LARES AND PENATES IN THE RUE SERVANDONI
We spent the first anniversary of our wedding in Egypt. A week later we
arrived in Paris. For prospective residents as well as for tourists,
June is the best time of the year to reach Paris. You have good weather
and long days, both essentials of successful home-hunting. It is an
invariable rule in Paris to divide the year in quarters, beginning with
the fifteenth of January, April, July and October. Whether you are
looking for a modest _logement_ on a three months' lease or a _grand
appartement-confort moderne_--on a three years' lease, the dates of
entry are the same. One rarely breaks in between terms. If you have
passed one period, you must wait for the next _trimestre_. The person
who is leaving the apartment you rent might be perfectly willing to
accommodate you, but he has to wait to get into his new place. So when
we went to the _pension_, we had before us the best home-hunting weeks
of the year, with the expectation of being able to get settled somewhere
on July 15th.
At the _pension_, our room faced on the court, and the _personnel_, from
Mademoiselle Guyénot down to Victorine and François, assured us that we
need not feel bound to stay at home on the days Marie could not come to
us. Marie for years had been sewing four different days of the week for
old _patrons_, and we did not feel certain enough of our own plans and
purse to accept the responsibility of her giving up a sure thing.
"Go out all you want to," urged our friends. "You only have to think
about meal times for the baby. Someone is always in the court sewing or
sorting the laundry or preparing vegetables. Your window is open. We
cannot fail to hear the baby."
But a chorus of _bien sûr_ and _parfaitement_ and _soyez tranquille_ did
not reassure what was as new born as Christine herself--the maternal
instinct. A letter from Herbert's father solved the problem. He inclosed
the money for a baby carriage. We carried Scrappie down the Boulevard
Raspail to the little square in front of the Bon Marché. I kept her on a
bench while Herbert went in to follow my directions as well as he could.
In a few minutes he came out and said he would rather take care of the
baby. It was the first time I had seen him stumped. So I had the joy I
had hoped would be mine all along but of which I did not want to deprive
my husband, seeing that we could not share it. The reader may ask why we
didn't take the baby inside. But it will not be a young mother who puts
that question! With one's firstborn, one sees contagion stalking in
every place where crowds gather indoors.[B]
[B] The critic would have me insert a modification here. Why confine the
fear of the young mother to _indoors_? The critic insists that I used to
be afraid of taking Scrappie into any sort of a crowd, and that my
supersensitive ear translated the bark of every kiddie with a cold into
whooping cough, while I saw measles in mosquito bites on children's
faces.
[Illustration: The Rue de Vaugirard by the Luxembourg]
We did not intend to consider a home that was not within baby-carriage
distance of the Rue Madame. In fact, after a few days in the Luxembourg
Quarter, we were determined to live as near the Garden as possible.
There we were within walking distance of the Bibliothèque Nationale and
the Sorbonne and the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques. Marie, whom
the fact that I was my Mother's daughter did not blind to the extent of
the Gibbons family resources, urged the Bois de Vincennes. But we would
not hear of it.
It is strange how rich and poor rub elbows with each other in their
homes. Paris is no different from American cities in this respect. The
kind of an apartment we _wanted_ would cost more than our total income,
as rents around the Luxembourg for places equipped with electric lights
and bathtubs and central heating seemed to be as expensive as around the
Etoile. Then in the same street--sometimes next door--you had the other
extreme. Our finances pointed to a _logement_ in a workingmen's
tenement. Care for Scrappie's health made our hearts sink every time we
were shown a place that seemed within our means.
Of course there were reasonable places: for many others who demanded
cleanliness had no more money than we. But the Latin and Montparnasse
Quarters are the Mecca of slim-pursed foreigners. People foolish enough
to study or sing or paint are almost invariably poor. Perhaps that is
the reason! We had lots of exercise, and came to know every street
between the Luxembourg and the Seine. Our good fortune arrived
unexpectedly as good fortune always arrives to those who will not be
side-tracked.
Between the Rue Vaugirard and Saint-Sulpice are three tiny streets, the
houses on the opposite sides of which almost rub cornices. The Rue Férou
is opposite the Musée de Luxembourg. On the Rue de Vaugirard is the home
of Massenet. We used to get a glimpse of him occasionally on his
_terrasse_--a sort of roof-garden with a vine-covered lattice on top of
the low Rue Férou wing of his house. The other two streets paralleling
the Rue Férou from the Palais du Luxembourg to the Eglise Saint-Sulpice
are the Rue Servandoni and the Rue Garancière.
On the morning of the Fourth of July we had been diving in and out the
side streets of the Rue Bonaparte and the Boulevard Saint-Germain. At
Scrappie's meal time, we came to a bench in the Square in front of
Saint-Sulpice. It wasn't a bit like a holiday. It was sultry and looked
like rain. We were wondering whether we had better not hurry back to the
_pension_ for fear of getting the baby wet. Just then people began to
stop and look up. A huge balloon was above us. And it carried the
American flag.
"You can't beat it," said my husband. "And we are Americans. Ergo, you
can't beat us!"
Did the sight of the flag do the trick? Anyway, it was our Japanese
"last quarter of an hour." We had come down through the Rue Férou. We
went back for the twentieth time in twenty days through the Rue
Servandoni. Grey houses, topped with beehive chimneys, leaned amicably
against each other and broke the sky line as well as the municipal
_réglement_ (made long after they were) concerning the distance between
houses on opposite sides of streets. Our hearts nearly stopped beating
when we reached Number 21. There was the magic sign (it had not been
there yesterday): _Appartement à Louer_. We stopped short in the middle
of the street. The side-walks are not wide enough to walk on, much less
wheel a baby-carriage along. The grocer on the ground floor saw us take
the bait. Out he came. Did Monsieur and Madame care to see the
_appartement_? If so, he was concierge as well as grocer. He would show
us the place. We drew the new baby-carriage into the dark vestibule and
went up one easy flight of oak balustraded stairs. The grocer pulled a
red-braided bell rope.
A man in shirt-sleeves opened the door. We stepped into a tiny
dining-room where the gas was lit although it was noon. The wall-paper
was yellow, and had sprawling brown figures like beetles. A dark passage
led into an immense room with a generous fireplace. Two windows opened
on the Rue Servandoni. It was a paper-hanger's shop with ladders,
brushes, buckets, rolls and rolls of paper and barrels of flour-paste
around. But the fellow in shirt-sleeves assured us that when his
fittings were out, we would realize what a handsome room it was. "The
dining-room is dark," he admitted, "but you can't match this room for
light and size in any two-room apartment in the Quarter. I know them
all. I am leaving because I have found a ground floor shop. I'll put new
paper on here very cheap."
The _locataire_ assumed that we would take it. So did the
grocer-concierge. Without our asking, Monsieur Sempé told us that the
rent would be one hundred and fifty francs a quarter. We did not have to
make a troublesome lease, just a little agreement involving three
months' notification on either side.
"Don't forget," said Sempé, "that this old house sits between two modern
apartment buildings. The walls are warm. Your neighbors have steam
heat."
"True," confirmed the paper-hanger. But he did not want us to think that
we could be altogether vicariously heated. "Possibly you may not have
noticed," he added, "the fireplace in the dining-room. It heats almost
as well as this one. I'll sell you my grates. _Boulets_ make the best
fire."
The thrill of admiration I had for my husband's magnificent courage when
he signed the paper, and paid out fifty of his last hundred francs "on
account" is with me still.
"We are sure to be able to pay our rent," said he, as we went back to
the _pension_. "We couldn't expect to get anything for less than ten
dollars a month. The first installment of the fellowship money will come
next week, and before then I shall certainly get something out of the
_Herald_. It will have to be enough to buy our furniture."
It never rains but it pours. At the _pension_ we found a letter from Mr.
James Gordon Bennett, asking Herbert to call that afternoon at three
o'clock at 104 Avenue des Champs-Elysées. It was in a blue envelope with
a little owl embossed on the flap, and was signed "J. G. BENNETT" in
blue pencil almost the color of the paper. How often we were to see this
envelope and this signature, and what luck it was going to bring us! We
thought the occasion demanded a celebration. I did Scrappie and myself
up in our best, and we set forth for the Champs-Elysées in an open
_fiacre_--our first ride since we came from the Boulevard Diderot to the
Rue Madame. We waited in the carriage while Herbert went in to collect
his money for the Adana massacre stories.
I watched the door of the big apartment house anxiously. Our furniture
and the rest of the rent for the apartment depended upon the success of
the visit. Half an hour later Herbert's face told me that all was well.
He had sent in a bill of four hundred dollars, and fifty dollars
expenses. Mr. Bennett, he told me, began by scolding him for not making
it in francs, and then gave him a check for twenty-five hundred francs,
which more than covered what Herbert asked for. The Commodore then
offered Herbert a position at five hundred francs a week, and was
surprised when it was declined. He seemed much amused when Herbert
explained that he had come to Paris to study. "But you will go on
special trips in an emergency," said Mr. Bennett. It is enough to say
that the "emergencies" occurred often enough to tide over many a
financial difficulty during years that followed.
Provided with funds after passing by the bank, we took Christine to
Rumpelmayer's to tea, and then drove back the Rue Servandoni to pay the
rest of our rent. When Monsieur Sempé gave us the _quittance_, he
admonished us that we must put enough furniture in the apartment to
cover six months' rent, that is to say, we must be prepared to spend at
least sixty dollars to set up our Lares and Penates. Bubbling over with
good will, Monsieur Sempé and Madame Sempé (who appeared on the scene
the moment it was a question of a receipt for our money) gave us
splendid advice about furniture-buying. They urged us to go to the Rue
de Rennes to some good-sized place where we would see second-hand
furniture on the side-walk, and not to a small _brocanteur_ or dealer in
antiques.
The amount ticked up on the fiacre's taximetre was larger than we had
dreamed we should ever spend gadding about Paris. A few hours before it
would have worried us. We knew this could not keep up--in spite of the
crisp hundred franc notes. Wealth brings a strange sense of prudence. We
drove back to the _pension_, dismissed our _cocher_, and pushed the
baby-carriage around to the Rue de Rennes.
MOBILIERS COMPLETS PAR MILLIERS. "Household furniture sets by the
thousand." That sign read promisingly. We entered, and found a
salesman--excuse me, the proprietor and salesman and cashier--who took
in my clothes and hat, and then assured us that he did not mind the baby
crying and could fit us up in anything from Louis Quatorze to the First
Empire, real or (this as a feeler) imitation. _Salle à manger_ from
eight hundred francs to four thousand; _chambre à coucher_ from four
hundred francs to two thousand six hundred; _salon_ from one thousand
francs to six thousand; splendid _garnitures_ (which means clocks and
candlesticks or vases) of all epochs for our _cheminées_; hatracks for
the hall; kitchen and servants' furniture--all, everything, anything we
needed.
I knew what was in Herbert's reproachful look. He always did
ungraciously blame my mother for the fact that he had so frequently to
counteract my trousseau by embarrassed words. Mostly I let him stumble
along. But as this was his day and as I hadn't taken off the pretty
things worn in honor of the visit to the Champs-Elysées, which was a
break on my part, I thought it was up to me to let the furniture man see
how things stood.
"We have a little apartment," I said, "bedroom and living-room combined,
a very small dining-room and a kitchen. I expect to buy the baby's crib
and mattress aside, but the rest must come out of five hundred francs--I
mean all of it. What can you give us for that?"
I often think the French are essentially poor salesmen. They do not know
how to show their goods and they are too indifferent or too anxious. But
the blessed virtue of chivalry! The blessed sense of proportion! The
blessed instinct of moderation! Our furniture man rose to the occasion
with a grace that made me want to hug him. He kept his smile and bow and
changed with perfect ease from Louis and Napoleons to pitchpine. It
would require figuring. But it could be done. Yes, of course it could be
done. Down into the cellar he took us, and in half an hour he had
arranged to give us all we needed for Francs 532.70. I remember those
figures. And he agreed to take the whole lot back at half-price at the
end of a year!
The furniture man bore a striking resemblance to some one I knew. I
watched him, and tried to place him, as he made out our bill in the
office--seven square feet of glassed-in suffocation surrounded by
_armoires_ and buffets. Dust clung to pages and blotters and yellowing
files; no air ever came in here to blow it away. Where had I seen the
double of our friend? Full forehead, closely-trimmed, pointed beard,
soft black tie--and the eyes. Where _had_ I seen him before? Writing
with flourishes in purple ink, slightly bending over the high desk, he
certainly fitted into some memory picture. Then it came to me! His pen
ought to be a quill. It was William Shakespeare.
"Will-_yum_ Shakespeare!" I cried.
My husband did not think I was crazy. For he was looking at the
furniture man when I made my involuntary exclamation.
"What does Madame say? Is she not content?" asked William Shakespeare.
Herbert's hand shot out behind his back and grasped mine. "Shades of
Stratford-on-Avon," he murmured. We had passed a honeymoon day there
just a year ago.
It was hard to wait until July 15, and then two days longer for the
necessary cleaning by a _femme de ménage_ hired for us by the Sempés.
July 17th was the magical day of our first housekeeping. Never before
had we been together in a place where everything was ours. Tables and
chairs and beds and mattresses, and even the piano rented at ten francs
a month, arrived at Twenty-One on hand-carts drawn by men who pulled
only a little harder against the greasy harness that bound them to their
job than did the dogs under the carts.
Turkish women say that if you must move, abandon the furniture and
dishes; they can be had anywhere. But take with you the rugs and brass
that you love, and you have your home. During the previous winter in
Tarsus, we managed to buy several good rugs, a cradle-shawl, some
candlesticks and Damascus beaten-brass trays out of our eight-hundred
dollar salary. Don't ask me now how we did it. In retrospect it is a
mystery. But we had these things in two big boxes. They were as butter
is to bread with our pitch-pine. No, I'm not going to belittle that
pitch-pine. Years of usage had modified its yellowness, and it took to
our rubbing with a marvelous furniture polish. The floors could have
been better. The wood was hard, however, and we got some sort of a wax
shine on them. The Shakespeare furniture plus rugs and brasses--and
candle light--made a home than which we have never since had better.
Never mind if the dining-room was dark. Never mind if we had to sleep in
our study, and study in our bedroom. Never mind if Scrappie's nursery
was the _salon_, _cabinet de travail_ and _chambre à coucher_ combined.
Never mind if we were compelled to take our baths at the foot of our bed
in a tin basin. It was Paris, our dream city.
We were fully installed by six o'clock. The _femme de ménage_
volunteered to stay with Christine while we went out for supper. Before
finding a restaurant, we climbed the north tower of Saint-Sulpice.
Between us and the mass of verdure that marked the Jardin du Luxembourg
was our home. Up there near heaven, with the city at our feet, we danced
the Merry Widow Waltz, for sheer joy that we had a home of our own in
Paris.