Shortly after the birth of Camille I had to go to London, and it was
nearly a year before I came back to Paris. Nina was looking better
than when I had left, but still in nowise like her old self--pale and
worn and worried, with a smile that was the ghost of her former one.
She had been waiting for my return, she said, to have a long talk with
me. 'I have made a little plan. I want you to advise me. Of course you
must advise me to stick to it.'
And when we had reached her lodgings, and were alone in the salon, 'It
is about Camille, it is about her bringing-up,' she explained. 'The
Latin Quarter? It is all very well for you, for me; but for a growing
child? Oh, my case was different; I had my father. But Camille?
Restaurants, cafés, studios, the Boul' Miche, and this little
garret--do they form a wholesome environment? Oh, no, no--I am not a
renegade. I am a Bohemian; I shall always be; it is bred in the bone.
But my daughter--ought she not to have the opportunity, at least, of
being different, of being like other girls? You see, I had my father;
she will have only me. And I distrust myself; I have no "system."
Shall I not do better, then, to adopt the system of the world? To give
her the conventional education, the conventional "advantages"? A home,
what they call home influences. Then, when she has grown up, she can
choose for herself. Besides, there is the question of francs and
centimes. I have been able to earn a living for myself, it is true.
But even that is more difficult now; I can give less time to work; I
am in debt. And we are two; and our expenses must naturally increase
from year to year. And I should like to be able to put something
aside. Hand-to-mouth is a bad principle when you have a growing
child.'
After a little pause she went on, 'So my problem is, first, how to earn
our livelihood, and secondly, how to make something like a home for
Camille, something better than this tobacco-smoky, absinthe-scented
atmosphere of the Latin Quarter. And I can see only one way of
accomplishing the two things. You will smile--but I have considered it
from every point of view. I have examined myself, my own capabilities.
I have weighed all the chances. I wish to take a flat, in another
quarter of the town, near the Etoile or the Parc Monceau, and--open a
_pension_. There is my plan.'
I had a much simpler and pleasanter plan of my own, but of that, as I
knew, she would hear nothing. I did not smile at hers, however; though
I confess it was not easy to imagine madcap Nina in the rôle of a
landlady, regulating the accounts and presiding at the table of a
boarding-house. I can't pretend that I believed there was the
slightest likelihood of her filling it with success. But I said
nothing to discourage her; and the fact that she is rich to-day proves
how little I divined the resources of her character. For the
boarding-house she kept was an exceedingly good boarding-house; she
showed herself the most practical of mistresses; and she prospered
amazingly. Jeanselme, whose father had recently died, leaving him a
fortune, lent her what money she needed to begin with; she took and
furnished a flat in the Avenue de l'Alma; and I--I feel quite like an
historical personage when I remember that I was her first boarder.
Others soon followed me, though, for she had friends amongst all the
peoples of the earth--English and Americans, Russians, Italians,
Austrians, even Roumanians and Servians, as well as French; and each
did what he could to help. At the end of a year she overflowed into
the flat above; then into that below; then she acquired the lease of
the entire house. She worked tremendously, she was at it early and
late, her eyes were everywhere; she set an excellent table; she
employed admirable servants; and if her prices were a bit stiff, she
gave you your money's worth, and there were no 'surprises.' It was
comfortable and quiet; the street was bright; the neighbourhood
convenient. You could dine in the common salle-à-manger if you liked,
or in your private sitting-room. And you never saw your landlady
except for purposes of business. She lived apart, in the entresol,
alone with Camille and her body-servant Jeanne. There was the 'home'
she had set out to make.
Meanwhile another sort of success was steadily thrusting itself upon
her--she certainly never went out of her way to seek it; she was much
too busy to do that. Such of her old friends as remained in Paris came
frequently to see her, and new friends gathered round her. She was
beautiful, she was intelligent, responsive, entertaining. In her
salon, on a Friday evening, you would meet half the lions that were at
large in the town--authors, painters, actors, actresses, deputies,
even an occasional Cabinet minister. Red ribbons and red rosettes
shone from every corner of the room. She had become one of the
oligarchs of _la haute Bohème_, she had become one of the celebrities
of Paris. It would be tiresome to count the novels, poems, songs, that
were dedicated to her, the portraits of her, painted or sculptured,
that appeared at the Mirlitons or the Palais de l'Industrie.
Numberless were the _partis_ who asked her to marry them (I know one,
at least, who has returned to the charge again and again), but she
only laughed, and vowed she would never marry. I don't say that she
has never had her fancies, her experiences; but she has consistently
scoffed at marriage. At any rate, she has never affected the least
repentance for what some people would call her 'fault.' Her ideas of
right and wrong have undergone very little modification. She was
deceived in her estimate of the character of Ernest Mayer, if you
please; but she would indignantly deny that there was anything sinful,
anything to be ashamed of, in her relations with him. And if, by
reason of them, she at one time suffered a good deal of pain, I am
sure she accounts Camille an exceeding great compensation. That
Camille is her child she would scorn to make a secret. She has scorned
to assume the conciliatory title of Madame. As plain Mademoiselle,
with a daughter, you must take her or leave her. And, somehow, all
this has not seemed to make the faintest difference to her
_clientèle_, not even to the primmest of the English. I can't think of
one of them who did not treat her with deference, like her, and
recommend her house.
But _her_ house they need recommend no more, for she has sold it. Last
spring, when I was in Paris, she told me she was about to do so. 'Ouf!
I have lived with my nose to the grindstone long enough. I am going to
"retire."' What money she had saved from season to season, she
explained, she had entrusted to her friend Baron C----for speculation.
'He is a wizard, and so I am a rich woman. I shall have an income of
something like three thousand pounds, mon cher! Oh, we will roll in
it. I have had ten bad years--ten hateful years. You don't know how I
have hated it all, this business, this drudgery, this cut-and-dried,
methodical existence--moi, enfant de Bohème! But, enfin, it was
obligatory. Now we will change all that. Nous reviendrons à nos
premières amours. I shall have ten good years--ten years of barefaced
pleasure. Then--I will range myself--perhaps. There is the darlingest
little house for sale, a sort of châlet, built of red brick, with
pointed windows and things, in the Rue de Lisbonne. I shall buy
it--furnish it--decorate it. Oh, you will see. I shall have my
carriage, I shall have toilets, I shall entertain, I shall give
dinners--olàlà! No more boarders, no more bores, cares,
responsibilities. Only my friends and--_life_! I feel like one
emerging from ten years in the galleys, ten years of penal servitude.
To the Pension Childe--bonsoir!'
'That's all very well for you,' her listener complained sombrely. 'But
for me? Where shall I stop when I come to Paris?'
'With me. You shall be my guest. I will kill you if you ever go
elsewhere. You shall pass your old age in a big chair in the best
room, and Camille and I will nurse your gout and make herb-tea for
you.'
'And I shall sit and think of what might have been.'
'Yes, we'll indulge all your little foibles. You shall sit and "feel
foolish"--from dawn to dewy eve.'