"Que ne puis-je aller ou s'en vont les roses,
Et n'attendre pas
Ces regrets navrants que la fin des choses
Nous garde ici-bas!"--Anon.
Barty worked very hard, and so did I--for _me_!
Horace--Homer--AEschylus--Plato--etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and
all there was to learn in that French school-boy's encyclopaedia--"Le
Manuel du Baccalaureat"; a very thick book in very small print. And
I came to the conclusion that it is good to work hard: it makes one
enjoy food and play and sleep so keenly--and Thursday afternoons.
The school was all the pleasanter for having fewer boys; we got more
intimate with each other, and with the masters too. During the
winter M. Bonzig told us capital stories--_Modeste Mignon_, by
Balzac--_Le Chevalier de Maison-rouge_, by A. Dumas pere--etc., etc.
In the summer the Passy swimming-bath was more delightful than ever.
Both winter and summer we passionately fenced with a pupil (un
prevot) of the famous M. Bonnet, and did gymnastics with M. Louis,
the gymnastic master of the College Charlemagne--the finest man I
ever saw--a gigantic dwarf six feet high, all made up of lumps of
sinew and muscles, like....
Also, we were taught equitation at the riding-school in the Rue
Duphot.
On Saturday nights Barty would draw a lovely female profile, with a
beautiful big black eye, in pen and ink, and carefully shade it;
especially the hair, which was always as the raven's wing! And on
Sunday morning he and I used to walk together to 108 Champs Elysees
and enter the rez-de-chaussee (where my mother and sister lived) by
the window, before my mother was up. Then Barty took out his lovely
female pen-and-ink profile to gaze at, and rolled himself a
cigarette and lit it, and lay back on the sofa, and made my sister
play her lightest music--"La pluie de Perles," by Osborne--and
"Indiana," a beautiful valse by Marcailhou--and thus combine three
or four perfect blisses in one happy quart d'heure.
Then my mother would appear, and we would have breakfast--after
which Barty and I would depart by the window as we had come, and go
and do our bit of Boulevard and Palais Royal. Then to the Rue du Bac
for another breakfast with the Rohans; and then, "_au petit
bonheur_"; that is, trusting to Providence for whatever turned up.
The programme didn't vary very much: either I dined with him at the
Rohans', or he with me at 108. Then, back to Brossard's at
ten--tired and happy.
One Sunday I remember well we stayed in school, for old Josselin the
fisherman came to see us there--Barty's grandfather, now a widower;
and M. Merovee asked him to lunch with us, and go to the baths in
the afternoon.
Imagine old Bonzig's delight in this "_vieux loup de mer_," as he
called him! That was a happy day for the old fisherman also; I shall
never forget his surprise at M. Dumollard's telescope--and how
clever he was on the subject.
He came to the baths, and admired and criticised the good swimming
of the boys--especially Barty's, which was really remarkable. I
don't believe he could swim a stroke himself.
Then we went and dined together at Lord Archibald's, in the Rue du
Bac--"Mon Colonel," as the old fisherman always called him. He was a
very humorous and intelligent person, this fisher, though nearer
eighty than seventy; very big, and of a singularly picturesque
appearance--for he had not _endimanche_ himself in the least; and
very clean. A splendid old man; oddly enough, somewhat Semitic of
aspect--as though he had just come from a miraculous draught of
fishes in the Sea of Galilee, out of a cartoon by Raphael!
I recollect admiring how easily and pleasantly everything went
during dinner, and all through the perfection of this ancient
sea-toiler's breeding in all essentials.
Of course the poor all over the world are less nice in their habits
than the rich, and less correct in their grammar and accent, and
narrower in their views of life; but in every other respect there
seemed little to choose between Josselins and Rohans and
Lonlay-Savignacs; and indeed, according to Lord Archibald, the best
manners were to be found at these two opposite poles--or even wider
still. He would have it that Royalty and chimney-sweeps were the
best-bred people all over the world--because there was no possible
mistake about their social status.
I felt a little indignant--after all, Lady Archibald was built out
of chocolate, for all her Lonlay and her Savignac! just as I was
built out of Beaune and Chambertin.
I'm afraid I shall be looked upon as a snob and a traitor to my
class if I say that I have at last come to be of the same opinion
myself. That is, if absolute simplicity, and the absence of all
possible temptation to try and seem an inch higher up than we really
are--But there! this is a very delicate question, about which I
don't care a straw; and there are such exceptions, and so many, to
confirm any such rule!
Anyhow, I saw how Barty _couldn't help_ having the manners we all so
loved him for. After dinner Lady Archibald showed old Josselin some
of Barty's lovely female profiles--a sight that affected him
strangely. He would have it that they were all exact portraits of
his beloved Antoinette, Barty's mother.
They were certainly singularly like each other, these little
chefs-d'oeuvre of Barty's, and singularly handsome--an ideal type of
his own; and the old grandfather was allowed his choice, and
touchingly grateful at being presented with such treasures.
The scene made a great impression on me.
* * * * *
So spent itself that year--a happy year that had no history--except
for one little incident that I will tell because it concerns Barty,
and illustrates him.
One beautiful Sunday morning the yellow omnibus was waiting for some
of us as we dawdled about in the school-room, titivating; the
masters nowhere, as usual on a Sunday morning; and some of the boys
began to sing in chorus a not very edifying _chanson_, which they
did not "Bowdlerize," about a holy Capuchin friar; it began (if I
remember rightly):
"C'etait un Capucin, oui bien, un pere Capucin,
Qui confessait trois filles--
Itou, itou, itou, la la la!
Qui confessait trois filles
Au fond de son jardin--
Oui bien--
Au fond de son jardin!
Il dit a la plus jeune--
Itou, itou, itou, la la la!
Il dit a la plus jeune
... 'Vous reviendrez demain!'"
Etc, etc., etc.