the left, and the officers hurrying forward to weigh in. As he passed
into the enclosure, Eugène glanced over his shoulder. General Tournadour
and his daughter were still standing at the oval-side, and he had a
glimpse of Natalie clapping her hands and pointing, as the stable lad
slipped the blanket off Vivandière. But he made no sign, even when,
three minutes later, he mounted, within five metres of where they stood.
Time enough, when the victory was won, to claim his reward in the gray
eyes of which he had been dreaming. His heart leaped, nevertheless, as
he gave Vivandière the rein. It was the voice of Vieux César, almost at
his side:--
"Be not afraid, ma petite. There is no doubt that he is going to win."
No doubt, indeed, with her eyes upon him, and her heart praying for his
success!
Once upon the course, he swept the vast enclosure with a glance, and his
blood danced with the excitement of the moment, and the brilliancy of
the scene. To the right the great tribunes of the pesage, and the
chair-dotted turf in front, glowed with a shifting rainbow of spring
gowns and vivid parasols, and sparkled with a myriad white waistcoats,
drifting, like large, lazy snowflakes, to and fro; to the left lay the
vast enclosure of the pelouse, flooded with dazzling sunlight, its
thousands circling here and there like ants. Beyond, the race-course
swept away, smooth and green, to the long rows of trees in their new
foliage, banked along the route de Boulogne and the allée des
Fortifications. It was a day of days, whether one stood inside the rail,
straining for a glimpse of the horses, or swept slowly to the left, on
the course itself, toward the starting point, with a thoroughbred's
flanks quivering between one's knees!
As the horses circled about the start, getting into position, Eugène's
keen, handsome eyes were busy with trivial details, dwindled by distance
to mere specks,--two men, leaning far over the rails, signaling bets to
each other across the track, a gleam of orange from the finish flag, the
starter rocking toward him on a ridiculously fat pony. Then, in an
instant, every faculty came taut like a stretched string, and they were
off, in a thunder of hoofs and a whirl of flying sod. He saw a red flag
fluttering stiffly in the breeze as he swept past, and heard, in the
distance, the whirr of the signal gong from the judge's stand. It was a
fair start. He touched Vivandière lightly with his hand, and, at the
signal, felt her lengthen under him into her long, magnificent gallop.
The tribunes and the crowded pelouse rushed down upon him with a murmur
of many voices. The long double line of faces at the rail slid past like
white dots, and the dark green hedge of the water-jump sprang out of the
track at his feet. Houp, ma belle! A whish of brushed twigs, a gleam of
silver water passing under, a thud of hoofs on the soft turf beyond, and
they were over, and away into the southern loop to the left!
As he swung to the north again, he saw the ants of the pelouse scurrying
across to the rail along the transverse cut. Let them run, les drôles!
They had need to if they would see the passing of Vivandière! Past the
high hurdle--so much the better that one did not have to take it!--and
down the transverse to the second water-jump. It was easy, that. The
mare crossed it like a bird, and Eugène saw the tribunes again from the
corner of his eye, and laughed at the shrill "Bravo!" of a little
grisette in a red hat, who flew past him, leaning on the rail.
Vivandière was well into the left reach of the northern loop before
Eugène fairly realized what that smooth, empty width of turf before him
meant. He was leading,--had been leading from the very start! And
somewhere, back there in the gay throng of the pesage, two gray eyes
were watching him, straining to catch each movement of the blue tunic,
each bound of the gallant mare. He threw back his head and laughed at
the clear, wide sky. It was very good to be alive!
So, with a broad sweep to the right, into the home stretch, the last
curve of the giant "8" he had described. It lay ahead, full and fair,
cut by one low hedge. And then--
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sound battered its way into the chasseur's understanding, and hurt
as if it had been, in verity, that of blow on blow. He leaned forward,
spurring the mare to her utmost endeavor. And she responded, but still
the beat of following hoofs grew louder. For Vivandière was
thoroughbred, and she had kept her maddest pace from the start. It was
reserved for racers of ignobler spirit to hold their greatest effort
for the end.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Once more pesage and pelouse rushed down upon him, not now with a murmur
of voices, but with a mighty roar, that swelled, deafening, into his
ears.
"Flambeau! Flambeau! C'est Flambeau qui gagne!"
There was a gasp of short-coming breath at his elbow, a gleam of white,
tense neck, a flash of red breeches and of polished boots, and the
Steeple Chase Militaire was run, with Vivandière second, and the lean,
white Flambeau winner by a length.
The officers rode back slowly, past the applauding tribunes. Eugène saw
dimly that it was a colonel of infantry who rode Flambeau, a metre ahead
of him, but his thoughts were more for Natalie than for himself or his
successful competitor. Poor little girl! She had been so anxious for his
victory, and no doubt so confident, after the brave words of Vieux
César. But, after all,--second! It was not so bad in a field of twelve.
But he had been wrong not to speak to her before he mounted. Well, he
would atone for that, never fear! Moreover, when once they were married,
he would give her Vivandière--the cause of their first meeting--the
reason of their present sympathy! It was a good thought.
Eugène did not find the general and his daughter readily in the vast
throng in the pesage. Three times he made the circuit of the tribunes,
scanning the tiers of seats, and threading his way through the little
wooden chairs upon the turf in front. Once he passed Cavaignac and Mors,
walking arm in arm, who swore at him picturesquely for his defeat.
Vivandière had paid but seventeen francs fifty placé, and so they had
only seventy-five to show for the five louis they had placed upon her
gagnant. The privilege of calling her master tête de laitue was but
trifling recompense, and they strolled on, surprised that one noted for
his eloquence in this variety of obloquy did not deign to reply.
Finally, at the doors of the little refreshment pavilion, and talking
with a colonel of infantry, he found the objects of his quest, and went
up eagerly, saluting. Vieux César greeted him with heartiness.
"Ah, lieutenant! Our preserver of Friday--quoi? Natalie, see who is
here--our preserver of Friday!"
The girl was radiant. Her cheeks were flushed, and the gray eyes shone
with a brightness that set Eugène's heart pounding so hard that he felt
its throbbing must be dimpling the breast of his tunic.
"What a magnificent race!" she said, giving him her hand. "You have
cause to be proud of Vivandière. It is something to have ridden such a
horse."
"It is always something to ride a good horse," said Eugène, looking into
her eyes, "and it is something, also, to be second in a good race, but
it is more to be first. And I had my reasons for wishing to be that,
mademoiselle."
Natalie smiled.
"Ah, sans doute!" she answered. "But you must not call me mademoiselle,
monsieur. You must know that since yesterday I am a serious married
woman. And what is more, my husband rode Flambeau! Am I not a veritable
mascotte?"
She laid her hand on the arm of the officer at her side.
"My husband, Colonel Montrésor," she added. "Paul, this is the officer
of whom I spoke to you--who was so kind--Lieutenant"--
She turned to Eugène, blushing divinely, with an embarrassed little
laugh.
"Oh, pray forgive me!" she said. "I am _so_ stupid--but--but--I have
forgotten your name!"
[Illustration]
Papa Labesse
UP on the Butte Montmartre life is a matter of first principles, and
conventionality an undiscovered affliction. A spade is a spade, and the
blacker it happens to be, the more apt it is to receive its proper
appellation, and the less likely to be confused with the hearts and
diamonds. That is why Papa Labesse had no hesitation in referring to
Bombiste Fremier as a good-for-nothing,--a vaurien.
Just off the boulevard de Rochechouart, in the rue Veron, Papa Labesse
kept a tiny joiner's shop, in which, in his velvet cap with a long
tassel and his ample apron of blue denim, he might be seen daily,
toiling upon various small orders for the quartier. But daily, also,
when the light began to fail, he would discard his apron, and, locking
his shop door, walk slowly up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic,
and through the appropriately rural-looking rue St. Rustique, until he
emerged upon the broad summit of the Butte. Here he would light his
pipe, and, with his legs spread wide, stand motionless by the low
wattled fence at the brink of the bluff, looking off across the city. In
appearance Papa Labesse was not the type of man in whom one would be apt
to look for sentimentality. He was short and very thin, with a hooked
nose and a gray moustache turned up fiercely at the ends, and his skin
was brown and deeply wrinkled, as if he had somehow shrunk or warped;
but then, as Marcelle said of him, it is the rough and crinkled
Brazil-nut that is as full as possible of sweet white meat.
Between these two there had always existed a firm bond of camaraderie.
Marcelle was the daughter of Madame Clapot, who presided over a little
dairy directly opposite the joiner's shop, and on the day when she first
made the astounding discovery that small girls can stand upright and
walk alone, as if by instinct she had made a bee-line for the doorway of
Papa Labesse, and, staggering in, triumphant, had fallen headlong, with
a gurgle of satisfaction, into a great pile of shavings. Thenceforward
she came often and tarried long, and Papa Labesse built houses for her
out of odds and ends of wood, and fashioned miniature articles of
furniture in his spare moments, and had always a bit of sucre-candi or a
little gingerbread figure tucked away in a certain drawer of his table,
which she soon learned to find for herself.
It seemed to Papa Labesse but the week following her first plunge among
his shavings when Marcelle came in, all in white, and with a veil like a
little bride's, to parade her splendor under his delighted eyes, before
going to her first communion. But when he put into her hand the small
white prayerbook he had bought for this great occasion, she had
forgotten all else, and thrown her arms about his neck, entirely
regardless of her finery.
"After maman, thou knowest, Papa Labesse, I love thee best of all the
world!"
And Papa Labesse was properly shocked at this recklessness and said, bon
Dieu! that was a fine veil, then, made to be crushed against an odious
apron covered with chips and sawdust--what? And, as Marcelle ran off to
join Madame Clapot, who was waiting, consumed with mingled pride and
impatience, across the way, the old man wiped his spectacles vigorously,
shook his head several times, and then, suddenly abandoning his work,
three hours before the accustomed time, betook himself to the Butte, and
smoked three pipefuls of tobacco, looking off across the city.
It was at this time that two radical changes came into the life of Papa
Labesse. First, on the very summit of the Butte they began to lay the
foundations for the great church of Sacré-Coeur; and, second, Marcelle
took it into her pretty little head to accompany him on his daily climb.
At first he was disturbed by both these innovations. This curious
afternoon communion of his with the wonderful wide city, which lay
spread out before him like a great gray map, was akin to a religion. He
loved Paris with a love so great that perhaps he himself was barely
able to comprehend its proportions. He was never tired of standing there
and watching her breathing at his feet, of picking out, in the gathering
twilight, the faint white speck to the west that was the arc de
l'Etoile, the domes of the Invalides and the Panthéon, Notre Dame, to
the eastward, and the towers and spires of half a hundred minor temples
and public buildings. He passed from one to the other in a kind of
visual pilgrimage, saying the names over slowly to himself, and
occasionally affecting an air of surprise, as if some one of the
familiar piles had suddenly and unaccountably appeared in a new
locality.
"La Trinité; Notre Dame de Lorette; La Bourse. Tiens! _St. Eustache!_"
At the outset, the serenity of this contemplative hour was seriously
impaired by the creaking of derrick-pulleys and the loud chatter of
wagon-drivers, and hardly less so by the eager questions of Marcelle,
clinging to his hand, her eyes bright with excitement, as she looked out
with him across Paris, or peered down into the vast pit when the masons
were laying the foundations of the big church. But, bit by bit, Papa
Labesse became accustomed to the new conditions; and every night, an
hour before sunset, his high, dry voice summoned Marcelle from the dairy
across the way, and the two set forth together up the long curving
incline of the rue Lepic, and the old man would smoke his pipe by the
low wattled fence at the brink of the bluff, while the child babbled of
her little affairs. Papa Labesse no longer named the domes and spires
now. His eyes rested alternately on the city and on the girl beside him,
and often, when Marcelle was silent, looking off to where the thin,
silver line of the Seine gleamed briefly between distant buildings, he
shook his head several times, tapping the side of his inverted pipe-bowl
against the palm of his hand, long after the ashes had fallen out.
When Marcelle was seventeen, Madame Clapot died suddenly, and the girl
moved from the rue Veron to the home of her aunt, near by, in the rue
Seveste. But the change made no difference in her friendship for Papa
Labesse. All through the ensuing spring she called regularly for him
each afternoon, and they climbed the Butte in company, as before. The
old man would have been completely happy had it not been for Bombiste
Fremier.
Bombiste was an employé of the state,--an humble one, to be sure, but,
nevertheless, part and parcel of the great Administration which includes
every one, from the President of the Republic to the street-sweeper on
the rue Royale. In Fremier's case the employment was brief and not
over-lucrative. He was engaged, for two months only in the twelve, to
mow the grass on the fortifications and in parts of the Bois and the
smaller parks of Paris. For the remainder of the year he lived none knew
how, but he had always a few white pieces in his pocket, and was ready
to treat a comrade at Le Cheval Blanc, the little wine-shop kept by
Bonhomme Pirou at the corner of the boulevard and the rue Seveste. As
regards the source of his income, it is probable that Amélie Chouert,
called La Trompette, by reason of her loud voice, might have divulged
some remarkable particulars. In any event, she was his constant
companion, a sharp-featured, angular woman with snapping black eyes and
a great mop of hair that came down to within an inch of her continuous
line of eyebrow.
Fremier himself was as handsome as a brutal picture,--a giant in
stature, with square shoulders, a thick neck, in which the muscles stood
out like ropes, and the face of an Italian brigand. It is a type of
masculine beauty which goes far in Montmartre, and to it was added a
deep, melodious voice, that, whether in the heat of political argument
or the more complicated phraseology of love, carried complete
conviction. No one blamed La Trompette for her infatuation. As we have
said, life on the Butte is a matter of first principles, and, in view of
the manifest attraction, her position was entirely conceivable. Except
to Papa Labesse.
He was a singularly rigid old man, who took no account of the remarkable
beauty and the irresistible tongue of Fremier, but only of the fact that
he was called Bombiste because he talked against the government at Le
Cheval Blanc, advocating the use of dynamite, and only the bon Dieu knew
what else beside. And if, as La Trompette alleged, he swung his scythe
on the fortifications like a veritable demon, what of that? No,
evidently he was a vaurien!
So it was, that when, one fine May afternoon, Papa Labesse, emerging
from his little shop at the summons of Marcelle, caught a glimpse of
Bombiste slipping around the further corner into the rue Lepic, his
heart gave a sudden great bound and then seemed to stand still. He was
very silent on the way to the Butte, for, moment by moment, the
blackness of untoward premonition was settling upon him. He glanced,
covertly, but again and again, at Marcelle, observing, with a strange,
suddenly acquired power of perception, that she was already a woman. He
had not seemed to notice, day by day, the change in her. Now it dawned
upon him in a flash. No, it was no longer the baby who had fallen
headlong among his shavings, nor yet the child going to her first
communion, all in white and with a veil like a little bride's, nor even
the slender girl who had peered down with him into the vast pit where
the masons were laying the foundations of the big church. It was a woman
who walked beside him, a woman very beautiful, with dark hair, coiled
above a pale, pure face, and great eyes, like crushed violets swimming
in their dew. Papa Labesse caught his breath: Bombiste Fremier!
But Marcelle saw nothing of her companion's preoccupation. She almost
danced beside him up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic,
chaffing, as she passed, the children playing in the gutters, and
pausing continually to sniff at some flower-vender's fragrant wares, or
peer into the window of a tiny shop. She was glowing with health and
happiness: her cheeks dappled with color, her eyes shining. When,
finally, they emerged upon the Butte, she ran to the little wattled
fence, and with her hands clasped behind her head, looked out across the
city. Even when Papa Labesse had come up to her side, she said no word
for several minutes.
They had started later than was usual, and already the daylight had
begun to dim, and the west to turn from red to saffron, and from saffron
to fawn. Directly below them lay a maze of steep and narrow streets,
shelving toward the boulevard de Rochechouart; and far further, to the
southwest, the place de l'Opéra was breaking into the alternate deep red
and glaring white of electric advertising signs, the lettering of which
could not be distinguished from where they stood, but which painted the
faint haze of evening with swiftly changing contrasts of color.
Suddenly Marcelle began to speak, her voice eloquent with a strange, new
music.
"Papa Labesse, dost thou comprehend what all this says to us, this
wonderful city upon which we look each night, thou and I? From
here--what? A bewilderment of lights, a sea of roofs, a murmur of
faintly heard cries. But what does it mean? Surely, it is the voice of
the mother of us all, of Paris, the great, the beautiful--of a woman,
Papa Labesse: that finally, which thou canst never comprehend, pauvre
Papa Labesse!--a woman who says but one word--love! Papa
Labesse--L'amour, l'amour, l'amour!--again, and again, and again,
l'amour!"
There was a long silence. Then, almost timidly, Papa Labesse laid his
hand on hers.
"But thou dost not love, my little one,--thou?" he said.
Marcelle turned suddenly.
"Si, I love!" she answered.
Above the tapering, distant shaft of the Tour Eiffel a tiny cloud caught
the last ray of the departed sun, blazed crimson for an instant, and
then, as suddenly, gloomed to slate-gray.
"Que Dieu te bénisse!" said Papa Labesse, solemnly.
"It is all so wonderful," continued Marcelle after a moment, "and yet I
have never seemed to understand it till to-day,--this great, sweet voice
of Paris. It is indeed as if she was the mother of us all, Papa Labesse,
and was spreading out her arms, and calling us all to come to her heart.
And for each of us she has something good--something better than ever we
have imagined for ourselves, or wished to have; and yet, in whatever
form, it is really the same thing always--l'amour, Papa Labesse,
l'amour!"
Out of the strain of the past half hour a great sob was suddenly wrung
from Papa Labesse. He took the girl's radiant face between his knotted
hands and looked long into her eyes without speaking.
"Tell me, my pigeon," he said, finally, "is it--is it the young
Fremier?"
Marcelle flung both arms about his neck, as she had done on the day when
he had given her the little white prayerbook. He felt her lips, warm
and moist, against his wrinkled ear, and when she spoke, her voice was
like the sound of two leaves grazing each other at the touch of a light
breeze.
"Oui!" she said.
When Marcelle went away with Bombiste Fremier, all the quartier babbled.
Fat fishwives and dairywomen stopped at each others' doors, and said,
wisely, with their heads together and hands on hips, that they had
always known how it would be. Since the first, whatever Bombiste wanted,
that Bombiste was sure to have--what? Did not Madame Rollin remember
how, when a mere baby, he had cried for the little brass dish which hung
in front of his father's salle de coiffure, until, actually, Fremier
père had taken it down and given it to him to cut his first tooth on?
Assuredly, Madame Rollin recalled this astounding incident, and not only
that, but the fact that she herself had spoken to Madame Fremier,
warning her that the result of such folly would be the unhappiness of
some one. But they were all alike, the Fremier. They made no excuses and
took no advice.
There were others who recalled the days when La Trompette was the belle
of the quartier, and as respectable as the best of them. But there, what
wouldst thou? Bombiste had wanted her, so there was nothing to be done.
And the debate invariably ended with a bit of flattery for Bombiste. It
was a beau garçon, after all, name of a good name, with such eyes! And a
tongue, bon Dieu, to draw the cork from a bottle! For there are many
mysteries of human society, but the greatest of these is the good word
of the other women for the man.
Curiously enough, Bombiste's most eloquent partisan was La Trompette
herself. Her first appearance at Le Cheval Blanc, after Fremier's
desertion of her, was the signal for the outburst of ironic condolence.
"Eh! La Trompette, he has planted thee--yes? So the cord is cut, little
one--hein? Did he give thee a reference, at least?"
To these, and many similar compliments, La Trompette returned nothing
beyond a tolerant smile, or--
"One shall see, my children!" she cried, in her shrill voice. "It is not
the first time, you know. Variety, one has need of that in life. Perhaps
we do not know each other, that story and I! Wait a little. In six
weeks we shall be here in company as before, and the little one it will
be who is planted. But I remain. And she who laughs last--what? But,
above all, not a word against Bombiste, unless you have need of the
wherewithal to make broken heads. It is a brave gars, do you understand,
and one who has often enough paid your drinks, types of
good-for-nothings!"
And she planted herself at a table amidst a burst of laughter and
applause (for loyalty is greatly esteemed on the boulevard
Rochechouart), and proceeded to collect interest, in the form of
repeated glasses of cognac, on the past generosities of Bombiste
Fremier.
But the eternal feminine had its part in the make-up of La Trompette,
and so it was that one evening, just at nightfall, she presented herself
at the door of Papa Labesse's little shop. He was always at home now,
poor Papa Labesse, for the growing church of Sacré-Coeur had never once
seen him emerging, breathless but smiling, from the little rue St.
Rustique, since the day when Marcelle disappeared. He stopped his simple
toil at the same hour still, but, instead of stepping out briskly upon
the long, curving incline of the rue Lepic, he would seat himself in
his doorway, and, oftentimes forgetting to light the pipe which he had
filled, stare out wistfully across the street, to where a trim little
laundress stood, busily ironing shirts, in the window of the shop that
had formerly been the dairy of Madame Clapot.
He looked up as La Trompette drew up before his door, and a slight frown
wrinkled for an instant above his patient blue eyes, from which all the
singular intensity seemed gone.
"Thou hast a strange air of solitude, Papa Labesse," began La Trompette,
affecting a tone of solicitude.
Papa Labesse made no reply.