From the Seine to the Bullier, the Boulevard St. Michel lay glistening
under the frosty stars. On the fountain in the Place St. Michel, the iron
griffins which spat water all summer into the basin below, sat grim and
helpless, jaws and claws bound in chains of ice. Above them victorious
St. Michel lifted the flat of his sword to spank a prostrate Satan whose
nether limbs were now mercifully padded with snow.
The Boulevard, packed from gutter to gutter, echoed with the fanfare of
Carnival. Cabs crowded along five deep; tram-cars and omnibuses wheezed
and tooted and ploughed their way through the constantly increasing
throngs.
With mask and horn and mirliton the crowd swept through the boulevard,
while from the terraces and windows of every café, students sprawled, and
shouted and chanted strange anthems to celebrate the Mi-Carême.
The Café Vachette was festooned with gas jets, the Café de la Source
glowed under clusters of electric globes, the Cafés d’Harcourt and Rouge
were ablaze with lanterns and electricity, and the ice-covered fountain
in the Place de Medici flashed back from its crystalline basin a million
sparkling rays of blue and gold. On top of the hill the Bullier rose
terraced with coloured lamps, bathed in a flood of electric light, which
traced a trembling network of shadows over the asphalt among the trees of
the Avenue de L’Observatoire. And among the shadows which the branches
flung across the parkway, partly concealed by the terrace of the café
which forms the angle of the avenue, a figure, enveloped in a sealskin
overcoat, shivered and peered across the square to where the frivolous
and godless were pouring along the sidewalk to the Bullier. On they
swept, with horn and song and the rattle of canes on bench and shutter;
and past them dashed cab after cab, halting for an instant at the
entrance, while visions of light draperies and lighter feet sped across
the foyer to the cloak-room. Now a band of architects arrived, chanting
the slogan of Lalou, now a masked company of artists in blouse and
béret, locking arms with a dozen of the gentler sex. At times the throng
closed about some favourite who immediately mounted a boulevard bench to
harangue them on the evil of being serious.
The figure in the sealskin overcoat appeared to be interested, and
ventured a little way along the square, but was almost immediately
frightened back by the voice of a compatriot, inebriated but melodious;
“He didn’t come back no more.
N—o!”
He didn’t come more.
“N—n she sat by the fire—hic!”
It was Arizona.
“N—n she sat by the fire—”
here memory proved treacherous, and, after several attempts to recall the
fate of the abandoned one, Arizona jerked a large felt hat over one eye,
squared his shoulders, advanced his lower jaw and began to yell. “Come
an’ pick up the dead—aw! Come an’ rescue the dyin’! It’s my night to
howl, an’ a souvenir goes with each an’ every corpse!”
Across the square somebody in the crowd shouted: “Arizona, shut up!”
“W’as that?” demanded Arizona indignantly; and, encircling a tree with
one arm, he started the other in a rapid rotary motion increasing in
velocity until it looked like an extinct Catherine-wheel.
“What’s the matter, Arizona?” asked Garland who came running across the
street; “you know you mustn’t yell like that in English.”
“A souvenir goes with each corpse,” said Arizona sullenly, “I’m a
pitiless wolf—”
“You’re a pitiful ass,” said Clifford, coming up, “whom are you scrapping
with now?”
“If I find him I’ll jump on to his neck,” said Arizona sulkily.
“He means Fradley,” said Elliott to Clifford, “he’s jealous because Sara
forbade him to assault Fradley.”
The figure in the sealskin coat shuddered behind his tree.
“Arizona, my son,” said Clifford, “you’re a nouveau yet, and you’d better
not make yourself too conspicuous. You’re drunk too, and if I catch you
trying to get into the Bullier I’ll settle with you in a way you’ll
remember. Give me that six-shooter—quick. Now don’t try any of your cheap
cow-boy humor in the Latin Quarter. Go home.”
“Look yere, Clifford,” said Arizona, “I’m a noovo but I ain’t no slouch,
an’ you fellows never have to tell me to be less fresh. Now I—hic!—I
objec’ to Fradley chasin’ Sara—”
“You have no claims on Sara,” said Elliott laughing.
“All right, then I hain’t, but I objec’ to that fool-hen Fradley
scratchin’ alkali in my sage-bush. Mebbe Sara ain’t my business; but I’m
doin’ dooty about thet there public claim, an’ I’m death on jumpers like
him!”
At that moment the uproar on the boulevard was redoubled. A battalion
of singing students, each clad in evening dress over which was draped a
white blouse, was advancing from the Boulevard Montparnasse.
“Come on, Garland,—Arizona, go home!” said Clifford, and he hurried
across the square to join the procession, followed by Elliott and Garland.
In the middle of the procession, enthroned upon the roof of a cab sat
Sara. She was engaged in exploding squibs while Boissy held the terrified
horse down to a sideway prance. Behind the cab marched Julian’s young
hopefuls, singing “_Le Bal à l’Hôtel-de-Ville_.” Sara fired a whole
bunch of squibs as the cab came to a halt before the statue of Marshal
Ney, then, as it moved on into the flare of light, a mighty shout arose;
“Vive Sara!” to which that young person politely replied, “Vive l’atelier
Julien!”
A moment later Sara and her cohorts were engulfed in the throng passing
through the foyer of the Bal Bullier.
Half an hour later, Arizona appeared at the box office and charged
in with a whoop which raised the hair under the silver helmet of the
cavalryman on guard. It was, however, nearly twelve o’clock when Fradley,
his eyes bulging with fright, sidled into the lobby, bought his ticket
and sought the den of the female harpies who take checks for wraps. He
slipped the sealskin overcoat from his meagre frame, and a harpy grabbed
it. He hurriedly thrust the zinc check into his pocket, smoothed his
love-locks and tripped timidly to the head of the stairs which leads down
to the floor of the ballroom. Here a coarse red-necked man relieved him
of his ticket, and he stood face to face with the gilded demon—_Vice!_
For a moment he thought of flight; then something on the floor below made
him blush violently.
“Get out of the way! You’re blocking the stairs!” shouted the red-necked
man, but Fradley did not hear him in the din. Then a brutal cavalryman
seized Fradley and hustled him down the stairs.
“Stop!” screamed the poet, but somebody in the crowd below caught him
by the leg. It was a fearful struggle. The red-necked man vociferated,
the soldier pushed and the masked figure below hauled away at his feet.
Fradley felt he was losing consciousness; the scene swam before him.
For one awful moment he saw, in the gaudy surging masses below, the
glittering pit of hell—his ears were stunned by the crash of demoniac
music,—then something gave way, the soldier snickered, and Fradley found
himself jerked headlong into the gulf, only to be caught in the arms of a
stalwart personage wearing a false nose and a tin crown over one ear.
“Welcome to Pandemonium!” yelled the crowned personage, as he banged
Fradley over the head with a bladder; “and may I ask, Monsieur, if you
generally come into a Royal Presence on your head?”
Before Fradley could reply, a Nautch Girl caught him around the neck and
swung him into the crush of dancers. He struggled violently.
“What! you won’t dance?” she cried, with a stamp of her bangled sandals.
“No, I won’t!” cried Fradley, perspiring with terror.
“You shall!” she insisted.
Then a clown with his face all white, came squealing and tumbling along,
neatly floored him in an unexpected flip-flap, picked him up, and laying
his chalky face on his shoulder, shrieked and sobbed, “oh, mon frère!
mon frère!” This was the last straw. With a wrench and a twist he freed
himself and fled to the gallery, where he found a vacant table and sat
down to collect his thoughts. Little by little his fright gave way to
anger. A waiter dusted the chalk from his coat and told him that there
was a mirror behind the musicians’ box. Here he smoothed his hair and
rebuttoned his collar, keeping a suspicious eye on two young ladies of
the ballet who were practising strange steps before an adjoining mirror.
“Monsieur,” said one of them, “have the goodness to tell me whether I do
the ‘grand écart,’ as well as ‘La Goulu.’”
“What is the ‘grand écart’?” asked Fradley stiffly.
He was instructed, and he withdrew in haste to his table in the gallery.
A quadrille was in progress below. He stood on his chair to see and then
sat down again, not to see. This manœuvre he repeated at intervals and
ended by remaining on his chair, “For,” he argued, “it’s life,—and an
artist must be broad.”
Before the quadrille ended, he was playfully toppled from his chair by a
Spanish dancer, who took his place and offered to reward him with a kiss
which he refused. After awhile the dancer skipped off with an Arab, and a
feeling akin to loneliness took possession of Fradley.
The dull red and blue woodwork of the Bullier was hung with the banners
of all nations. In the musicians’ gallery, Conor and his orchestra banged
away at the “March into Hell,” and the tables trembled with the crash
of the brass. The floor was crowded to suffocation. Imbecile shrieking
clowns in ruffles and powder, went madly bounding about, Turks footed it
with Russian peasant girls, gendarmes wearing false noses and enormous
moustaches locked arms with “ces messieurs” of the Vilette who wore the
charming costume of that quarter including “favoris” and “rouflaquettes.”
Students in evening dress galloped about playing circus, and a pretty
Cupid, mounted on one young gentleman’s shoulders, challenged a
shepherdess, mounted on another, to a race, so away they went, crying
“Allons! houp! houp!” From a near corner a monotonous chanting arose,
where some thirty students were squatting in a ring beating upon drums
with their hands. It was the rhythmic air of an Egyptian dance which was
being executed in the middle by a willowy white-veiled girl who swung two
gilded scimitars. Like sheet lightning the broad blades of the swords
flashed above the silver-flecked veil, as her slender, supple figure
swayed to the music.
“Brava! Bis! Bis!” they cried, and the girl, with eyes like stars above
her veil, whirled the scimitars into circles of flame. Suddenly she stood
rigid, there came a clash of steel, the swords lay crossed before her,
and, as the minor air swelled out, she whipped off her veil and sent it
floating and billowing above her head while her little feet began to move
to and fro among the swords, blade upward on the floor. The applause was
deafening as she tossed back her head and said with the merriest laugh,
“Je veux bien boire un bock!”
Clifford jumped up from the floor and picking up the swords presented
them on one knee.
“Tiens! c’est toi, mon ami?”
“Yes. Forgive me the cab, Cécile,” he murmured, drawing her half
resisting arm through his.
“I can’t forgive you. It was too ridiculous to sit there,—and somebody
holding the hind wheels.”
“Oh, Cécile—”
“No—no!”
“Ma petite Cécile—”
“By Jove, she’s going to forgive him,” said Elliott to Rowden who was
dancing attendance on the pretty Cupid.
“Mr. Rowden, I insist,” pouted the Cupid, shaking her curls.
“But I don’t enjoy playing circus,” pleaded Rowden, as Boissy pranced
proudly by, his epaulettes over his ears, bearing Sara as Diana, who
prodded him on with a silver-gilt arrow.
Then Cupid became petulant and signified her intention of seeking another
steed, and presently Elliott became the pleased spectator of his friend
careering about in company with similarly burdened youths.
“I’m not in it,” sighed Elliott, until he spied Margot, who stamped her
foot and called for a steed. Shortly afterwards he joined the rest in
feats of the haut-école.
To say that Fradley was enjoying himself is not strictly true. Once
every ten minutes he subdued some bound of a tortured conscience with
the thought; “artists must be broad;” but except for these encounters
with his doubts he found it all secretly thrilling and pleasant. He was
lonely, in a way, yet he hardly knew what he would want of company. As
for speaking to any of those bright-eyed young persons who now and then
slapped his face with a rose or rattled a tambourine over his hat,—that
was out of the question. No, indeed! He would look on, “because an artist
must be broad,” but he had no desire to contaminate himself with a word
or a smile from such as they. No, indeed! No! No! There seemed to be some
need of repeating this frequently to himself, but curiously enough it
did not assuage his loneliness. Once a black-eyed Mephistopheles poked
her pointed red feather into his eyes and then begged pardon with an
irresistible smile which, fortunately for history, came several centuries
too late for St. Anthony.
What Fradley might have done had not the girl been carried off by
Garland, nobody can tell. He felt a thump in his throat and a murderous
feeling toward Garland, and yet he was sure that he had been about to
wither temptation with a frown. Carrington spoke in his ear.
“Look at Sara! Magnificent!” Fradley turned.
Seated upon a table in the gallery with the air of an Empress, Sara
received the homage of the Quarter. Behind her Cécile and Clifford waved
gaudy fans and imbibed champagne in tall goblets. The curly-headed Cupid
and the black-eyed Mephistopheles were endangering their silken hose by
sliding down the balustrade, aided and applauded by a Japanese maid and
three fairies.
Fradley had eyes for Sara only. “Vulgar,” he said.
“Yes,” said Carrington doubtfully. A great wave of loneliness swept over
Fradley.
“Shameless!” he gasped.
Then Sara’s strange grey eyes met his across the whirl of the carnival;
he saw her throw up her haughty head and send to him a wonderful smile,—a
smile that scorched and yet healed, and in an agony of doubt he opened
his lips to cry again to Carrington—to the world, “shameless!” but his
lips were dry, and his voice died in his throat with a click.
The music clashed; Cécile dropped her glass and clasped Clifford’s hand;
Sara sprang into Boissy’s arms,—there was a rush, a tempest of cheers,
and Fradley, jostled and hustled clung to a pillar,—clung a moment only,
then was swept away, into the throng.
“Dance!” cried a breathless voice behind him, and, “dance!” cried another
voice beside him. He tried to stem the tide,—he shut his eyes, but soft
arms were around his neck and a puff of perfume smote him like a blow
in the face, and “dance! dance!” cried a voice in his ear. He knew the
voice, his eyes flew open and he cried out, but “dance! dance! dance!”
she panted, and her burnished hair flew in his face. He saw the crescent
on her brow, he saw the strange grey eyes below it. Each separate hair in
the fiery mane flashed like a perfumed flame, and he reeled and steadied
himself with a soft hand that sought his own, while the orchestra
thundered and the rosy ring of faces floated away, away, into an endless
rosy chain.
When it was that he drank something, he could not remember. He was very
thirsty, and iced champagne was but a temporary relief.
“Good!” cried Boissy with a stare, “so you’re going in for it!”
Fradley looked at him, but Sara dropped her hand on his arm saying, “Toi,
tu sais bien danser,” and turning scornfully to Boissy, “go away. You
dance like a gendarme!”
The music began again, and with the music bedlam broke loose. There
was no pretence of sets. After a couple had danced themselves into
exhaustion, they climbed over the balcony and watched the others. Cécile
tossed her veil into the human whirlpool below, laughing delightedly as
the silver stars were rent from it and sent scaling into the air. Rowden
howled through the din for Clifford to pledge him, and smashed glass
after glass in a vain effort to make him hear, while the black-eyed
Mephistopheles, perched on Garland’s shoulders, poured out goblet
after goblet of gold-dust and flung it over the throng until heads and
shoulders glittered with the golden scales. Elliott had climbed into the
orchestra with a bottle of champagne, and while the grateful musicians
were quenching their thirst, he pounded on the spare cymbals until the
handles came off and Monsieur Conor ejected him.
Then in the height of the delirium, Arizona shook the walls with
his war-cry. “Aw! I’m bad! b-b-a-a-d! Me teeth is choke-bored an’ a
hair-trigger works both feet!” Fradley heard that cry and trembled. It
came nearer and nearer.
“Pick up the dead! Pick up the dyin’, an’ git the souvenir!”
Sara cried: “Arizona, va t’en!” but it was too late. With a howl from
Arizona and a scream from Fradley, they clinched and fell, Arizona on
top. He remembered that he punched Arizona and in turn received a tap on
the ear which made him forget that he was alive. Garland picked him up,
and when consciousness returned he saw Sara, furious, withering Arizona
with her scorn.
“Go!” she cried, pointing to the door.
Arizona, humbled and dishevelled, went.
It needed much cooling liquid to put Fradley back where he had been
prior to Arizona’s assault, and that condition was far from normal. He
proffered menaces, he attempted to divest himself of his coat, but Sara,
very pale, and paler still after each goblet in which she pledged the
exalted Fradley, took possession of him with all the blindness of sudden
caprice.
Fradley felt that his hour,—the hour of the truly great, had struck.
Dimly he recalled that other Fradley, the normal one, timid as a rabbit,
dreading battle, loathing brute force. Vaguely he remembered that other
and normal Fradley, moral, temperate in all but feeding. And he scorned
him! Buried forever let him be, that _other_ recreant Fradley! And all
the while he went on talking with the others, capering when they capered,
drinking when they drank, returning gibe for gibe, defending his own,
claiming and pushing his claim with threats—warlike threats, and all
the time, dimly, dully commiserating, scorning that other,—that normal
Fradley.
Later he revived enough to have a pang of fright as the cold air of the
boulevard blew in his face, but the cab was warm and cosey and he sank
back to the cushions with a sigh of content. As in a dream he heard the
rattle of wheels and the cries of the driver. Other cabs passed—endless
lines of them. It seemed centuries before his cab stopped and when it did
he objected to leaving it, but Sara had her way, alas now as hazy as his
own, and the porter who opened the door for them at the Café Sylvain,
winked solemnly at the ancient cabby, who only shook his white head and
drove slowly away.