GAILLARD THE COMFORTER.
Then he went home, and bathed and dressed and said “The club” when his
mother, in _peignoir_ and morning paint, asked him where he had spent
his night with that good, dear Marquis de Nani. Later in the day he
wandered into Struve’s rooms.
“Go away, Toto,” said Struve, who was busy writing at his table. He
supplied seven journals with his ideas, from the _Fremdenblatt_ to the
_Figaro_, and he seemed now engaged in writing for the whole seven at
once. One could see nothing of the lisping, melancholy Struve of the
night before in this lightning scribe. “Go away. I have no time for
Totos. Come in three hours’ time.”
“What are you at?” inquired Toto, sinking into a chair and lighting a
cigarette.
“Praising a man I hate.”
“See here: stop writing your gibberish for five minutes; I want to
speak to you.”
Struve took out his watch and laid it on the table.
“I am listening.”
“You once said that if a man of talent were to start in Paris with
three thousand francs and his ten fingers,—those were your words,—that
if he did not get on he deserved to fail.”
“So he does; what more?”
“I have been thinking of having a try, working like a devil, and
kicking over all this absurdity.”
“Do; it won’t do you any harm. What at—politics?”
“Oh, you owl!” cried Toto. “Politics—what do I care for politics! Art,
that’s the only thing I care a button for. I’m going to dress in a
blouse, and work like a common man—make my name off my own bat, as they
say in England. I’m utterly sick of doing nothing; I must move—I must.”
And Toto moved his arms. “And I am tied; no one takes me seriously.
Look at old De Nani, praising me one moment, and then the next——Faugh!
I’m a Prince; I am worth ten million francs when my mother dies. I play
with art, that’s enough for people; they don’t see my work, they see
me.”
“You are always so much in evidence,” said Struve. “That’s where the
mischief is; you cut such antics that people have no time to observe
your serious attempts. You have got a frightful lot of energy, and
you are a Prince—that’s what is wrong with you; you must be doing,
you are tired of the club, the Bois, cock-fighting at Chantilly. By
the way, I see your name in the _Figaro_ this morning under a thin
disguise—Longchamps and all the rest of it. Your volcano is bunged up
by ennui; you want a new opening for the lava to escape. Well, take my
advice: move in the plane of least resistance; buy a coffee mill and
grind it.”
“Do be serious,” said Toto; “I come to you as a friend.”
“Toto,” said the critic, “I am very serious, else I would not advise
you to leave art alone. What’s the use? This, great, beautiful Moloch
wants a whole life to eat, or nothing. There are a thousand men in
Paris who have flung their all into this furnace. What will come out
of all this forlorn thousand? Half a dozen, and they will be filled
with despair. The walls of the Musée de Louvre are painted with the
blood of men, and that’s success. What of the failures? Their story
would shock creation. Art lives on failures; they keep the paint shops
going, and serve as a background to three or four stars. Now go away.
God in heaven! it’s four, and the post for Germany goes out at six.”
“You are never so stupid as when you are serious,” blurted out Toto, as
he rose and flung his cigarette-end into the grate.
But Struve did not even answer; he was writing away.
Toto then met the young Prince de Harnac, who invited him to dine at
the Mirlitons; he refused, alleging a headache. Then he called on
Pelisson, and found him out. He was wearily entering the Place de
l’Opéra, when the devil flung him into the arms of Gaillard.
Gaillard’s collar seemed higher than ever, and he had a distracted air.
“I am running about looking for my dinner,” said Gaillard. “That
infernal De Brie has gone off to his country house, and forgotten my
check and left me to starve. I will turn an editor, and write no more
poetry nor little articles for his journal. Dear Toto, come and give me
my dinner, and lend me a thousand francs, and comfort me. Sit here with
me, and have an absinthe, and look at Paris as it passes; and then we
will go to the Maison Dorée and dine.”
“You are just the man I want,” said Toto, as they took their seats at
a café, where the marble-topped tables had ventured out now that the
weather was fine, and even a bit warm. “I want your help and advice.
I’ve been with that villain Struve, and he has depressed me, and flung
cold water on me.”
“Struve is a critic,” said Gaillard in a vicious voice; “he is one of
the sorrows of art. I do not know what criticism is coming to. Have you
seen that article in the _Tribune_ on Mallarmé?—Mallarmé, that divine
shadow moving in the twilight of the gods, even he is not safe from
their mud. But what is this, Toto, you say about help and advice? Are
you being worried by some woman? Is your mother tormenting? Unfold
yourself to me.”
“Look here, Gaillard: you are a man of sense, you have sympathy. I am
sick of life, living like a cabbage, and I want to live really, I want
to be famous without the assistance of anyone; I have a talent.”
“You have an undoubted genius.”
“And I want to use it. I go to Struve, and he sneers at me, tells me to
grind a coffee mill.”
“Oh, that Struve!” mourned Gaillard. “What led you to a critic for
advice or sympathy? He told you to grind a coffee mill? Give me a
cigarette, Toto; my case is empty; I will take three. He told you that!
They fancy their cheap wit kills, these critics do; but you are not
alone, Toto. Did you see the critique on my little poem ‘Satanitie’
in the _Écho de Paris_? Well, that is what they fling nowadays at an
artist, and call it wit. But Pelisson is replying by a counterblast
in the _Débats_. Dear old Pelisson! He knows no more of poetry than
a rhinoceros; but he roars, and he has reduced the art of slaying a
critic to a fine edge.”
“Yes, yes,” said Toto, trying to lead Gaillard from himself for a
moment; “but what do you think of my plan? I am going to take an attic
and work in a blouse—I _am_; and, besides, do you know, Gaillard, I
have met the most charming girl. She lives in an attic on three sous
a day with a lark; she trims hats, and she has eyes just the color of
Neapolitan violets. I have never loved a woman before.”
“You love her?” cried Gaillard, “and you would leave the world for her
to live in an attic? Oh, _mon Dieu_! what a romance you might make of
life! And is that idea all your own? _Mon Dieu!_ you, a Prince, rich
and young and charming, beloved by all the women of Paris—the very
entry of such an idea into your brain proclaims you an artist. It is
like the Prince in my little forest tale who renounced the world for a
wood-nymph—my little tale called ‘Nymphomanie.’ You have read it.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“But I gave you a copy.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now—the nymph who turned into a sow. It was a
beautiful story; but never mind it for a moment. Tell me, Gaillard: you
are not saying that just to please me?”
“I,” said Gaillard; “I am charmed with the idea, the originality of it,
the color of it. It has a perfume of violets—those violets that come in
autumn as if to increase the sadness of the withered leaves. De Musset
might have written a play upon it. I, ha! I will—I will write a poem on
it.”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t!” said Toto in alarm. “I want no one to
know. With my blouse I become a man like other men; I give myself a
year, and then—we will see what Otto Struve and De Nani say.”
“But you are not serious, Toto?” cried Gaillard, who was now the man
alarmed, for Toto was a little income to him, a cigarette mine, and a
most joyous companion. “You would die, my child, under the hardships
of such a life; you were not born to the blouse, you were born to the
purple.”
“I am serious!” cried the Prince, greatly exasperated; “you are as bad
as the rest of them. You are——”
“I am not; _mon Dieu!_ do not freeze me, Toto, with that face. I was
but thinking of your health; you have cast frost upon me, and I was
feeling so happy; besides, a garret may be made most comfortable—it
may indeed: you can have a little charcoal-fire when the weather is
cold, and a garret need not be ugly. I saw an old oak chest in the
Rue Normandie to-day; it cried out to me to buy it, but I had not the
money; we will buy it to-morrow. We will not have the walls papered;
most have, but we need not be vulgar though we are poor. Oh, Toto,
poverty is a romance if it is taken in the right way; we will teach
the poor how to endure their poverty romantically. No, we will not
have paper—plain plaster and an etching or two of Albrecht Dürer’s, a
little library confined to one bookshelf. Loti, Baudelaire, and a few
mystics; a lark to sing to one whilst one paints or writes; a girl with
blue eyes to love; a pipe to smoke—what more does one want? In the name
of Heaven, what more does one want? I call upon Heaven to witness. I
think the problem of modernity solved in the one word ’simplicity.’ We
are too be-scented, embroidered, and diffuse; we eat too much and love
too broadly; we want concentration. Genius is like a burning-glass;
it must be focused so that the rays come together in a narrow point,
else the rays will not burn. I saw a stove in bronze of Henri Quatre;
we will get that—it’s in the same place, Rue de Normandie. Did you see
that girl pass by? She pulled up her dress to show me her ankles; they
were like cow heels. Some people have no discretion; they show what
they ought to hide, and hide what they ought to show. I have noticed
it in everything, even conversation. Well, we will get the stove and
some other things—it will be like making a nest; and when all is ready
you will spread out your wings and sing, and the female bird will come.
Heavens! I know just the place you want, in the Rue de Perpignan.
I have a friend there, a genius, but very weird; they call him
Fanfoullard, no one knows his real name. He is one of the mysteries of
Paris; he subsists by painting fans, and will not get out of bed till
dusk; he says inspirations come to him only when he is in bed. That
necessarily imposes limitations on his art, but his fans are poems; he
spreads them with autumn and spring, and sends them fluttering over the
world; he dreams of the beautiful women who will use them as he lies
there unknown in his bed. Life is full of poetry; we find it in the
most unexpected places. Well, the room below that of Fanfoullard is
unlet—it was so, at least, a week ago; we will take it; it has a little
room adjoining that will do for a bedroom. We will go hunting for the
furniture, you and I, to-morrow.”
“But, see here, Gaillard: I am not playing at this, and I must be
economical. I’m going to start on three or four thousand francs, and
make that do. I’m deadly in earnest.”
“You are right,” said the poet. “It would be absurd to live in an attic
with a bank-book; besides, you can always apply to your mother, Mme. la
Princesse, should the wolf scrape too loudly at the door.”
“Oh, good gracious, you will drive me mad! If I don’t succeed I will
hang myself; I would never have the face to come back; and what I mean
by success is, success without help. I am stiff with sitting still and
being waited upon; I want to _be_.”
And Toto’s eyes gleamed madly in the gaslight, whilst Gaillard felt a
decided shiver. Then he remembered Toto’s general eccentricities, and
rubbed his chin, making his thin beard crackle. “It will last a month,”
thought he; “and then we shall all drive home in a cab very hungry,
and the Princesse will kill the fatted calf, and the girl will be
pensioned.”
“Gaillard, what are you thinking of?” demanded Toto.
“I was thinking that I should like to be young again like you,” burst
out Gaillard, a lot of lunatic ideas waking up and dancing like
Bacchantes around the lie. “And be loved by a beautiful girl, and work
for her, and fail, and die in her arms; those are the happiest lives,
after all, failure ending in death with one’s beloved. Success ruins
one’s life. I have never been happy since I met it, when I was young;
but I was never young, I sucked nepenthe with my mother’s milk. I do
not believe I was ever born; I was found in some field of poppies, and
they hid the fact. When I have written my last song I shall drop in
some field of poppies. Ah, me, wretched body of mine! Toto, let us go
and dine and forget ourselves; let us become beasts for an hour, and
then you will come to my rooms. Fanfoullard may be there; he always
crawls out at dark and rides to the Rue de Rivoli in an omnibus with
his eyes shut, for fear of seeing the terrible people who make use of
those vehicles. They put him out in the Rue de Rivoli, and he opens his
eyes. Should he have any fans finished, he takes them to Nadar, who
monopolizes his work; then he always comes to my rooms and smokes—I
leave tobacco for him on the mantel. He is my familiar. For days
sometimes we do not meet, when I happen to be out, but I always know
that he has been; he leaves a smell of withered flowers behind him. All
my greatest poems are due to Fanfoullard. You remember, Schiller could
never compose without rotten apples in his desk. Fanfoullard is my
rotten apple. Come, let us go to the Maison Dorée.”
They rose from their seats and made languidly for the Boulevard des
Italiens, Gaillard pausing at several toy shops to look in and admire
the wares. In the Avenue de l’Opéra, at Brentano’s window, a little
volume of poems by Verlaine called to him to buy it, and as he had no
money Toto bought it for him. He carried the book tight clasped to his
chest as they wandered along to the Maison Dorée, where they entered
and dined.