet
so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful hair, Denis
thought, in the whole world of womankind. Her hands were like her
uncle’s; but they were more in place at the end of her young arms, and
looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue eyes
had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence. And the more he
dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the more deeply
was he smitten with penitence at her continued tears. Now he felt that
no man could have the courage to leave a world which contained so
beautiful a creature; and now he would have given forty minutes of his
last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the
silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them
both out of their reflections.
“Alas, can I do nothing to help you?” she said, looking up.
“Madam,” replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, “if I have said
anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not for
mine.”
She thanked him with a tearful look.
“I feel your position cruelly,” he went on. “The world has been bitter
hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam,
there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my
opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service.”
“I know already that you can be very brave and generous,” she answered.
“What I _want_ to know is whether I can serve you—now or afterwards,”
she added, with a quaver.
“Most certainly,” he answered with a smile. “Let me sit beside you as
if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget how
awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go
pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible.”
“You are very gallant,” she added, with a yet deeper sadness . . .
“very gallant . . . and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you
please; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make
certain of a very friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu,” she
broke forth—“ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the face?”
And she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion.
“Madam,” said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, “reflect on the
little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I am
cast by the sight of your distress. Spare me, in my last moments, the
spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life.”
“I am very selfish,” answered Blanche. “I will be braver, Monsieur de
Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in the
future—if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux. Charge
me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so little, the
invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do something more
for you than weep.”
“My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My
brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error, that
will content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapour that
passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in
a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems to himself
to make a very important figure in the world. His horse whinnies to
him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of window as he rides
into town before his company; he receives many assurances of trust and
regard—sometimes by express in a letter—sometimes face to face, with
persons of great consequence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful
if his head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he as brave
as Hercules or as wise as Solomon, he is soon forgotten. It is not ten
years since my father fell, with many other knights around him, in a
very fierce encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so
much as the name of the fight, is now remembered. No, no, madam, the
nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty corner,
where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till the
judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I shall
have none.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!” she exclaimed, “you forget Blanche de
Malétroit.”
“You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth.”
“It is not that,” she answered. “You mistake me if you think I am so
easily touched by my own concerns. I say so, because you are the
noblest man I have ever met; because I recognise in you a spirit that
would have made even a common person famous in the land.”
“And yet here I die in a mouse-trap—with no more noise about it than my
own squeaking,” answered he.
A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little while.
Then a fight came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke again.
“I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who gives
his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the heralds and
angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head.
For . . . Pray, do you think me beautiful?” she asked, with a deep
flush.
“Indeed, madam, I do,” he said.
“I am glad of that,” she answered heartily. “Do you think there are
many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful
maiden—with her own lips—and who have refused her to her face? I know
you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we women
know more of what is precious in love. There is nothing that should set
a person higher in his own esteem; and we women would prize nothing
more dearly.”
“You are very good,” he said; “but you cannot make me forget that I was
asked in pity and not for love.”
“I am not so sure of that,” she replied, holding down her head. “Hear
me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must despise me; I
feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature to occupy one
thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this morning.
But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and indeed, it was because I
respected and admired you, and loved you with my whole soul, from the
very moment that you took my part against my uncle. If you had seen
yourself, and how noble you looked, you would pity rather than despise
me. And now,” she went on, hurriedly checking him with her hand,
“although I have laid aside all reserve and told you so much, remember
that I know your sentiments towards me already. I would not, believe
me, being nobly born, weary you with importunities into consent. I too
have a pride of my own: and I declare before the holy mother of God, if
you should now go back from your word already given, I would no more
marry you than I would marry my uncle’s groom.”
Denis smiled a little bitterly.
“It is a small love,” he said, “that shies at a little pride.”
She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.
“Come hither to the window,” he said, with a sigh. “Here is the dawn.”
And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky was
full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the valley
underneath was flooded with a grey reflection. A few thin vapours clung
in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of the
river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness, which was
hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow among the
steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who had made so horrid a clangour in
the darkness not half-an-hour before, now sent up the merriest cheer to
greet the coming day. A little wind went bustling and eddying among the
tree-tops underneath the windows. And still the daylight kept flooding
insensibly out of the east, which was soon to grow incandescent and
cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.
Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken her
hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.
“Has the day begun already?” she said; and then, illogically enough:
“the night has been so long! Alas, what shall we say to my uncle when
he returns?”
“What you will,” said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.
She was silent.
“Blanche,” he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance, “you
have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I would
as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as lay a finger on
you without your free and full consent. But if you care for me at all
do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I love you better
than the whole world; and though I will die for you blithely, it would
be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your
service.”
As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of
the house; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that the
retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an
end.
“After all that you have heard?” she whispered, leaning towards him
with her lips and eyes.
“I have heard nothing,” he replied.
“The captain’s name was Florimond de Champdivers,” she said in his ear.
“I did not hear it,” he answered, taking her supple body in his arms
and covering her wet face with kisses.
A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Malétroit wished his new nephew a
good morning.
PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR
CHAPTER I
Monsieur Léon Berthelini had a great care of his appearance, and
sedulously suited his deportment to the costume of the hour. He
affected something Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit,
with a flavour of Rembrandt at home. In person he was decidedly small
and inclined to be stout; his face was the picture of good humour; his
dark eyes, which were very expressive, told of a kind heart, a brisk,
merry nature, and the most indefatigable spirits. If he had worn the
clothes of the period you would have set him down for a hitherto
undiscovered hybrid between the barber, the innkeeper, and the affable
dispensing chemist. But in the outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and
flapped hat, with trousers that were more accurately described as
fleshings, a white handkerchief cavalierly knotted at his neck, a shock
of Olympian curls upon his brow, and his feet shod through all weathers
in the slenderest of Molière shoes—you had but to look at him and you
knew you were in the presence of a Great Creature. When he wore an
overcoat he scorned to pass the sleeves; a single button held it round
his shoulders; it was tossed backwards after the manner of a cloak, and
carried with the gait and presence of an Almaviva. I am of opinion that
M. Berthelini was nearing forty. But he had a boy’s heart, gloried in
his finery, and walked through life like a child in a perpetual
dramatic performance. If he were not Almaviva after all, it was not for
lack of making believe. And he enjoyed the artist’s compensation. If he
were not really Almaviva, he was sometimes just as happy as though he
were.
I have seen him, at moments when he has fancied himself alone with his
Maker, adopt so gay and chivalrous a bearing, and represent his own
part with so much warmth and conscience, that the illusion became
catching, and I believed implicitly in the Great Creature’s pose.
But, alas! life cannot be entirely conducted on these principles; man
cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having failed
upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every evening from his
heights, and sing from half-a-dozen to a dozen comic songs, twang a
guitar, keep a country audience in good humour, and preside finally
over the mysteries of a tombola.
Madame Berthelini, who was art and part with him in these undignified
labours, had perhaps a higher position in the scale of beings, and
enjoyed a natural dignity of her own. But her heart was not any more
rightly placed, for that would have been impossible; and she had
acquired a little air of melancholy, attractive enough in its way, but
not good to see like the wholesome, sky-scraping, boyish spirits of her
lord.
He, indeed, swam like a kite on a fair wind, high above earthly
troubles. Detonations of temper were not unfrequent in the zones he
travelled; but sulky fogs and tearful depressions were there alike
unknown. A well-delivered blow upon a table, or a noble attitude,
imitated from Mélingne or Frederic, relieved his irritation like a
vengeance. Though the heaven had fallen, if he had played his part with
propriety, Berthelini had been content! And the man’s atmosphere, if
not his example, reacted on his wife; for the couple doated on each
other, and although you would have thought they walked in different
worlds, yet continued to walk hand in hand.
It chanced one day that Monsieur and Madame Berthelini descended with
two boxes and a guitar in a fat case at the station of the little town
of Castel-le-Gâchis, and the omnibus carried them with their effects to
the Hotel of the Black Head. This was a dismal, conventual building in
a narrow street, capable of standing siege when once the gates were
shut, and smelling strangely in the interior of straw and chocolate and
old feminine apparel. Berthelini paused upon the threshold with a
painful premonition. In some former state, it seemed to him, he had
visited a hostelry that smelt not otherwise, and been ill received.
The landlord, a tragic person in a large felt hat, rose from a business
table under the key-rack, and came forward, removing his hat with both
hands as he did so.
“Sir, I salute you. May I inquire what is your charge for artists?”
inquired Berthelini, with a courtesy at once splendid and insinuating.
“For artists?” said the landlord. His countenance fell and the smile of
welcome disappeared. “Oh, artists!” he added brutally; “four francs a
day.” And he turned his back upon these inconsiderable customers.
A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a reduction—yet is he
welcome, yet can he command the fatted calf; but an artist, had he the
manners of an Almaviva, were he dressed like Solomon in all his glory,
is received like a dog and served like a timid lady travelling alone.
Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession, Berthelini was
unpleasantly affected by the landlord’s manner.
“Elvira,” said he to his wife, “mark my words: Castel-le-Gâchis is a
tragic folly.”
“Wait till we see what we take,” replied Elvira.
“We shall take nothing,” returned Berthelini; “we shall feed upon
insults. I have an eye, Elvira: I have a spirit of divination; and this
place is accursed. The landlord has been discourteous, the Commissary
will be brutal, the audience will be sordid and uproarious, and you
will take a cold upon your throat. We have been besotted enough to
come; the die is cast—it will be a second Sédan.”
Sédan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only from patriotism
(for they were French, and answered after the flesh to the somewhat
homely name of Duval), but because it had been the scene of their most
sad reverses. In that place they had lain three weeks in pawn for their
hotel bill, and had it not been for a surprising stroke of fortune they
might have been lying there in pawn until this day. To mention the name
of Sédan was for the Berthelinis to dip the brush in earthquake and
eclipse. Count Almaviva slouched his hat with a gesture expressive of
despair, and even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personally
invoked.
“Let us ask for breakfast,” said she, with a woman’s tact.
The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gâchis was a large red
Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong cutaneous transpiration. I
have repeated the name of his office because he was so very much more a
Commissary than a man. The spirit of his dignity had entered into him.
He carried his corporation as if it were something official. Whenever
he insulted a common citizen it seemed to him as if he were adroitly
flattering the Government by a side wind; in default of dignity he was
brutal from an overweening sense of duty. His office was a den, whence
passers-by could hear rude accents laying down, not the law, but the
good pleasure of the Commissary.
Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurry
thither in quest of the requisite permission for his evening’s
entertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad. Léon
Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the streets of
Castel-le-Gâchis; he became a local celebrity, and was pointed out as
“the man who was looking for the Commissary.” Idle children attached
themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after him back and forward
between the hotel and the office. Léon might try as he liked; he might
roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he might cock his hat at a dozen
different jaunty inclinations—the part of Almaviva was, under the
circumstances, difficult to play.
As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the Commissary
was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his waistcoat unbuttoned
and his hands behind his back, to superintend the sale and measurement
of butter. Berthelini threaded his way through the market stalls and
baskets, and accosted the dignitary with a bow which was a triumph of
the histrionic art.
“I have the honour,” he asked, “of meeting M. le Commissaire?”
The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address. He excelled
Léon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his salutation.
“The honour,” said he, “is mine!”
“I am,” continued the strolling-player, “I am, sir, an artist, and I
have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business.
To-night I give a trifling musical entertainment at the Café of the
Triumphs of the Plough—permit me to offer you this little programme—and
I have come to ask you for the necessary authorisation.”
At the word “artist,” the Commissary had replaced his hat with the air
of a person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly remember
the duties of his rank.
“Go, go,” said he, “I am busy—I am measuring butter.”
“Heathen Jew!” thought Léon. “Permit me, sir,” he resumed aloud. “I
have gone six times already—”
“Put up your bills if you choose,” interrupted the Commissary. “In an
hour or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now go; I am
busy.”
“Measuring butter!” thought Berthelini. “Oh, France, and it is for this
that we made ’93!”
The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid on
the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected at one
end of the Café of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Léon returned
to the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.
“He is like Madame Benoîton,” thought Léon, “Fichu Commissaire!”
And just then he met the man face to face.
“Here, sir,” said he, “are my papers. Will you be pleased to verify?”
But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.
“No use,” he replied, “no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied. Give
your entertainment.”
And he hurried on.
“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Léon.
CHAPTER II
The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the café made a
good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis exerted themselves in
vain.
Léon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a
cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he
underlined his comic points, so that the dullest numskull in
Castel-le-Gâchis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his guitar
in a manner worthy of himself. Indeed his play with that instrument was
as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so dashing, so florid, and so
cavalier.
Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs with
more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency; and as
Léon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare
to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in her corset, he
repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that she was one of the
loveliest creatures in the world of women.
Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of
Castel-le-Gâchis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single
halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never
exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different
applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began
to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were
singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with such an
audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the impression; they put
their back into their work, they sang loud and louder, the guitar
twanged like a living thing; and at last Léon arose in his might, and
burst with inimitable conviction into his great song, “Y a des honnêtes
gens partout!” Never had he given more proof of his artistic mastery;
it was his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gâchis
formed an exception to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and
was peopled exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he
flung it down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of
faith; and his face so beamed the while that you would have thought he
must make converts of the benches.
He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown back and his
mouth open, when the door was thrown violently open, and a pair of new
comers marched noisily into the café. It was the Commissary, followed
by the Garde Champêtre.
The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim, “Y a des honnêtes
gens partout!” But now the sentiment produced an audible titter among
the audience. Berthelini wondered why; he did not know the antecedents
of the Garde Champêtre; he had never heard of a little story about
postage stamps. But the public knew all about the postage stamps and
enjoyed the coincidence hugely.
The Commissary planted himself upon a vacant chair with somewhat the
air of Cromwell visiting the Rump, and spoke in occasional whispers to
the Garde Champêtre, who remained respectfully standing at his back.
The eyes of both were directed upon Berthelini, who persisted in his
statement.
“Y a des honnêtes gens partout,” he was just chanting for the twentieth
time; when up got the Commissary upon his feet and waved brutally to
the singer with his cane.
“Is it me you want?” inquired Léon, stopping in his song.
“It is you,” replied the potentate.
“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Léon, and he descended from the stage and
made his way to the functionary.
“How does it happen, sir,” said the Commissary, swelling in person,
“that I find you mountebanking in a public café without my permission?”
“Without?” cried the indignant Léon. “Permit me to remind you—”
“Come, come, sir!” said the Commissary, “I desire no explanations.”
“I care nothing about what you desire,” returned the singer. “I choose
to give them, and I will not be gagged. I am an artist, sir, a
distinction that you cannot comprehend. I received your permission and
stand here upon the strength of it; interfere with me who dare.”
“You have not got my signature, I tell you,” cried the Commissary.
“Show me my signature! Where is my signature?”
That was just the question; where was his signature? Léon recognised
that he was in a hole; but his spirit rose with the occasion, and he
blustered nobly, tossing back his curls. The Commissary played up to
him in the character of tyrant; and as the one leaned farther forward,
the other leaned farther back—majesty confronting fury. The audience
had transferred their attention to this new performance, and listened
with that silent gravity common to all Frenchmen in the neighbourhood
of the Police. Elvira had sat down, she was used to these distractions,
and it was rather melancholy than fear that now oppressed her.
“Another word,” cried the Commissary, “and I arrest you.”
“Arrest me?” shouted Léon. “I defy you!”
“I am the Commissary of Police,” said the official.
Léon commanded his feelings, and replied, with great delicacy of
innuendo—
“So it would appear.”
The point was too refined for Castel-le-Gâchis; it did not raise a
smile; and as for the Commissary, he simply bade the singer follow him
to his office, and directed his proud footsteps towards the door. There
was nothing for it but to obey. Léon did so with a proper pantomime of
indifference, but it was a leek to eat, and there was no denying it.
The Maire had slipped out and was already waiting at the Commissary’s
door. Now the Maire, in France, is the refuge of the oppressed. He
stands between his people and the boisterous rigours of the Police. He
can sometimes understand what is said to him; he is not always puffed
up beyond measure by his dignity. ’Tis a thing worth the knowledge of
travellers. When all seems over, and a man has made up his mind to
injustice, he has still, like the heroes of romance, a little bugle at
his belt whereon to blow; and the Maire, a comfortable _deus ex
machinâ_, may still descend to deliver him from the minions of the law.
The Maire of Castel-le-Gâchis, although inaccessible to the charms of
music as retailed by the Berthelinis, had no hesitation whatever as to
the rights of the matter. He instantly fell foul of the Commissary in
very high terms, and the Commissary, pricked by this humiliation,
accepted battle on the point of fact. The argument lasted some little
while with varying success, until at length victory inclined so plainly
to the Commissary’s side that the Maire was fain to reassert himself by
an exercise of authority. He had been out-argued, but he was still the
Maire. And so, turning from his interlocutor, he briefly but kindly
recommended Léon to get back instanter to his concert.
“It is already growing late,” he added.
Léon did not wait to be told twice. He returned to the Café of the
Triumphs of the Plough with all expedition. Alas! the audience had
melted away during his absence; Elvira was sitting in a very
disconsolate attitude on the guitar-box; she had watched the company
dispersing by twos and threes, and the prolonged spectacle had somewhat
overwhelmed her spirits. Each man, she reflected, retired with a
certain proportion of her earnings in his pocket, and she saw
to-night’s board and to-morrow’s railway expenses, and finally even
to-morrow’s dinner, walk one after another out of the café door and
disappear into the night.
“What was it?” she asked languidly. But Léon did not answer. He was
looking round him on the scene of defeat. Scarce a score of listeners
remained, and these of the least promising sort. The minute hand of the
clock was already climbing upward towards eleven.
“It’s a lost battle,” said he, and then taking up the money-box he
turned it out. “Three francs seventy-five!” he cried, “as against four
of board and six of railway fares; and no time for the tombola! Elvira,
this is Waterloo.” And he sat down and passed both hands desperately
among his curls. “O Fichu Commissaire!” he cried, “Fichu Commissaire!”
“Let us get the things together and be off,” returned Elvira. “We might
try another song, but there is not six halfpence in the room.”
“Six halfpence?” cried Léon, “six hundred thousand devils! There is not
a human creature in the town—nothing but pigs and dogs and
commissaires! Pray heaven, we get safe to bed.”
“Don’t imagine things!” exclaimed Elvira, with a shudder.
And with that they set to work on their preparations. The tobacco-jar,
the cigarette-holder, the three papers of shirt-studs, which were to
have been the prices of the tombola had the tombola come off, were made
into a bundle with the music; the guitar was stowed into the fat
guitar-case; and Elvira having thrown a thin shawl about her neck and
shoulders, the pair issued from the café and set off for the Black
Head.
As they crossed the market-place the church bell rang out eleven. It
was a dark, mild night, and there was no one in the streets.
“It is all very fine,” said Léon; “but I have a presentiment. The night
is not yet done.”
CHAPTER III
The “Black Head” presented not a single chink of light upon the street,
and the carriage gate was closed.
“This is unprecedented,” observed Léon. “An inn closed by five minutes
after eleven! And there were several commercial travellers in the café
up to a late hour. Elvira, my heart misgives me. Let us ring the bell.”
The bell had a potent note; and being swung under the arch it filled
the house from top to bottom with surly, clanging reverberations. The
sound accentuated the conventual appearance of the building; a wintry
sentiment, a thought of prayer and mortification, took hold upon
Elvira’s mind; and, as for Léon, he seemed to be reading the stage
directions for a lugubrious fifth act.
“This is your fault,” said Elvira: “this is what comes of fancying
things!”
Again Léon pulled the bell-rope; again the solemn tocsin awoke the
echoes of the inn; and ere they had died away, a light glimmered in the
carriage entrance, and a powerful voice was heard upraised and
tremulous with wrath.
“What’s all this?” cried the tragic host through the spars of the gate.
“Hard upon twelve, and you come clamouring like Prussians at the door
of a respectable hotel? Oh!” he cried, “I know you now! Common singers!
People in trouble with the police! And you present yourselves at
midnight like lords and ladies? Be off with you!”
“You will permit me to remind you,” replied Léon, in thrilling tones,
“that I am a guest in your house, that I am properly inscribed, and
that I have deposited baggage to the value of four hundred francs.”
“You cannot get in at this hour,” returned the man. “This is no
thieves’ tavern, for mohocks and night rakes and organ-grinders.”
“Brute!” cried Elvira, for the organ-grinders touched her home.
“Then I demand my baggage,” said Léon, with unabated dignity.
“I know nothing of your baggage,” replied the landlord.
“You detain my baggage? You dare to detain my baggage?” cried the
singer.
“Who are you?” returned the landlord. “It is dark—I cannot recognise
you.”
“Very well, then—you detain my baggage,” concluded Léon. “You shall
smart for this. I will weary out your life with persecutions; I will
drag you from court to court; if there is justice to be had in France,
it shall be rendered between you and me. And I will make you a
by-word—I will put you in a song—a scurrilous song—an indecent song—a
popular song—which the boys shall sing to you in the street, and come
and howl through these spars at midnight!”
He had gone on raising his voice at every phrase, for all the while the
landlord was very placidly retiring; and now, when the last glimmer of
light had vanished from the arch, and the last footstep died away in
the interior, Léon turned to his wife with a heroic countenance.
“Elvira,” said he, “I have now a duty in life. I shall destroy that man
as Eugène Sue destroyed the concierge. Let us come at once to the
Gendarmerie and begin our vengeance.”
He picked up the guitar-case, which had been propped against the wall,
and they set forth through the silent and ill-lighted town with burning
hearts.
The Gendarmerie was concealed beside the telegraph office at the bottom
of a vast court, which was partly laid out in gardens; and here all the
shepherds of the public lay locked in grateful sleep. It took a deal of
knocking to waken one; and he, when he came at last to the door, could
find no other remark but that “it was none of his business.” Léon
reasoned with him, threatened him, besought him; “here,” he said, “was
Madame Berthelini in evening dress—a delicate woman—in an interesting
condition”—the last was thrown in, I fancy, for effect; and to all this
the man-at-arms made the same answer:
“It is none of my business,” said he.
“Very well,” said Léon, “then we shall go to the Commissary.” Thither
they went; the office was closed and dark; but the house was close by,
and Léon was soon swinging the bell like a madman. The Commissary’s
wife appeared at a window. She was a thread-paper creature, and
informed them that the Commissary had not yet come home.
“Is he at the Maire’s?” demanded Léon.
She thought that was not unlikely.
“Where is the Maire’s house?” he asked.
And she gave him some rather vague information on that point.
“Stay you here, Elvira,” said Léon, “lest I should miss him by the way.
If, when I return, I find you here no longer, I shall follow at once to
the Black Head.”
And he set out to find the Maire’s. It took him some ten minutes
wandering among blind lanes, and when he arrived it was already
half-an-hour past midnight. A long white garden wall overhung by some
thick chestnuts, a door with a letter-box, and an iron bell-pull, that
was all that could be seen of the Maire’s domicile. Léon took the
bell-pull in both hands, and danced furiously upon the side-walk. The
bell itself was just upon the other side of the wall, it responded to
his activity, and scattered an alarming clangour far and wide into the
night.
A window was thrown open in a house across the street, and a voice
inquired the cause of this untimely uproar.
“I wish the Maire,” said Léon.
“He has been in bed this hour,” returned the voice.
“He must get up again,” retorted Léon, and he was for tackling the
bell-pull once more.
“You will never make him hear,” responded the voice. “The garden is of
great extent, the house is at the farther end, and both the Maire and
his housekeeper are deaf.”
“Aha!” said Léon, pausing. “The Maire is deaf, is he? That explains.”
And he thought of the evening’s concert with a momentary feeling of
relief. “Ah!” he continued, “and so the Maire is deaf, and the garden
vast, and the house at the far end?”
“And you might ring all night,” added the voice, “and be none the
better for it. You would only keep me awake.”
“Thank you, neighbour,” replied the singer. “You shall sleep.”
And he made off again at his best pace for the Commissary’s. Elvira was
still walking to and fro before the door.
“He has not come?” asked Léon.
“Not he,” she replied.
“Good,” returned Léon. “I am sure our man’s inside. Let me see the
guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am
indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still
a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be importuned in a serenade,
Elvira. Set him up—and set him up.”
He had the case opened by this time, struck a few chords, and fell into
an attitude which was irresistibly Spanish.
“Now,” he continued, “feel your voice. Are you ready? Follow me!”
The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in harmony and with a
startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Béranger’s:—
“Commissaire! Commissaire!
Colin bat sa ménagère.”
The stones of Castel-le-Gâchis thrilled at this audacious innovation.
Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and nightcaps; and now
what was this? Window after window was opened; matches scratched, and
candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy faces peered forth into the
starlight. There were the two figures before the Commissary’s house,
each bolt upright, with head thrown back and eyes interrogating the
starry heavens; the guitar wailed, shouted, and reverberated like half
an orchestra; and the voices, with a crisp and spirited delivery,
hurled the appropriate burden at the Commissary’s window. All the
echoes repeated the functionary’s name. It was more like an entr’acte
in a farce of Molière’s than a passage of real life in
Castel-le-Gâchis.
The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the
neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously throw open
the window of his bedroom. He was beside himself with rage. He leaned
far over the window-sill, raving and gesticulating; the tassel of his
white night-cap danced like a thing of life: he opened his mouth to
dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his voice, instead of
escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and choked and tottering.
A little more serenading, and it was clear he would be better
acquainted with the apoplexy.
I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too many serious
topics by the way for a quiet story-teller. Although he was known for a
man who was prompt with his tongue, and had a power of strong
expression at command, he excelled himself so remarkably this night
that one maiden lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear the
serenade, was obliged to shut her window at the second clause. Even
what she had heard disquieted her conscience; and next day she said she
scarcely reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.
Léon tried to explain his predicament, but he received nothing but
threats of arrest by way of answer.
“If I come down to you!” cried the Commissary.
“Aye,” said Léon, “do!”
“I will not!” cried the Commissary.
“You dare not!” answered Léon.
At that the Commissary closed his window.
“All is over,” said the singer. “The serenade was perhaps ill-judged.
These boors have no sense of humour.”
“Let us get away from here,” said Elvira, with a shiver. “All these
people looking—it is so rude and so brutal.” And then giving way once
more to passion—“Brutes!” she cried aloud to the candle-lit
spectators—“brutes! brutes! brutes!”
“Sauve qui peut,” said Léon. “You have done it now!”
And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led the
way with something too precipitate to be merely called precipitation
from the scene of this absurd adventure.
CHAPTER IV
To the west of Castel-le-Gâchis four rows of venerable lime-trees
formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of
pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the
trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume
hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its twig.
Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the Berthelinis came at
length to pass the night. After an amiable contention, Léon insisted on
giving his coat to Elvira, and they sat down together on the first
bench in silence. Léon made a cigarette, which he smoked to an end,
looking up into the trees, and, beyond them, at the constellations, of
which he tried vainly to recall the names. The silence was broken by
the church bell; it rang the four quarters on a light and tinkling
measure; then followed a single deep stroke that died slowly away with
a thrill; and stillness resumed its empire.
“One,” said Léon. “Four hours till daylight. It is warm; it is starry;
I have matches and tobacco. Do not let us exaggerate, Elvira—the
experience is positively charming. I feel a glow within me; I am born
again. This is the poetry of life. Think of Cooper’s novels, my dear.”
“Léon,” she said fiercely, “how can you talk such wicked, infamous
nonsense? To pass all night out-of-doors—it is like a nightmare! We
shall die.”
“You suffer yourself to be led away,” he replied soothingly. “It is not
unpleasant here; only you brood. Come, now, let us repeat a scene.
Shall we try Alceste and Célimène? No? Or a passage from the ‘Two
Orphans’? Come, now, it will occupy your mind; I will play up to you as
I never have played before; I feel art moving in my bones.”
“Hold your tongue,” she cried, “or you will drive me mad! Will nothing
solemnise you—not even this hideous situation?”
“Oh, hideous!” objected Léon. “Hideous is not the word. Why, where
would you be? ‘Dites, la jeune belle, où voulez-vous aller?’” he
carolled. “Well, now,” he went on, opening the guitar-case, “there’s
another idea for you—sing. Sing ‘Dites, la jeune belle!’ It will
compose your spirits, Elvira, I am sure.”
And without waiting an answer he began to strum the symphony. The first
chords awoke a young man who was lying asleep upon a neighbouring
bench.
“Hullo!” cried the young man, “who are you?”
“Under which king, Bezonian?” declaimed the artist. “Speak or die!”
Or if it was not exactly that, it was something to much the same
purpose from a French tragedy.
The young man drew near in the twilight. He was a tall, powerful,
gentlemanly fellow, with a somewhat puffy face, dressed in a grey tweed
suit, with a deer-stalker hat of the same material; and as he now came
forward he carried a knapsack slung upon one arm.
“Are you camping out here too?” he asked, with a strong English accent.
“I’m not sorry for company.”
Léon explained their misadventure; and the other told them that he was
a Cambridge undergraduate on a walking tour, that he had run short of
money, could no longer pay for his night’s lodging, had already been
camping out for two nights, and feared he should require to continue
the same manœuvre for at least two nights more.
“Luckily, it’s jolly weather,” he concluded.
“You hear that, Elvira,” said Léon. “Madame Berthelini,” he went on,
“is ridiculously affected by this trifling occurrence. For my part, I
find it romantic and far from uncomfortable; or at least,” he added,
shifting on the stone bench, “not quite so uncomfortable as might have
been expected. But pray be seated.”
“Yes,” returned the undergraduate, sitting down, “it’s rather nice than
otherwise when once you’re used to it; only it’s devilish difficult to
get washed. I like the fresh air and these stars and things.”
“Aha!” said Léon, “Monsieur is an artist.”
“An artist?” returned the other, with a blank stare. “Not if I know
it!”
“Pardon me,” said the actor. “What you said this moment about the orbs
of heaven—”
“Oh, nonsense!” cried the Englishman. “A fellow may admire the stars
and be anything he likes.”
“You have an artist’s nature, however, Mr.—I beg your pardon; may I,
without indiscretion, inquire your name?” asked Léon.
“My name is Stubbs,” replied the Englishman.
“I thank you,” returned Léon. “Mine is Berthelini—Léon Berthelini,
ex-artist of the theatres of Montrouge, Belleville, and Montmartre.
Humble as you see me, I have created with applause more than one
important _rôle_. The Press were unanimous in praise of my Howling
Devil of the Mountains, in the piece of the same name. Madame, whom I
now present to you, is herself an artist, and I must not omit to state,
a better artist than her husband. She also is a creator; she created
nearly twenty successful songs at one of the principal Parisian
music-halls. But, to continue, I was saying you had an artist’s nature,
Monsieur Stubbs, and you must permit me to be a judge in such a
question. I trust you will not falsify your instincts; let me beseech
you to follow the career of an artist.”
“Thank you,” returned Stubbs, with a chuckle. “I’m going to be a
banker.”
“No,” said Léon, “do not say so. Not that. A man with such a nature as
yours should not derogate so far. What are a few privations here and
there, so long as you are working for a high and noble goal?”
“This fellow’s mad,” thought Stubbs; “but the woman’s rather pretty,
and he’s not bad fun himself, if you come to that.” What he said was
different. “I thought you said you were an actor?”
“I certainly did so,” replied Léon. “I am one, or, alas! I was.”
“And so you want me to be an actor, do you?” continued the
undergraduate. “Why, man, I could never so much as learn the stuff; my
memory’s like a sieve; and as for acting, I’ve no more idea than a
cat.”
“The stage is not the only course,” said Léon. “Be a sculptor, be a
dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and do
some thorough work before you die.”
“And do you call all these things _art_?” inquired Stubbs.
“Why, certainly!” returned Léon. “Are they not all branches?”
“Oh! I didn’t know,” replied the Englishman. “I thought an artist meant
a fellow who painted.”
The singer stared at him in some surprise.
“It is the difference of language,” he said at last. “This Tower of
Babel, when shall we have paid for it? If I could speak English you
would follow me more readily.”
“Between you and me, I don’t believe I should,” replied the other. “You
seem to have thought a devil of a lot about this business. For my part,
I admire the stars, and like to have them shining—it’s so cheery—but
hang me if I had an idea it had anything to do with art! It’s not in my
line, you see. I’m not intellectual; I have no end of trouble to scrape
through my exams., I can tell you! But I’m not a bad sort at bottom,”
he added, seeing his interlocutor looked distressed even in the dim
starshine, “and I rather like the play, and music, and guitars, and
things.”
Léon had a perception that the understanding was incomplete. He changed
the subject.
“And so you travel on foot?” he continued. “How romantic! How
courageous! And how are you pleased with my land? How does the scenery
affect you among these wild hills of ours?”
“Well, the fact is,” began Stubbs—he was about to say that he didn’t
care for scenery, which was not at all true, being, on the contrary,
only an athletic undergraduate pretension; but he had begun to suspect
that Berthelini liked a different sort of meat, and substituted
something else—“The fact is, I think it jolly. They told me it was no
good up here; even the guide-book said so; but I don’t know what they
meant. I think it is deuced pretty—upon my word, I do.”
At this moment, in the most unexpected manner, Elvira burst into tears.
“My voice!” she cried. “Léon, if I stay here longer I shall lose my
voice!”
“You shall not stay another moment,” cried the actor. “If I have to
beat in a door, if I have to burn the town, I shall find you shelter.”
With that he replaced the guitar, and comforting her with some
caresses, drew her arm through his.
“Monsieur Stubbs,” said he, taking of his hat, “the reception I offer
you is rather problematical; but let me beseech you to give us the
pleasure of your society. You are a little embarrassed for the moment;
you must, indeed, permit me to advance what may be necessary. I ask it
as a favour; we must not part so soon after having met so strangely.”
“Oh, come, you know,” said Stubbs, “I can’t let a fellow like you—” And
there he paused, feeling somehow or other on a wrong tack.
“I do not wish to employ menaces,” continued Léon, with a smile; “but
if you refuse, indeed I shall not take it kindly.”
“I don’t quite see my way out of it,” thought the undergraduate; and
then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough, “All
right. I—I’m very much obliged, of course.” And he proceeded to follow
them, thinking in his heart, “But it’s bad form, all the same, to force
an obligation on a fellow.”
CHAPTER V
Léon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the sobs of
Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a word. A dog
barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then the church clock
struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or preceded it in piping
tones. And just then Berthelini spied a light. It burned in a small
house on the outskirts of the town, and thither the party now directed
their steps.
“It is always a chance,” said Léon.
The house in question stood back from the street behind an open space,
part garden, part turnip-field; and several outhouses stood forward
from either wing at right angles to the front. One of these had
recently undergone some change. An enormous window, looking towards the
north, had been effected in the wall and roof, and Léon began to hope
it was a studio.
“If it’s only a painter,” he said with a chuckle, “ten to one we get as
good a welcome as we want.”
“I thought painters were principally poor,” said Stubbs.
“Ah!” cried Léon, “you do not know the world as I do. The poorer the
better for us!”
And the trio advanced into the turnip-field.
The light was in the ground floor; as one window was brightly
illuminated and two others more faintly, it might be supposed that
there was a single lamp in one corner of a large apartment; and a
certain tremulousness and temporary dwindling showed that a live fire
contributed to the effect. The sound of a voice now became audible; and
the trespassers paused to listen. It was pitched in a high, angry key,
but had still a good, full, and masculine note in it. The utterance was
voluble, too voluble even to be quite distinct; a stream of words,
rising and falling, with ever and again a phrase thrown out by itself,
as if the speaker reckoned on its virtue.
Suddenly another voice joined in. This time it was a woman’s; and if
the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of fury. There
was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering males; that
colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit accurately balanced
between homicide and hysterics; the tone in which the best of women
sometimes utter words worse than death to those most dear to them. If
Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to be endowed with the gift of
speech, thus, and not otherwise, would it discourse. Léon was a brave
man, and I fear he was somewhat sceptically given (he had been educated
in a Papistical country), but the habit of childhood prevailed, and he
crossed himself devoutly. He had met several women in his career. It
was obvious that his instinct had not deceived him, for the male voice
broke forth instantly in a towering passion.
The undergraduate, who had not understood the significance of the
woman’s contribution, pricked up his ears at the change upon the man.
“There’s going to be a free fight,” he opined.
There was another retort from the woman, still calm but a little
higher.
“Hysterics?” asked Léon of his wife. “Is that the stage direction?”
“How should I know?” returned Elvira, somewhat tartly.
“Oh, woman, woman!” said Léon, beginning to open the guitar-case. “It
is one of the burdens of my life, Monsieur Stubbs; they support each
other; they always pretend there is no system; they say it’s nature.
Even Madame Berthelini, who is a dramatic artist!”
“You are heartless, Léon,” said Elvira; “that woman is in trouble.”
“And the man, my angel?” inquired Berthelini, passing the ribbon of his
guitar. “And the man, _m’amour_?”
“He is a man,” she answered.
“You hear that?” said Léon to Stubbs. “It is not too late for you. Mark
the intonation. And now,” he continued, “what are we to give them?”
“Are you going to sing?” asked Stubbs.
“I am a troubadour,” replied Léon. “I claim a welcome by and for my
art. If I were a banker could I do as much?”
“Well, you wouldn’t need, you know,” answered the undergraduate.
“Egad,” said Léon, “but that’s true. Elvira, that is true.”
“Of course it is,” she replied. “Did you not know it?”
“My dear,” answered Léon impressively, “I know nothing but what is
agreeable. Even my knowledge of life is a work of art superiorly
composed. But what are we to give them? It should be something
appropriate.”
Visions of “Let dogs delight” passed through the undergraduate’s mind;
but it occurred to him that the poetry was English and that he did not
know the air. Hence he contributed no suggestion.
“Something about our houselessness,” said Elvira.
“I have it,” cried Léon. And he broke forth into a song of Pierre
Dupont’s:—
“Savez-vous où gite,
Mai, ce joli mois?”
Elvira joined in; so did Stubbs, with a good ear and voice, but an
imperfect acquaintance with the music. Léon and the guitar were equal
to the situation. The actor dispensed his throat-notes with prodigality
and enthusiasm; and, as he looked up to heaven in his heroic way,
tossing the black ringlets, it seemed to him that the very stars
contributed a dumb applause to his efforts, and the universe lent him
its silence for a chorus. That is one of the best features of the
heavenly bodies, that they belong to everybody in particular; and a man
like Léon, a chronic Endymion who managed to get along without
encouragement, is always the world’s centre for himself.
He alone—and it is to be noted, he was the worst singer of the
three—took the music seriously to heart, and judged the serenade from a
high artistic point of view. Elvira, on the other hand, was preoccupied
about their reception; and, as for Stubbs, he considered the whole
affair in the light of a broad joke.
“Know you the lair of May, the lovely month?” went the three voices in
the turnip-field.
The inhabitants were plainly fluttered; the light moved to and fro,
strengthening in one window, paling in another; and then the door was
thrown open, and a man in a blouse appeared on the threshold carrying a
lamp. He was a powerful young fellow, with bewildered hair and beard,
wearing his neck open; his blouse was stained with oil-colours in a
harlequinesque disorder; and there was something rural in the droop and
bagginess of his belted trousers.
From immediately behind him, and indeed over his shoulder, a woman’s
face looked out into the darkness; it was pale and a little weary,
although still young; it wore a dwindling, disappearing prettiness,
soon to be quite gone, and the expression was both gentle and sour, and
reminded one faintly of the taste of certain drugs. For all that, it
was not a face to dislike; when the prettiness had vanished, it seemed
as if a certain pale beauty might step in to take its place; and as
both the mildness and the asperity were characters of youth, it might
be hoped that, with years, both would merge into a constant, brave, and
not unkindly temper.
“What is all this?” cried the man.
CHAPTER VI
Léon had his hat in his hand at once. He came forward with his
customary grace; it was a moment which would have earned him a round of
cheering on the stage. Elvira and Stubbs advanced behind him, like a
couple of Admetus’s sheep following the god Apollo.
“Sir,” said Léon, “the hour is unpardonably late, and our little
serenade has the air of an impertinence. Believe me, sir, it is an
appeal. Monsieur is an artist, I perceive. We are here three artists
benighted and without shelter, one a woman—a delicate woman—in evening
dress—in an interesting situation. This will not fail to touch the
woman’s heart of Madame, whom I perceive indistinctly behind Monsieur
her husband, and whose face speaks eloquently of a well-regulated mind.
Ah! Monsieur, Madame—one generous movement, and you make three people
happy! Two or three hours beside your fire—I ask it of Monsieur in the
name of Art—I ask it of Madame by the sanctity of womanhood.”
The two, as by a tacit consent, drew back from the door.
“Come in,” said the man.
“Entrez, Madame,” said the woman.
The door opened directly upon the kitchen of the house, which was to
all appearance the only sitting-room. The furniture was both plain and
scanty; but there were one or two landscapes on the wall handsomely
framed, as if they had already visited the committee-rooms of an
exhibition and been thence extruded. Léon walked up to the pictures and
represented the part of a connoisseur before each in turn, with his
usual dramatic insight and force. The master of the house, as if
irresistibly attracted, followed him from canvas to canvas with the
lamp. Elvira was led directly to the fire, where she proceeded to warm
herself, while Stubbs stood in the middle of the floor and followed the
proceedings of Léon with mild astonishment in his eyes.
“You should see them by daylight,” said the artist.
“I promise myself that pleasure,” said Léon. “You possess, sir, if you
will permit me an observation, the art of composition to a T.”
“You are very good,” returned the other. “But should you not draw
nearer to the fire?”
“With all my heart,” said Léon.
And the whole party was soon gathered at the table over a hasty and not
an elegant cold supper, washed down with the least of small wines.
Nobody liked the meal, but nobody complained; they put a good face upon
it, one and all, and made a great clattering of knives and forks. To
see Léon eating a single cold sausage was to see a triumph; by the time
he had done he had got through as much pantomime as would have sufficed
for a baron of beef, and he had the relaxed expression of the
over-eaten.
As Elvira had naturally taken a place by the side of Léon, and Stubbs
as naturally, although I believe unconsciously, by the side of Elvira,
the host and hostess were left together. Yet it was to be noted that
they never addressed a word to each other, nor so much as suffered
their eyes to meet. The interrupted skirmish still survived in
ill-feeling; and the instant the guests departed it would break forth
again as bitterly as ever. The talk wandered from this to that
subject—for with one accord the party had declared it was too late to
go to bed; but those two never relaxed towards each other; Goneril and
Regan in a sisterly tiff were not more bent on enmity.
It chanced that Elvira was so much tired by all the little excitements
of the night, that for once she laid aside her company manners, which
were both easy and correct, and in the most natural manner in the world
leaned her head on Léon’s shoulder. At the same time, fatigue
suggesting tenderness, she locked the fingers of her right hand into
those of her husband’s left; and, half closing her eyes, dozed off into
a golden borderland between sleep and waking. But all the time she was
not aware of what was passing, and saw the painter’s wife studying her
with looks between contempt and envy.
It occurred to Léon that his constitution demanded the use of some
tobacco; and he undid his fingers from Elvira’s in order to roll a
cigarette. It was gently done, and he took care that his indulgence
should in no other way disturb his wife’s position. But it seemed to
catch the eye of the painter’s wife with a special significancy. She
looked straight before her for an instant, and then, with a swift and
stealthy movement, took hold of her husband’s hand below the table.
Alas! she might have spared herself the dexterity. For the poor fellow
was so overcome by this caress that he stopped with his mouth open in
the middle of a word, and by the expression of his face plainly
declared to all the company that his thoughts had been diverted into
softer channels.
If it had not been rather amiable, it would have been absurdly droll.
His wife at once withdrew her touch; but it was plain she had to exert
some force. Thereupon the young man coloured and looked for a moment
beautiful.
Léon and Elvira both observed the byplay, and a shock passed from one
to the other; for they were inveterate match-makers, especially between
those who were already married.
“I beg your pardon,” said Léon suddenly. “I see no use in pretending.
Before we came in here we heard sounds indicating—if I may so express
myself—an imperfect harmony.”
“Sir—” began the man.
But the woman was beforehand.
“It is quite true,” she said. “I see no cause to be ashamed. If my
husband is mad I shall at least do my utmost to prevent the
consequences. Picture to yourself, Monsieur and Madame,” she went on,
for she passed Stubbs over, “that this wretched person—a dauber, an
incompetent, not fit to be a sign-painter—receives this morning an
admirable offer from an uncle—an uncle of my own, my mother’s brother,
and tenderly beloved—of a clerkship with nearly a hundred and fifty
pounds a year, and that he—picture to yourself!—he refuses it! Why? For
the sake of Art, he says. Look at his art, I say—look at it! Is it fit
to be seen? Ask him—is it fit to be sold? And it is for this, Monsieur
and Madame, that he condemns me to the most deplorable existence,
without luxuries, without comforts, in a vile suburb of a country town.
O non!” she cried, “non—je ne me tairai pas—c’est plus fort que moi! I
take these gentlemen and this lady for judges—is this kind? is it
decent? is it manly? Do I not deserve better at his hands after having
married him and”—(a visible hitch)—“done everything in the world to
please him.”
I doubt if there were ever a more embarrassed company at a table; every
one looked like a fool; and the husband like the biggest.
“The art of Monsieur, however,” said Elvira, breaking the silence, “is
not wanting in distinction.”
“It has this distinction,” said the wife, “that nobody will buy it.”
“I should have supposed a clerkship—” began Stubbs.
“Art is Art,” swept in Léon. “I salute Art. It is the beautiful, the
divine; it is the spirit of the world, and the pride of life. But—” And
the actor paused.
“A clerkship—” began Stubbs.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the painter. “I am an artist, and as
this gentleman says, Art is this and the other; but of course, if my
wife is going to make my life a piece of perdition all day long, I
prefer to go and drown myself out of hand.”
“Go!” said his wife. “I should like to see you!”
“I was going to say,” resumed Stubbs, “that a fellow may be a clerk and
paint almost as much as he likes. I know a fellow in a bank who makes
capital water-colour sketches; he even sold one for seven-and-six.”
To both the women this seemed a plank of safety; each hopefully
interrogated the countenance of her lord; even Elvira, an artist
herself!—but indeed there must be something permanently mercantile in
the female nature. The two men exchanged a glance; it was tragic; not
otherwise might two philosophers salute, as at the end of a laborious
life each recognised that he was still a mystery to his disciples.
Léon arose.
“Art is Art,” he repeated sadly. “It is not water-colour sketches, nor
practising on a piano. It is a life to be lived.”
“And in the meantime people starve!” observed the woman of the house.
“If that’s a life, it is not one for me.”
“I’ll tell you what,” burst forth Léon; “you, Madame, go into another
room and talk it over with my wife; and I’ll stay here and talk it over
with your husband. It may come to nothing, but let’s try.”
“I am very willing,” replied the young woman; and she proceeded to
light a candle. “This way if you please.” And she led Elvira upstairs
into a bedroom. “The fact is,” said she, sitting down, “that my husband
cannot paint.”
“No more can mine act,” replied Elvira.
“I should have thought he could,” returned the other; “he seems
clever.”
“He is so, and the best of men besides,” said Elvira; “but he cannot
act.”
“At least he is not a sheer humbug like mine; he can at least sing.”
“You mistake Léon,” returned his wife warmly. “He does not even pretend
to sing; he has too fine a taste; he does so for a living. And, believe
me, neither of the men are humbugs. They are people with a
mission—which they cannot carry out.”
“Humbug or not,” replied the other, “you came very near passing the
night in the fields; and, for my part, I live in terror of starvation.
I should think it was a man’s mission to think twice about his wife.
But it appears not. Nothing is their mission but to play the fool. Oh!”
she broke out, “is it not something dreary to think of that man of
mine? If he could only do it, who would care? But no—not he—no more
than I can!”
“Have you any children?” asked Elvira.
“No; but then I may.”
“Children change so much,” said Elvira, with a sigh.
And just then from the room below there flew up a sudden snapping chord
on the guitar; one followed after another; then the voice of Léon
joined in; and there was an air being played and sung that stopped the
speech of the two women. The wife of the painter stood like a person
transfixed; Elvira, looking into her eyes, could see all manner of
beautiful memories and kind thoughts that were passing in and out of
her soul with every note; it was a piece of her youth that went before
her; a green French plain, the smell of apple-flowers, the far and
shining ringlets of a river, and the words and presence of love.
“Léon has hit the nail,” thought Elvira to herself. “I wonder how.”
The how was plain enough. Léon had asked the painter if there were no
air connected with courtship and pleasant times; and having learnt what
he wished, and allowed an interval to pass, he had soared forth into
“O mon amante,
O mon désir,
Sachons cueillir
L’heure charmante!”
“Pardon me, Madame,” said the painter’s wife, “your husband sings
admirably well.”
“He sings that with some feeling,” replied Elvira, critically, although
she was a little moved herself, for the song cut both ways in the upper
chamber; “but it is as an actor and not as a musician.”
“Life is very sad,” said the other; “it so wastes away under one’s
fingers.”
“I have not found it so,” replied Elvira. “I think the good parts of it
last and grow greater every day.”
“Frankly, how would you advise me?”
“Frankly, I would let my husband do what he wished. He is obviously a
very loving painter; you have not yet tried him as a clerk. And you
know—if it were only as the possible father of your children—it is as
well to keep him at his best.”
“He is an excellent fellow,” said the wife.
They kept it up till sunrise with music and all manner of good
fellowship; and at sunrise, while the sky was still temperate and
clear, they separated on the threshold with a thousand excellent wishes
for each other’s welfare. Castel-le-Gâchis was beginning to send up its
smoke against the golden East; and the church bell was ringing six.
“My guitar is a familiar spirit,” said Léon, as he and Elvira took the
nearest way towards the inn, “it resuscitated a Commissary, created an
English tourist, and reconciled a man and wife.”
Stubbs, on his part, went off into the morning with reflections of his
own.
“They are all mad,” thought he, “all mad—but wonderfully decent.”
THE END
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