And Barty, whose voice was breaking, would raucously sing him the
good old ditty for the sixth time:
"Weel may the keel row, the keel row, the keel row,
Weel may the keel row
That brings my laddie home!"
which he would find rather difficult to render literally into
colloquial seafaring French!
He translated it thus:
"Vogue la carene,
Vogue la carene
Qui me ramene
Mon bien aime!"
"Ah! vous verrez," says Bonzig--"vous verrez, aux prochaines
vacances de Paques--je ferai un si joli tableau de tout ca! avec la
brume du soir qui tombe, vous savez--et le soleil qui disparait--et
la maree qui monte et la lune qui se leve a l'horizon! et les
mouettes et les goelands--et les bruyeres lointaines--et le vieux
manoir seigneurial de votre grand-pere ... c'est bien ca, n'est-ce
pas?"
"Oui, oui, M'sieur Bonzig--vous y etes, en plein!"
And the good usher in his excitement would light himself a cigarette
of caporal, and inhale the smoke as if it were a sea-breeze, and
exhale it like a regular sou'-wester! and sing:
"Ouile--me--sekile ro,
Tat brinn my ladde ome!"
Barty also brought back with him the complete poetical works of
Byron and Thomas Moore, the gift of his noble grandfather, who
adored these two bards to the exclusion of all other bards that ever
wrote in English. And during that year we both got to know them,
possibly as well as Lord Whitby himself. Especially "Don Juan," in
which we grew to be as word-perfect as in _Polyeucte_, _Le
Misanthrope_, _Athalie_, _Philoctete_, _Le Lutrin_, the first six
books of the AEneid and the Iliad, the _Ars Poetica_, and the _Art
Poetique_ (Boileau).
Every line of these has gone out of my head--long ago, alas! But I
could still stand a pretty severe examination in the now
all-but-forgotten English epic--from Dan to Beersheba--I mean from
"I want a hero" to "The phantom of her frolic grace, Fitz-Fulke!"
Barty, however, remembered everything--what he ought to, and what he
ought not! He had the most astounding memory: wax to receive and
marble to retain; also a wonderful facility for writing verse,
mostly comic, both in English and French. Greek and Latin verse were
not taught us at Brossard's, for good French reasons, into which I
will not enter now.
We also grew very fond of Lamartine and Victor Hugo, quite
openly--and of De Musset under the rose.
"C'etait dans la nuit brune
Sur le clocher jauni,
La lune,
Comme un point sur son i!"
(not for the young person).
[Illustration: "WEEL MAY THE KEEL ROW"]
I have a vague but pleasant impression of that year. Its weathers,
its changing seasons, its severe frosts, with Sunday skatings on the
dangerous canals, St.-Ouen and De l'Ourcq; its genial spring, all
convolvulus and gobeas, and early almond blossom and later
horse-chestnut spikes, and more lime and syringa than ever; its warm
soft summer and the ever-delightful school of notation by the Isle
of Swans.
This particular temptation led us into trouble. We would rise before
dawn, Barty and Jolivet and I, and let ourselves over the wall and
run the two miles, and get a heavenly swim and a promise of silence
for a franc apiece; and run back again and jump into bed a few
minutes before the five-o'clock bell rang the reveille.
But we did this once too often--for M. Dumollard had been looking at
Venus with his telescope (I _think_ it was Venus) one morning before
sunrise, and spied us out _en flagrant delit_; perhaps with that
very telescope. Anyhow, he pounced on us when we came back. And our
punishment would have been extremely harsh but for Barty, who turned
it all into a joke.
After breakfast M. Merovee pronounced a very severe sentence on us
under the acacia. I forget what it was--but his manner was very
short and dignified, and he walked away very stiffly towards the
door of the etude. Barty ran after him without noise, and just
touching his shoulders with the tips of his fingers, cleared him at
a bound from behind, as one clears a post.
M. Merovee, in a _real_ rage this time, forgot his dignity, and
pursued him all over the school--through open windows and back
again--into his own garden (Tusculum)--over trellis railings--all
along the top of a wall--and finally, quite blown out, sat down on
the edge of the tank: the whole school was in fits by this time,
even M. Dumollard--and at last Merovee began to laugh too. So the
thing had to be forgiven--but only that once!
Once also, that year, but in the winter, a great compliment was paid
to la perfide Albion in the persons of MM. Josselin et Maurice,
which I cannot help recording with a little complacency.
On a Thursday walk in the Bois de Boulogne a boy called out "A bas
Dumollard!" in a falsetto squeak. Dumollard, who was on duty that
walk, was furious, of course--but he couldn't identify the boy by
the sound of his voice. He made his complaint to M. Merovee--and
next morning, after prayers, Merovee came into the school-room, and
told us he should go the round of the boys there and then, and ask
each boy separately to own up if it were he who had uttered the
seditious cry.
"And mind you!" he said--"you are all and each of you on your 'word
of honor'--_l'etude entiere_!"
So round he went, from boy to boy, deliberately fixing each boy with
his eye, and severely asking--"Est-ce _toi_?" "Est-ce _toi_?"
"Est-ce _toi_?" etc., and waiting very deliberately indeed for the
answer, and even asking for it again if it were not given in a firm
and audible voice. And the answer was always, "Non, m'sieur, ce
n'est pas moi!"
But when he came to each of _us_ (Josselin and me) he just mumbled
his "Est-ce toi?" in a quite perfunctory voice, and didn't even wait
for the answer!
When he got to the last boy of all, who said "Non, m'sieur," like
all the rest, he left the room, saying, tragically (and, as I
thought, rather theatrically for _him_):
"Je m'en vais le coeur navre--il y a un lache parmi vous!" (My heart
is harrowed--there's a coward among you.)
There was an awkward silence for a few moments.
Presently Rapaud got up and went out. We all knew that Rapaud was
the delinquent--he had bragged about it so--overnight in the
dormitory. He went straight to M. Merovee and confessed, stating
that he did not like to be put on his word of honor before the whole
school. I forget whether he was punished or not, or how. He had to
make his apologies to M. Dumollard, of course.
To put the whole school on its word of honor was thought a very
severe measure, coming as it did from the head master in person. "La
parole d'honneur" was held to be very sacred between boy and boy,
and even between boy and head master. The boy who broke it was
always "mis a la quarantaine" (sent to Coventry) by the rest of the
school.
"I wonder why he let off Josselin and Maurice so easily?" said
Jolivet, at breakfast.
"Parce qu'il aime les Anglais, ma foi!" said M. Dumollard--"affaire
de gout!"
"Ma foi, il n'a pas tort!" said M. Bonzig.
Dumollard looked askance at Bonzig (between whom and himself not
much love was lost) and walked off, jauntily twirling his mustache,
and whistling a few bars of a very ungainly melody, to which the
words ran:
"Non! jamais en France,
Jamais Anglais ne regnera!"
As if we wanted to, good heavens!
(By-the-way, I suddenly remember that both Berquin and d'Orthez were
let off as easily as Josselin and I. But they were eighteen or
nineteen, and "en Philosophie," the highest class in the school--and
very first-rate boys indeed. It's only fair that I should add this.)
By-the-way, also, M. Dumollard took it into his head to persecute me
because once I refused to fetch and carry for him and be his
"moricaud," or black slave (as du Tertre-Jouan called it): a mean
and petty persecution which lasted two years, and somewhat embitters
my memory of those happy days. It was always "Maurice au piquet pour
une heure!"... "Maurice a la retenue!"... "Maurice prive de bain!"...
"Maurice consigne dimanche prochain!" ... for the slightest
possible offence. But I forgive him freely.
First, because he is probably dead, and "de mortibus nil
desperandum!" as Rapaud once said--and for saying which he received
a "twisted pinch" from Merovee Brossard himself.
Secondly, because he made chemistry, cosmography, and physics so
pleasant--and even reconciled me at last to the differential and
integral calculus (but never Barty!).
He could be rather snobbish at times, which was not a common French
fault in the forties--we didn't even know what to call it.
For instance, he was fond of bragging to us boys about the golden
splendors of his Sunday dissipation, and his grand acquaintances,
even in class. He would even interrupt himself in the middle of an
equation at the blackboard to do so.
"You mustn't imagine to yourselves, messieurs, that because I teach
you boys science at the Pension Brossard, and take you out walking
on Thursday afternoons, and all that, that I do not associate _avec
des gens du monde_! Last night, for example, I was dining at the
Cafe de Paris with a very intimate friend of mine--he's a
marquis--and when the bill was brought, what do you think it came
to? you give it up?" (vous donnez votre langue aux chats?). "Well,
it came to fifty-seven francs, fifty centimes! We tossed up who
should pay--et, ma foi, le sort a favorise M. le Marquis!"
To this there was nothing to say; so none of us said anything,
except du Tertre-Jouan, _our_ marquis (No. 2), who said, in his
sulky, insolent, peasantlike manner:
"Et comment q'ca s'appelle, vot' marquis?" (What does it call
itself, your marquis?)
Upon which M. Dumollard turns very red ("pique un soleil"), and
says:
"Monsieur le Marquis Paul--Francois--Victor du Tertre-Jouan de
Haultcastel de St.-Paterne, vous etes un paltoquet et un rustre!..."
And goes back to his equations.
Du Tertre-Jouan was nearly six feet high, and afraid of nobody--a
kind of clodhopping young rustic Hercules, and had proved his mettle
quite recently--when a brutal usher, whom I will call Monsieur
Boulot (though his real name was Patachou), a Meridional with a
Horrible divergent squint, made poor Rapaud go down on his knees in
the classe de geographie ancienne, and slapped him violently on the
face twice running--a way he had with Rapaud.
It happened like this. It was a kind of penitential class for dunces
during play-time. M. Boulot drew in chalk an outline of ancient
Greece on the blackboard, and under it he wrote--
"Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes!"
"Rapaud, translate me that line of Virgil!" says Boulot.
"J'estime les Danois et leurs dents de fer!" says poor Rapaud (I
esteem the Danish and their iron teeth). And we all laughed. For
which he underwent the brutal slapping.
[Illustration: A TERTRE-JOUAN TO THE RESCUE!]
The window was ajar, and outside I saw du Tertre-Jouan, Jolivet, and
Berquin, listening and peeping through. Suddenly the window bursts wide
open, and du Tertre-Jouan vaults the sill, gets between Boulot and his
victim, and says:
"Le troisieme coup fait feu, vous savez! touchez-y encore, a ce
moutard, et j'vous assomme sur place!" (Touch him again, that kid,
and I'll break your head where you stand!).
There was an awful row, of course--and du Tertre-Jouan had to make a
public apology to M. Boulot, who disappeared from the school the
very same day; and Tertre-Jouan would have been canonized by us all,
but that he was so deplorably dull and narrow-minded, and suspected
of being a royalist in disguise. He was an orphan and very rich, and
didn't fash himself about examinations. He left school that year
without taking any degree--and I don't know what became of him.
This year also Barty conceived a tender passion for Mlle. Marceline.
It was after the mumps, which we both had together in a
double-bedded infirmerie next to the lingerie--a place where it was
a pleasure to be ill; for she was in and out all day, and told us
all that was going on, and gave us nice drinks and tisanes of her
own making--and laughed at all Barty's jokes, and some of mine! And
wore the most coquettish caps ever seen.
Besides, she was an uncommonly good-looking woman--a tall blonde
with beautiful teeth, and wonderfully genial, good-humored, and
lively--an ideal nurse, but a terrible postponer of cures! Lord
Archibald quite fell in love with her.
"C'est moi qui voudrais bien avoir les oreillons ici!" he said to
her. "Je retarderais ma convalescence autant que possible!"
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE MARCELINE]
"Comme il sait bien le francais, votre oncle--et comme il est
poli!" said Marceline to the convalescent Barty, who was in no
hurry to get well either!
When we did get well again, Barty would spend much of his play-time
fetching and carrying for Mlle. Marceline--even getting Dumollard's
socks for her to darn--and talking to her by the hour as he sat by
her pleasant window, out of which one could see the Arch of Triumph,
which so triumphantly dominated Paris and its suburbs, and does so
still--no Eiffel Tower can kill that arch!
I, being less precocious, did not begin my passion for Mlle.
Marceline till next year, just as Bonneville and Jolivet trois were
getting over theirs. Nous avons tous passe par la!
What a fresh and kind and jolly woman she was, to be sure! I wonder
none of the masters married her. Perhaps they did! Let us hope it
wasn't M. Dumollard!
It is such a pleasure to recall every incident of this epoch of my
life and Barty's that I should like to go through our joint lives
day by day, hour by hour, microscopically--to describe every book we
read, every game we played, every _pensum_ (_i.e._, imposition) we
performed; every lark we were punished for--every meal we ate. But
space forbids this self-indulgence, and other considerations make it
unadvisable--so I will resist the temptation.
La pension Brossard! How often have we both talked of it, Barty and
I, as middle-aged men; in the billiard-room of the Marathoneum, let
us say, sitting together on a comfortable couch, with tea and
cigarettes--and always in French whispers! we could only talk of
Brossard's in French.
"Te rappelles-tu l'habit neuf de Berquin, et son chapeau
haute-forme?"
[Illustration: "'IF HE ONLY KNEW!'"]
"Te souviens-tu de la vieille chatte angora du pere Jaurion?" etc.,
etc., etc.
Idiotic reminiscences! as charming to revive as any old song with
words of little meaning that meant so much when one was
four--five--six years old! Before one knew even how to spell them!
"Paille a Dine--paille a Chine--
Paille a Suzette et Martine--
Bon lit a la Dumaine!"
Celine, my nurse, used to sing this--and I never knew what it meant;
nor do I now! But it was charming indeed.
Even now I dream that I go back to school, to get coached by
Dumollard in a little more algebra. I wander about the playground;
but all the boys are new, and don't even know my name; and silent,
sad, and ugly, every one! Again Dumollard persecutes me. And in the
middle of it I reflect that, after all, he is a person of no
importance whatever, and that I am a member of the British
Parliament--a baronet--a millionaire--and one of her Majesty's Privy
Councillors! and that M. Dumollard must be singularly "out of it,"
even for a Frenchman, not to be aware of this.
"If he only knew!" says I to myself, says I--in my dream.
Besides, can't the man see with his own eyes that I'm grown up, and
big enough to tuck him under my left arm, and spank him just as if
he were a little naughty boy--confound the brute!
Then, suddenly:
"Maurice, au piquet pour une heure!"
"Moi, m'sieur?"
"Oui, vous!"
"Pourquoi, m'sieur!"
"Parce que ca me plait!"
And I wake--and could almost weep to find how old I am!
And Barty Josselin is no more--oh! my God! ... and his dear wife
survived him just twenty-four hours!
* * * * *