THREE GUIDES
It was only by intuition, and by asking many questions, that at times
I could extract the significance of certain places from Barfleur as
quickly as I wished. He was always reticent or a little cryptic in his
allusions. In this instance I gathered rapidly however that this bar
was a very extraordinary little restaurant presided over by a woman
of a most pleasant and practical type. She could not have been much
over forty--buxom, good-looking, self-reliant, efficient. She moved
about the two rooms which constituted her restaurant, in so far as
the average diner was concerned, with an air of considerable social
importance. Her dresses, as I noticed on my several subsequent visits,
were always sober, but in excellent taste. About this time of day the
two rooms were a little dark, the electric lights being reserved for
the more crowded hours. Yet there were always a few people here. This
evening when we entered I noticed a half-dozen men and three or four
young women lounging here in a preliminary way, consuming _apéritifs_
and chatting sociably. I made out by degrees that the mistress of this
place had a following of a kind, in the Parisian scheme of things--that
certain men and women came here for reasons of good-fellowship; and
that she would take a certain type of struggling maiden, if she were
good-looking and ambitious and smart, under her wing. The girl would
have to know how to dress well, to be able to carry herself with an
air; and when money was being spent very freely by an admirer it might
as well be spent at this bar on occasion as anywhere else. There was
obviously an _entente cordiale_ between Madame G. and all the young
women who came in here. They seemed so much at home that it was quite
like a family party. Everybody appeared to be genial, cheerful, and to
know everybody else. To enter here was to feel as though you had lived
in Paris for years.
While we are sitting at a table sipping a brandy and soda, enter Mme.
de B., the brisk, genial, sympathetic French personage whose voice
on the instant gave me a delightful impression of her. It was the
loveliest voice I have ever heard, soft and musical, a colorful voice
touched with both gaiety and sadness. Her eyes were light blue, her
hair brown and her manner sinuous and insinuating. She seemed to have
the spirit of a delightfully friendly collie dog or child and all the
gaiety and alertness that goes with either.
After I had been introduced, she laughed, and putting aside her muff
and stole, shook herself into a comfortable position in a corner and
accepted a brandy and soda. She was so interested for the moment,
exchanging whys and wherefores with Barfleur, that I had a chance to
observe her keenly. In a moment she turned to me and wanted to know
whether I knew either of two American authors whom she knew--men of
considerable repute. Knowing them both very well, it surprised me
to think that she knew them. She seemed, from the way she spoke, to
have been on the friendliest terms with both of them; and any one by
looking at her could have understood why they should have taken such an
interest in her.
“Now, you know, that Mistaire N., he is very nice. I was very fond of
him. And Mistaire R., he is clever, don’t you think?”
I admitted at once that they were both very able men and that I was
glad that she knew them. She informed me that she had known Mr. R. and
Mr. N. in London and that she had there perfected her English, which
was very good indeed. Barfleur explained in full who I was and how long
I would be in Paris and that he had written her from America because he
wanted her to show me some attention during my stay in Paris.
If Mme. de B. had been of a somewhat more calculating type I fancy
that, with her intense charm of face and manner and her intellect and
voice, she would have been very successful. I gained the impression
that she had been on the stage in some small capacity; but she had been
too diffident--not really brazen enough--for the grim world in which
the French actress rises. I soon found that Mme. de B. was a charming
blend of emotion, desire, and refinement which had strayed into the
wrong field. She would have done better in literature or music or art;
and she seemed fitted by her moods and her understanding to be a light
in any one of them or all. Some temperaments are so--missing by a
fraction what they would give all the world to have. It is the little
things that do it--the fractions, the bits, the capacity for taking
pains in little things that make, as so many have said, the difference
between success and failure and it is true.
I shall never forget how she looked at me, quite in the spirit of a
gay uncertain child, and how quickly she made me feel that we would
get along very well together. “Why, yes,” she said quite easily in her
soft voice, “I will go about with you, although I would not know what
is best to see. But I shall be here, and if you want to come for me we
can see things together.” Suddenly she reached over and took my hand
and squeezed it genially, as though to seal the bargain. We had more
drinks to celebrate this rather festive occasion; and then Mme. de
B., promising to join us at the theater, went away. It was high time
then to dress for dinner; and so we returned to the hotel. We ate a
companionable meal, watching the Parisian and his lady love (or his
wife) arrive in droves and dine with that gusto and enthusiasm which is
so characteristic of the French.
When we came out of this theater at half after eleven, Mme. de B. was
anxious to return to her apartment, and Barfleur was anxious to give me
an extra taste of the varied café life of Paris in order that I might
be able to contrast and compare intelligently. “If you know where they
are and see whether you like them, you can tell whether you want to see
any more of them--which I hope you won’t,” said he wisely, leading the
way through a swirling crowd that was for all the world like a rushing
tide of the sea.
There are no traffic laws in Paris, so far as I could make out;
vehicles certainly have the right-of-way and they go like mad. I have
read of the Parisian authorities having imported a London policeman
to teach Paris police the art of traffic regulation, but if so, the
instruction has been wasted. This night was a bedlam of vehicles and
people. A Paris guide, one of the tribe that conducts the morbid
stranger through scenes that are supposedly evil, and that I know from
observation to be utterly vain, approached us in the Boulevard des
Capucines with the suggestion that he be allowed to conduct us through
a realm of filthy sights, some of which he catalogued. I could give a
list of them if I thought any human organization would ever print them,
or that any individual would ever care to read them--which I don’t. I
have indicated before that Barfleur is essentially clean-minded. He is
really interested in the art of the demi-mondaine, and the spectacle
which their showy and, to a certain extent, artistic lives present;
but no one in this world ever saw more clearly through the shallow
make-believe of this realm than he does. He contents himself with
admiring the art and the tragedy and the pathos of it. This world of
women interests him as a phase of the struggle for existence, and for
the artistic pretense which it sometimes compels. To him the vast
majority of these women in Paris were artistic--whatever one might
say for their morals, their honesty, their brutality and the other
qualities which they possess or lack; and whatever they were, life made
them so--conditions over which their temperaments, understandings and
wills had little or no control. He is an amazingly tolerant man--one
of the most tolerant I have ever known, and kindly in his manner and
intention.
Nevertheless, he has an innate horror of the purely physical when it
descends to inartistic brutality. There is much of that in Paris; and
these guides advertise it; but it is filth especially arranged for the
stranger. I fancy the average Parisian knows nothing about it; and if
he does, he has a profound contempt for it. So has the well-intentioned
stranger, but there is always an audience for this sort of thing.
So when this guide approached us with the proposition to show us a
selected line of vice, Barfleur took him genially in hand. “Stop a
moment, now,” he said, with his high hat on the back of his head, his
fur coat expansively open, and his monocled eye fixing the intruder
with an inquiring gaze, “tell me one thing--have you a mother?”
The small Jew who was the industrious salesman for this particular type
of ware looked his astonishment.
They are used to all sorts of set-backs--these particular guides--for
they encounter all sorts of people, severely moral and the reverse;
and I fancy on occasion they would be soundly trounced if it were not
for the police who stand in with them and receive a modicum for their
protection. They certainly learn to understand something of the type
of man who will listen to their proposition; for I have never seen
them more than ignored and I have frequently seen them talked to in an
off-hand way, though I was pleased to note that their customers were
few.
This particular little Jew had a quizzical, screwed-up expression on
his face, and did not care to answer the question at first; but resumed
his announcement of his various delights and the price it would all
cost.
“Wait, wait, wait,” insisted Barfleur, “answer my question. Have you a
mother?”
“What has that got to do with it?” asked the guide. “Of course I have a
mother.”
“Where is she?” demanded Barfleur authoritatively.
“She’s at home,” replied the guide, with an air of mingled
astonishment, irritation and a desire not to lose a customer.
“Does she know that you are out here on the streets of Paris doing what
you are doing to-night?” he continued with a very noble air.
The man swore under his breath.
“Answer me,” persisted Barfleur, still fixing him solemnly through his
monocle. “Does she?”
“Why, no, of course she doesn’t,” replied the Jew sheepishly.
“Would you want her to know?” This in sepulchral tones.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Have you a sister?”
“Yes.”
“Would you want her to know?”
“I don’t know,” replied the guide defiantly. “She might know anyhow.”
“Tell me truly, if she did not know, would you want her to know?”
The poor vender looked as if he had got into some silly, inexplicable
mess from which he would be glad to free himself; but he did not seem
to have sense enough to walk briskly away and leave us. Perhaps he did
not care to admit defeat so easily.
“No, I suppose not,” replied the interrogated vainly.
“There you have it,” exclaimed Barfleur triumphantly. “You have a
mother--you would not want her to know. You have a sister--you would
not want her to know. And yet you solicit me here on the street to
see things which I do not want to see or know. Think of your poor
gray-headed mother,” he exclaimed grandiloquently, and with a mock
air of shame and sorrow. “Once, no doubt, you prayed at her knee, an
innocent boy yourself.”
The man looked at him in dull suspicion.
“No doubt if she saw you here to-night, selling your manhood for a
small sum of money, pandering to the lowest and most vicious elements
in life, she would weep bitter tears. And your sister--don’t you think
now you had better give up this evil life? Don’t you think you had
better accept any sort of position and earn an honest living rather
than do what you are doing?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the man. “This living is as good as any
other living. I’ve worked hard to get my knowledge.”
“Good God, do you call this knowledge?” inquired Barfleur solemnly.
“Yes, I do,” replied the man. “I’ve worked hard to get it.”
[Illustration: These places were crowded with a gay and festive
throng]
“My poor friend,” replied Barfleur, “I pity you. From the bottom of my
heart I pity you. You are degrading your life and ruining your soul.
Come now, to-morrow is Sunday. The church bells will be ringing. Go to
church. Reform your life. Make a new start--do. You will never regret
it. Your old mother will be so glad--and your sister.”
“Oh, say,” said the man, walking off, “you don’t want a guide. You want
a church.” And he did not even look back.
“It is the only way I have of getting rid of them,” commented Barfleur.
“They always stop when I begin to talk to them about their mother. They
can’t stand the thought of their mother.”
“Very true,” I said. “Cut it out now, and come on. You have preached
enough. Let us see the worst that Paris has to show.” And off we went,
arm in arm.
Thereafter we visited restaurant after restaurant,--high, low, smart,
dull,-and I can say truly that the strange impression which this world
made on me lingers even now. Obviously, when we arrived at Fysher’s
at twelve o’clock, the fun was just getting under way. Some of these
places, like this Bar Fysher, were no larger than a fair-sized room in
an apartment, but crowded with a gay and festive throng--Americans,
South Americans, English and others. One of the tricks in Paris to
make a restaurant successful is to keep it small so that it has an
air of overflow and activity. Here at Fysher’s Bar, after allowing
room for the red-jacketed orchestra, the piano and the waiters, there
was scarcely space for the forty or fifty guests who were present.
Champagne was twenty francs the bottle and champagne was all they
served. It was necessary here, as at all the restaurants, to contribute
to the support of the musicians; and if a strange young woman should
sit at your table for a moment and share either the wine or the fruit
which would be quickly offered, you would have to pay for that. Peaches
were three francs each, and grapes five francs the bunch. It was plain
that all these things were offered in order that the house might thrive
and prosper. It was so at each and all of them.