Paul Boielle was a waiter. The word 'waiter' suggests a soft-voiced,
deft-handed being, moving swiftly and without noise in an atmosphere of
luxury and shaded lamps. At Bredin's Parisian Cafe and Restaurant in
Soho, where Paul worked, there were none of these things; and Paul
himself, though he certainly moved swiftly, was by no means noiseless.
His progress through the room resembled in almost equal proportions the
finish of a Marathon race, the star-act of a professional juggler, and
a monologue by an Earl's Court side-showman. Constant acquaintance
rendered regular habitues callous to the wonder, but to a stranger the
sight of Paul tearing over the difficult between-tables course, his
hands loaded with two vast pyramids of dishes, shouting as he went the
mystic word, 'Comingsarecominginamomentsaresteaksareyessarecomingsare!'
was impressive to a degree. For doing far less exacting feats on the
stage music-hall performers were being paid fifty pounds a week. Paul
got eighteen shillings.
What a blessing is poverty, properly considered. If Paul had received
more than eighteen shillings a week he would not have lived in an
attic. He would have luxuriated in a bed-sitting-room on the second
floor; and would consequently have missed what was practically a
genuine north light. The skylight which went with the attic was so
arranged that the room was a studio in miniature, and, as Paul was
engaged in his spare moments in painting a great picture, nothing could
have been more fortunate; for Paul, like so many of our public men,
lived two lives. Off duty, the sprinting, barking juggler of Bredin's
Parisian Cafe became the quiet follower of Art. Ever since his
childhood he had had a passion for drawing and painting. He regretted
that Fate had allowed him so little time for such work; but after all,
he reflected, all great artists had had their struggles--so why not
he? Moreover, they were now nearly at an end. An hour here, an hour
there, and every Thursday a whole afternoon, and the great picture was
within measurable distance of completion. He had won through. Without
models, without leisure, hungry, tired, he had nevertheless triumphed.
A few more touches, and the masterpiece would be ready for purchase. And
after that all would be plain sailing. Paul could forecast the scene so
exactly. The picture would be at the dealer's, possibly--one must not
be too sanguine--thrust away in some odd corner. The wealthy
connoisseur would come in. At first he would not see the masterpiece;
other more prominently displayed works would catch his eye. He would
turn from them in weary scorn, and then!... Paul wondered how big the
cheque would be.
There were reasons why he wanted the money. Looking at him as he
cantered over the linoleum at Bredin's, you would have said that his
mind was on his work. But it was not so. He took and executed orders as
automatically as the penny-in-the-slot musical-box in the corner took
pennies and produced tunes. His thoughts were of Jeanne Le Brocq, his
co-worker at Bredin's, and a little cigar shop down Brixton way which
he knew was in the market at a reasonable rate. To marry the former and
own the latter was Paul's idea of the earthly paradise, and it was the
wealthy connoisseur, and he alone, who could open the gates.
Jeanne was a large, slow-moving Norman girl, stolidly handsome. One
could picture her in a de Maupassant farmyard. In the clatter and
bustle of Bredin's Parisian Cafe she appeared out of place, like a cow
in a boiler-factory. To Paul, who worshipped her with all the fervour
of a little man for a large woman, her deliberate methods seemed all
that was beautiful and dignified. To his mind she lent a tone to the
vulgar whirlpool of gorging humanity, as if she had been some goddess
mixing in a Homeric battle. The whirlpool had other views--and
expressed them. One coarse-fibred brute, indeed, once went so far as to
address to her the frightful words, ''Urry up, there, Tottie! Look
slippy.' It was wrong, of course, for Paul to slip and spill an order
of scrambled eggs down the brute's coat-sleeve, but who can blame him?
Among those who did not see eye to eye with Paul in his views on
deportment in waitresses was M. Bredin himself, the owner of the
Parisian Cafe; and it was this circumstance which first gave Paul the
opportunity of declaring the passion which was gnawing him with the
fierce fury of a Bredin customer gnawing a tough steak against time
during the rush hour. He had long worshipped her from afar, but nothing
more intimate than a 'Good morning, Miss Jeanne', had escaped him,
till one day during a slack spell he came upon her in the little
passage leading to the kitchen, her face hidden in her apron, her back
jerking with sobs.
Business is business. Paul had a message to deliver to the cook
respecting 'two fried, coffee, and one stale'. He delivered it and
returned. Jeanne was still sobbing.
'Ah, Miss Jeanne,' cried Paul, stricken, 'what is the matter? What is
it? Why do you weep?'
'The _patron_,' sobbed Jeanne. 'He--'
'My angel,' said Paul, 'he is a pig.'
This was perfectly true. No conscientious judge of character could have
denied that Paul had hit the bull's eye. Bredin was a pig. He looked
like a pig; he ate like a pig; he grunted like a pig. He had the lavish
embonpoint of a pig. Also a porcine soul. If you had tied a bit of blue
ribbon round his neck you could have won prizes with him at a show.
Paul's eyes flashed with fury. 'I will slap him in the eye,' he roared.
'He called me a tortoise.'
'And kick him in the stomach,' added Paul.
Jeanne's sobs were running on second speed now. The anguish was
diminishing. Paul took advantage of the improved conditions to slide an
arm part of the way round her waist. In two minutes he had said as much
as the ordinary man could have worked off in ten. All good stuff, too.
No padding.
Jeanne's face rose from her apron like a full moon. She was too
astounded to be angry.
Paul continued to babble. Jeanne looked at him with growing wrath. That
she, who received daily the affectionate badinage of gentlemen in
bowler hats and check suits, who had once been invited to the White
City by a solicitor's clerk, should be addressed in this way by a
waiter! It was too much. She threw off his hand.
'Wretched little man!' she cried, stamping angrily.
'My angel!' protested Paul.
Jeanne uttered a scornful laugh.
'You!' she said.
There are few more withering remarks than 'You!' spoken in a certain
way. Jeanne spoke it in just that way.
Paul wilted.
'On eighteen shillings a week,' went on Jeanne, satirically, 'you would
support a wife, yes? Why--'
Paul recovered himself. He had an opening now, and proceeded to use it.
'Listen,' he said. 'At present, yes, it is true, I earn but eighteen
shillings a week, but it will not always be so, no. I am not only a
waiter. I am also an artist. I have painted a great picture. For a
whole year I have worked, and now it is ready. I will sell it, and
then, my angel--?'
Jeanne's face had lost some of its scorn. She was listening with some
respect. 'A picture?' she said, thoughtfully. 'There is money in
pictures.'
For the first time Paul was glad that his arm was no longer round her
waist. To do justice to the great work he needed both hands for
purposes of gesticulation.
'There is money in this picture,' he said. 'Oh, it is beautiful. I call
it "The Awakening". It is a woodland scene. I come back from my work
here, hot and tired, and a mere glance at that wood refreshes me. It is
so cool, so green. The sun filters in golden splashes through the
foliage. On a mossy bank, between two trees, lies a beautiful girl
asleep. Above her, bending fondly over her, just about to kiss that
flower-like face, is a young man in the dress of a shepherd. At the
last moment he has looked over his shoulder to make sure that there is
nobody near to see. He is wearing an expression so happy, so proud,
that one's heart goes out to him.'
'Yes, there might be money in that,' cried Jeanne.
'There is, there is!' cried Paul. 'I shall sell it for many francs to a
wealthy connoisseur. And then, my angel--'
'You are a good little man,' said the angel, patronizingly. 'Perhaps.
We will see.'
Paul caught her hand and kissed it. She smiled indulgently. 'Yes,' she
said. 'There might be money. These English pay much money for pictures.'
* * * * *
It is pretty generally admitted that Geoffrey Chaucer, the eminent poet
of the fourteenth century, though obsessed with an almost Rooseveltian
passion for the new spelling, was there with the goods when it came to
profundity of thought. It was Chaucer who wrote the lines:
The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.
Which means, broadly, that it is difficult to paint a picture, but a
great deal more difficult to sell it.
Across the centuries Paul Boielle shook hands with Geoffrey Chaucer.
'So sharpe the conquering' put his case in a nutshell.
The full story of his wanderings with the masterpiece would read like
an Odyssey and be about as long. It shall be condensed.
There was an artist who dined at intervals at Bredin's Parisian Cafe,
and, as the artistic temperament was too impatient to be suited by
Jeanne's leisurely methods, it had fallen to Paul to wait upon him. It
was to this expert that Paul, emboldened by the geniality of the
artist's manner, went for information. How did monsieur sell his
pictures? Monsieur said he didn't, except once in a blue moon. But when
he did? Oh, he took the thing to the dealers. Paul thanked him. A
friend of him, he explained, had painted a picture and wished to sell
it.
'Poor devil!' was the artist's comment.
Next day, it happening to be a Thursday, Paul started on his travels.
He started buoyantly, but by evening he was as a punctured balloon.
Every dealer had the same remark to make--to wit, no room.
'Have you yet sold the picture?' inquired Jeanne, when they met. 'Not
yet,' said Paul. 'But they are delicate matters, these negotiations. I
use finesse. I proceed with caution.'
He approached the artist again.
'With the dealers,' he said, 'my friend has been a little unfortunate.
They say they have no room.'
'_I_ know,' said the artist, nodding.
'Is there, perhaps, another way?'
'What sort of a picture is it?' inquired the artist.
Paul became enthusiastic.
'Ah! monsieur, it is beautiful. It is a woodland scene. A beautiful
girl--'
'Oh! Then he had better try the magazines. They might use it for a
cover.'
Paul thanked him effusively. On the following Thursday he visited
divers art editors. The art editors seemed to be in the same unhappy
condition as the dealers. 'Overstocked!' was their cry.
'The picture?' said Jeanne, on the Friday morning. 'Is it sold?'
'Not yet,' said Paul, 'but--'
'Always but!'
'My angel!'
'Bah!' said Jeanne, with a toss of her large but shapely head.
By the end of the month Paul was fighting in the last ditch, wandering
disconsolately among those who dwell in outer darkness and have grimy
thumbs. Seven of these in all he visited on that black Thursday, and
each of the seven rubbed the surface of the painting with a grimy
thumb, snorted, and dismissed him. Sick and beaten, Paul took the
masterpiece back to his skylight room.
All that night he lay awake, thinking. It was a weary bundle of nerves
that came to the Parisian Cafe next morning. He was late in arriving,
which was good in that it delayed the inevitable question as to the
fate of the picture, but bad in every other respect. M. Bredin,
squatting behind the cash-desk, grunted fiercely at him; and, worse,
Jeanne, who, owing to his absence, had had to be busier than suited her
disposition, was distant and haughty. A murky gloom settled upon Paul.
Now it so happened that M. Bredin, when things went well with him, was
wont to be filled with a ponderous amiability. It was not often that
this took a practical form, though it is on record that in an exuberant
moment he once gave a small boy a halfpenny. More frequently it merely
led him to soften the porcine austerity of his demeanour. Today,
business having been uncommonly good, he felt pleased with the world.
He had left his cash-desk and was assailing a bowl of soup at one of
the side-tables. Except for a belated luncher at the end of the room
the place was empty. It was one of the hours when there was a lull in
the proceedings at the Parisian Cafe. Paul was leaning, wrapped in the
gloom, against the wall. Jeanne was waiting on the proprietor.
M. Bredin finished his meal and rose. He felt content. All was well
with the world. As he lumbered to his desk he passed Jeanne. He
stopped. He wheezed a compliment. Then another. Paul, from his place by
the wall, watched with jealous fury.