The first four days that Taillandy spent in Paris had a striking
similarity. I have pictured one of them, endeavoring to deal with the
poet’s temporary downfall as leniently and as delicately as possible.
Even average men have their evil moments and are held excusable; how
much more readily, then, must we condone the lapses of a genius! I do
not pretend that he was blameless, but, remember, he had passed eight
years alone, and the reaction was bound to be extreme.
On the evening of the fourth day, when Diane saw that all the signs and
omens pointed to another festival night, she took matters into her own
hands and made a decisive step. Strange as it may seem, it was Bruno who
aided her in her scheme to get Taillandy out of the city. Perhaps Bruno,
being more advanced in years, was tiring of dissipation; perhaps his
heart was really excellent at bottom; perhaps he cared for Diane more
unselfishly than he chose openly to admit. At any rate he rendered her
invaluable assistance.
It was he who interviewed the owner and driver of the covered,
two-wheeled market-cart, arranging with him that he should be at the
Closerie des Lilas at two o’clock that morning.
“No vegetables, my friend,” said Bruno; “we want no vegetables, but we
desire plenty of straw on the floor in order that a stuffed turkey may
repose comfortably thereupon. And it will be a large turkey--a hundred
and fifty pounds.”
The driver of the cart, disturbed at this, crossed himself violently.
“It is not a corpse that monsieur wishes me to drive in my wagon?”
Bruno laughed cheerfully.
“Not quite,” he answered. “It will be breathing--fire and alcohol; but
it will be breathing. Beyond that I promise nothing.”
The driver was scarcely reassured. However, if it breathed, if monsieur
guaranteed that it would breathe--well, for five francs more he would
take the chance. So it was arranged.
“I have ordered Ferdinand’s hearse,” Bruno reported to Diane.
She cried out in horror. He must not say such things; and she, too,
crossed herself precipitately.
At seven o’clock, the hour of dinner, when the fête usually commenced,
the Closerie des Lilas was packed to the doors. All the guests were
present, hungry, thirsty, licking their lips, but--there was no host.
“Where is he?” whispered Bruno to Diane.
“Where is he?” echoed _le petit_ Martel.
“Where is he?” muttered the two veterans who remembered Delacroix.
“Where is he?” chorused the models and the midinettes and the daughters
of joy.
Every one had the question, but no one the answer. Taillandy had not
been seen by any one for over two hours. Each thought that he had been
with one of the others. It was very strange.
At eight o’clock, with much grumbling, the guests were forced to order
their own dinners, which, owing perhaps to the obnoxious prospect of
paying the check out of their own pockets, they ate with little relish.
Moreover, there was no sparkling wine of Champagne to flavor the meats,
and no Taillandy to talk glorious nonsense.
Diane reluctantly, and for want of any plan of action, took her seat
between Bruno and _le petit_ Martel; but she kept her eyes steadfastly
on the door and replied to all conversational efforts only in
monosyllables. Nor did she eat.
As the hour advanced the gloom deepened. Bruno and _le petit_ Martel,
bored and fatigued, hazarded brutal guesses at the cause of Taillandy’s
non-appearance.
Said Bruno: “He is doubtless drunk in some other café.”
Said _le petit_ Martel: “It is probable that he has left Paris and gone
back alone to converse with his gods.”
It was this latter conjecture that hurt Diane the more. She had planned
to save him and he had forgotten her very existence. His promises to her
had been empty words. Heart-searing thoughts, these.
“Have no fear,” she answered Bruno and _le petit_ Martel bravely--“have
no fear. He will come when he is ready.”
“And you,” insinuated Bruno, “will wait for him?”
“Yes,” she said, “and I will wait for him.”
“You are very faithful,” observed _le petit_ Martel with a snicker.
She flushed a little but let the remark pass. She did not choose to
explain to them that she was Taillandy’s disciple--not his mistress.
Besides, something told her that they would not understand, that they
would wink and nudge each other and snicker, even as _le petit_ Martel
had already snickered.
The clock struck twelve times--twelve weary, discouraged strokes. A few
chairs were pushed back, a few checks (very modest ones) were paid, and
a few of the guests yawned unaffectedly, said, “He will not come,” and
departed. The two veterans who remembered Delacroix called for the
backgammon-board, and immediately forgot the passage of time.
The clock struck the half-hour--timidly, unobtrusively, as if ashamed of
itself. The Beaux-Arts students went gloomily home. Bruno lit his pipe
and ordered a cognac and coffee. _Le petit_ Martel, with a show of
bravado, called for a bottle of champagne, then discreetly changed his
mind and substituted a yellow chartreuse. They, at least, were
determined to see it out if they were forced to remain there until dawn.
Diane sat in silence, very tired, very miserable, ready to cry.
The clock struck one, surreptitiously, that the people might perhaps
think it was merely the half-hour. Hippolyte began to clear the tables
and to pile up the chairs for the night. Madame Maupin was stacking up
the day’s receipts in little piles of copper, silver, and gold. The gold
pile, she noted, was miserably small that evening.
And then, before the clock was forced to strike again, the door swung
violently open and in came Taillandy, hatless, his hair on end,
intoxicated, but not with wine. Intoxicated, rather, with the sense of
great accomplishment.
He greeted no one, but cried loudly and exultantly: “I have done it! It
is completed--and in six hours. Never have I worked so rapidly and so
well. For it is good, my friends, it is good. Listen and judge for
yourselves if it is not good. Oh, but I was in the vein to-night! I was
tired--very tired--and I smoked fifty vile cigarettes and wrote fifty
immortal lines. You see, I am not modest. That is because I _know_ that
it is good.”
He was tremendously excited. There was a flush on his cheek-bones as of
fever, and a feverish light burned in his eyes. The two sheets of paper
that he held trembled and rattled in his hands as he stood in the middle
of the room and began to read.
What he read was his “Hymn to Diana Imprisoned.” We have all read it and
recognized it as his greatest lyric; and we all remember, surely, the
last quatrain, which some one has translated, poorly enough:
“Why dost thou tarry in the haunts of men?
Cast off the chains that bind thee, burst the bars!
The high gods call and, pleading, call again--
Come forth and live beneath the singing stars!”
Put that back into Taillandy’s French and let Taillandy stand up and
declaim it to you, and I warrant you’ll feel a shiver of exhilaration
run up your spine. For Taillandy knew how to read his verse--there is no
gainsaying that.
When he finished he had them all fairly on their feet. The women, not
understanding much of what he read them, nevertheless wept from sheer
excitement, Madame Maupin the most conspicuously and copiously, Diane
the most quietly. But there was a good bit of relief mingled with
Diane’s tears. She had her hero back, more of a hero than ever. Her
idol’s feet were not of clay but of gold. What woman could resist
weeping with such excellent cause?
Vaguely she sensed that the invocation was addressed to her, that the
poet had passed his evening in solitude, making her immortal in immortal
verse, that, far from being forgotten by him, she had been ever before
his inward eyes.
Triumphantly the clock struck two. Bruno was the only one to heed it;
and he approached Diane and murmured, “It is two o’clock. The hearse
should be at the door. Or shall we call it the triumphal chariot of
fire that will bear him, like Elijah, up to heaven?”
Before Diane could reply the driver of the two-wheeled cart squeezed his
broad bulk through the door. He stood there, whip in hand, searching the
room for his clients.
“What do you want?” inquired Taillandy, who was nearest him.
“My passengers,” answered the driver.
“And who are they?” the poet persisted.
“God knows,” said the driver. “But one of them, they told me, would be
very drunk.”
“I am very drunk,” said Taillandy. “Wine never made me more so.
Moreover, I see no one else who is in that condition. Accordingly I
retain you. Is your wagon comfortable?”
“There is plenty of straw,” answered the driver.
“Good. You are hired, then, until dawn; and we start at once.”
He went to Diane and took her by the hand.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“I am ready,” said she.
“Then come. Let us return to the true gods who are calling to us.”
He bowed very low, first to Madame Maupin, then to the room in general.
“Adieu,” said he. “I earnestly hope that come day you will open your
eyes and see that you are slaves.”
With Diane on his arm he passed out of the door into the night. The cart
stood at the curb, the huge _percheron_ smoking in the chilly air. The
driver climbed up into his seat, and Taillandy lifted Diane in his arms
and placed her in the straw under the canvas cover. Then he himself took
his seat beside the driver.
“You will be cold,” suggested the latter.
“You are wrong,” answered the poet; “I am on fire.”
“As you will, _m’sieu’_. Where shall I drive to?”
Taillandy bent toward him and whispered in his ear.
“_B’en, m’sieu’_,” said the driver. “I know the road well.”