THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF LES CHICARDS.
"When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular,
though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a
kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a
week."--_Spectator_.
It was a long, low room lighted by gas, with a table reaching from end
to end. Round about this table, in various stages of conviviality and
conversation, were seated some thirty or forty men, capped, bearded, and
eccentric-looking, with all kinds of queer blouses and wonderful heads
of hair. Dropping into a couple of vacant chairs at the lower end of
this table, we called for a bottle of Chablis, lit our cigars, and fell
in with the general business of the evening. At the top, dimly visible
through a dense fog of tobacco smoke, sat a stout man in a green coat
fastened by a belt round the waist. He was evidently the President, and,
instead of a hammer, had a small bugle lying by his side, which he blew
from time to time to enforce silence.
Somewhat perplexed by the general aspect of the club, I turned to my
companion for an explanation.
"Is it possible," I asked, "that these amazing individuals are all
artists and gentlemen?"
"Artists, every one," replied Dalrymple; "but as to their claim to be
gentlemen, I won't undertake to establish it. After all, the _Chicards_
are not first-rate men."
"What are they, then?"
"Oh, the Helots of the profession--hewers of wood engravings, and
drawers of water-colors, with a sprinkling of daguerreotypists, and
academy students. But hush--somebody is going to sing!"
And now, heralded by a convulsive flourish from the President's bugle, a
young _Chicard_, whose dilapidated outer man sufficiently contradicted
the burthen of his song, shouted with better will than skill, a
_chanson_ of Beranger's, every verse of which ended with:--
"J'ai cinquante écus,
J'ai cinquante écus,
J'ai cinquante écus de rente!"
Having brought this performance to a satisfactory conclusion, the singer
sat down amid great clapping of hands and clattering of glasses, and the
President, with another flourish on the bugle, called upon one Monsieur
Tourterelle. Monsieur Tourterelle was a tall, gaunt, swarthy personage,
who appeared to have cultivated his beard at the expense of his head,
since the former reached nearly to his waist, while the latter was as
bare as a billiard-ball. Preparing himself for the effort with a
wine-glass full of raw cognac, this gentleman leaned back in his chair,
stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, fixed his eyes on
the ceiling, and plunged at once into a doleful ballad about one
Mademoiselle Rosine, and a certain village _auprès de la mer_, which
seemed to be in an indefinite number of verses, and amused no one but
himself. In the midst of this ditty, just as the audience had begun to
testify their impatience by much whispering and shuffling of feet, an
elderly _Chicard_, with a very bald and shiny head, was discovered to
have fallen asleep in the seat next but one to my own; whereupon my
nearest neighbor, a merry-looking young fellow with a profusion of rough
light hair surmounted by a cap of scarlet cloth, forthwith charred a
cork in one of the candles, and decorated the bald head of the sleeper
with a comic countenance and a pair of huge mustachios. An uproarious
burst of laughter was the immediate result, and the singer, interrupted
somewhere about his 18th verse, subsided into offended silence.
"Monsieur Müller is requested to favor the honorable society with a
song," cried the President, as soon as the tumult had somewhat subsided.
My red-capped neighbor, answering to that name, begged to be excused, on
the score of having pledged his _ut de poitrine_ a week since at the
Mont de Piété, without yet having been able to redeem it. This apology
was received with laughter, hisses, and general incredulity.
"But," he added, "I am willing to relate an adventure that happened to
myself in Rome two winters ago, if my honorable brother _Chicards_ will
be pleased to hear it."
An immense burst of approbation from all but Monsieur Tourterelle and
the bald sleeper, followed this announcement; and so, after a
preliminary _grog au vin_, and another explosive demonstration on the
part of the chairman, Monsieur Müller thus began:--
THE STUDENT'S STORY.
"When I was in Rome, I lodged in the Via Margutta, which, for the
benefit of those who have not been there, may be described as a street
of studios and stables, crossed at one end by a little roofed gallery
with a single window, like a shabby 'Bridge of Sighs,' A gutter runs
down the middle, interrupted occasionally by heaps of stable-litter; and
the perspective is damaged by rows of linen suspended across the street
at uncertain intervals. The houses in this agreeable thoroughfare are
dingy, dilapidated, and comfortless, and all which are not in use as
stables, are occupied by artists. However, it was a very jolly place,
and I never was happier anywhere in my life. I had but just touched my
little patrimony, and I was acquainted with plenty of pleasant fellows
who used to come down to my rooms at night from the French Academy where
they had been studying all day. Ah, what evenings those were! What
suppers we used to have in from the _Lepre_! What lots of Orvieto we
drank! And what a mountain of empty wicker bottles had to be cleared
away from the little square yard with the solitary lemon-tree at the
back of the house!"
"Come, Müller--no fond memories!" cried a student in a holland blouse.
"Get on with the story."
"Ay, get on with the story!" echoed several voices.
To which Müller, who took advantage of the interruption to finish his
_grog au vin_, deigned no reply.
"Well," he continued, "like a good many other fellows who, having
everything to learn and nothing to do, fancy themselves great geniuses
only because they are in Rome, I put a grand brass plate on the door,
testifying to all passers-by that mine was the STUDIO DI HERR FRANZ
MULLER; and, having done this, I believed, of course, that my fortune
was to be made out of hand. Nothing came of it, however. People in
search of Dessoulavy's rooms knocked occasionally to ask their way, and
a few English and Americans dropped in from time to time to stare about
them, after the free-and-easy fashion of foreigners in Rome; but, for
all this, I found no patrons. Thus several months went by, during which
I studied from the life, worked hard at the antique, and relieved the
monotony of study with occasional trips to Frascati, or supper parties
at the Café Greco."
"The story! the story!" interrupted a dozen impatient voices.
"All in good time," said Müller, with provoking indifference. "We are
now coming to it."
And assuming an attitude expressive of mystery, he dropped his voice,
looked round the table, and proceeded:--
"It was on the last evening of the Carnival. It had been raining at
intervals during the day, but held up for a good hour just at dusk, as
if on purpose for the _moccoli_. Scarcely, however, had the guns of St.
Angelo thundered an end to the frolic, when the rain came down again in
torrents, and put out the last tapers that yet lingered along the Corso.
Wet, weary, and splashed from head to foot with mud and tallow, I came
home about seven o'clock, having to dine and dress before going to a
masked-ball in the evening. To light my stove, change my wet clothes,
and make the best of a half-cold _trattore_ dinner, were my first
proceedings; after which, I laid out my costume ready to put on, wrapped
myself in a huge cloak, swallowed a tumbler full of hot cognac and
water, and lay down in front of the fire, determined to have a sound nap
and a thorough warming, before venturing out again that night. I fell
asleep, of course, and never woke till roused by a tremendous peal upon
the studio-bell, about two hours and a half afterwards. More dead than
alive, I started to my feet. The fire had gone out in the stove; the
room was in utter darkness; and the bell still pealed loud enough to
raise the neighborhood.
"'Who's there?' I said, half-opening the door, through which the wind
and rain came rushing. 'And what, in the name of ten thousand devils, do
you want?"
"'I want an artist,' said my visitor, in Italian. 'Are you one?'
"'I flatter myself that I am,' replied I, still holding the door
tolerably close.
"'Can you paint heads?'
"'Heads, figures, landscapes--anything,' said I, with my teeth
chattering like castanets.
"The stranger pushed the door open, walked in without further ceremony,
closed it behind him, and said, in a low, distinct voice:--
"'Could you take the portrait of a dead man?'
"'Of a dead man?' I stammered. 'I--I ... Suppose I strike a light?'
"The stranger laid his hand upon my arm.
"'Not till you have given me an answer,' said he. 'Yes or no? Remember,
you will be paid well for your work.'
"'Well, then--yes,' I replied.
"'And can you do it at once?'
"'At once?'
"'Ay, Signore, will you bring your colors, and come with me this
instant--or must I seek some other painter?'
"I thought of the masked-ball, and sighed; but the promise of good
payment, and, above all, the peculiarity of the adventure determined me.
"'Nay, if it is to be done,' said I, 'one time is as good as another.
Let me strike a light, and I will at once pack up my colors and come
with you.'
"'_Bene_!' said the stranger. 'But be as quick as you can, Signore, for
time presses.'
"I was quick, you may be sure, and yet not so quick but that I found
time to look at my strange visitor. He was a dark, elderly man, dressed
in a suit of plain black, and might have been a clerk, or a tradesman,
or a confidential servant. As soon as I was ready, he took the lead;
conducted me to a carriage which was waiting at the corner of a
neighboring street; took his place respectfully on the opposite seat;
pulled down both the blinds, and gave the word to drive on. I never knew
by what streets we went, or to what part of Rome he took me; but the way
seemed long and intricate. At length, we stopped and alighted. The night
was pitch-dark, and still stormy. I saw before me only the outline of a
large building, indistinct and gloomy, and a small open door dimly
lighted-from within. Hurried across the strip of narrow pavement, and
shut in immediately, I had no time to identify localities--no choice,
except to follow my conductor and blindly pursue the adventure to its
close. Having entered by a back door, we went up and down a labyrinth of
staircases and passages, for the mere purpose, as it seemed, of
bewildering me as much as possible--then paused before an oaken door at
the end of the corridor. Here my conductor signified by a gesture that I
was to precede him.
"It was a large, panelled chamber, richly furnished. A wood fire
smouldered on the hearth--a curtained alcove to the left partly
concealed a bed--a corresponding alcove to the right, fitted with altar
and crucifix, served as an oratory. In the centre of the room stood a
table covered with a cloth. It needed no second glance to tell me what
object lay beneath that cloth, uplifting it in ghastly outline! My
conductor pointed to the table, and asked if there was anything I
needed. To this I replied that I must have more light and more fire, and
so proceeded to disembarrass myself of my cloak, and prepare my palette.
In the meantime, he threw on a log and some pine-cones, and went to
fetch an additional lamp.
"Left alone with the body and impelled by an irresistible impulse, I
rolled back the cloth and saw before me the corpse of a young man in
fancy dress--a magnificent fellow cast in the very mould of strength and
grace, and measuring his six feet, if an inch. The features were
singularly handsome; the brow open and resolute; the hair dark, and
crisp with curls. Looking more closely, I saw that a lock had been
lately cut from the right temple, and found one of the severed hairs
upon the cheek, where it had fallen. The dress was that of a jester of
the middle ages, half scarlet and half white, with a rich belt round the
waist. In this belt, as if in horrible mockery of the dead, was stuck a
tiny baton surmounted by a fool's cap, and hung with silver bells.
Looking down thus upon the body--so young, so beautiful, so evidently
unprepared for death--a conviction of foul play flashed upon me with all
the suddenness and certainty of revelation. Here were no appearances of
disease and no signs of strife. The expression was not that of a man who
had fallen weapon in hand. Neither, however, was it that of one who had
died in the agony of poison. The longer I looked, the more mysterious it
seemed; yet the more I felt assured that there was guilt at the bottom
of the mystery.
"While I was yet under the first confused and shuddering impression of
this doubt, my guide came back with a powerful solar lamp, and, seeing
me stand beside the body, said sharply:--
"'Well, Signore, you look as if you had never seen a dead man before in
all your life!'
"'I have seen plenty,' I replied, 'but never one so young, and so
handsome.'
"'He dropped down quite suddenly,' said he, volunteering the
information, 'and died in a few minutes. 'Then finding that I remained
silent, added:--
"'But I am told that it is always so in cases of heart-disease.'
"'I turned away without replying, and, having placed the lamp to my
satisfaction, began rapidly sketching in my subject. My instructions
were simple. I was to give the head only; to produce as rapid an effect
with as little labor as possible; to alter nothing; to add nothing; and,
above all, to be ready to leave the house before daybreak. So I set
steadily to work, and my conductor, establishing himself in an
easy-chair by the fire, watched my progress for some time, and then, as
the night advanced, fell profoundly asleep. Thus, hour after hour went
by, and, absorbed in my work, I painted on, unconscious of fatigue--
might almost say with something of a morbid pleasure in the task before
me. The silence within; the raving of the wind and rain without; the
solemn mystery of death, and the still more solemn mystery of crime
which, as I followed out train after train of wild conjectures, grew to
still deeper conviction, had each and all their own gloomy fascination.
Was it not possible, I asked myself, by mere force of will to penetrate
the secret? Was it not possible to study that dead face till the springs
of thought so lately stilled within the stricken brain should vibrate
once more, if only for an instant, as wire vibrates to wire, and sound
to sound! Could I not, by long studying of the passive mouth, compel
some sympathetic revelation of the last word that it uttered, though
that revelation took no outward form, and were communicable to the
apprehension only? Pondering thus, I lost myself in a labyrinth of
fantastic reveries, till the hand and the brain worked independently of
each other--the one swiftly reproducing upon canvas the outer lineaments
of the dead; the other laboring to retrace foregone facts of which no
palpable evidence remained. Thus my work progressed; thus the night
waned; thus the sleeper by the fireside stirred from time to time, or
moaned at intervals in his dreams.
"At length, when many hours had gone by, and I began to be conscious of
the first languor of sleeplessness, I heard, or fancied I heard, a light
sound in the corridor without. I held my breath, and listened. As I
listened, it ceased--was renewed--drew nearer--paused outside the door.
Involuntarily, I rose and looked round for some means of defence, in
case of need. Was I brought here to perpetuate the record of a crime,
and was I, when my task was done, to be silenced in a dungeon, or a
grave? This thought flashed upon me almost before I was conscious of the
horror it involved. At the same moment, I saw the handle of the door
turned slowly and cautiously--then held back--and then, after a brief
pause, the door itself gradually opening."
Here the student paused as if overcome by the recollection of that
moment, and passed his hand nervously across his brow. I took the
liberty of pushing our bottle of Chablis towards him, for which he
thanked me with a nod and a smile, and filled his glass to the brim.
"Well?" cried two or three voices eagerly; my own being one of them.
"The door opened--what then?"
"And a lady entered," he continued. "A lady dressed in black from head
to foot, with a small lamp in her hand. Seeing me, she laid her finger
significantly on her lip, closed the door as cautiously as she had
opened it, and, with the faltering, uncertain steps of one just risen
from a sick-bed, came over to where I had been sitting, and leaned for
support against my chair. She was very pale, very calm, very young and
beautiful, with just that look of passive despair in her face that one
sees in Guido's portrait of Beatrice Cenci. Standing thus, I observed
that she kept her eyes turned from the corpse, and her attention
concentrated on the portrait. So several minutes passed, and neither of
us spoke nor stirred. Then, slowly, shudderingly, she turned, grasped me
by the arm, pointed to the dead form stretched upon the table, and less
with her breath than by the motion of her lips, shaped out the one
word:--'_Murdered_!'
"Stunned by this confirmation of my doubts, I could only clasp my hands
in mute horror, and stare helplessly from the lady to the corpse, from
the corpse to the sleeper. Wildly, feverishly, with all her calmness
turned to eager haste, she then bent over the body, tore open the rich
doublet, turned back the shirt, and, without uttering one syllable,
pointed to a tiny puncture just above the region of the heart--a spot so
small, so insignificant, such a mere speck upon the marble, that but for
the pale violet discoloration which spread round it like a halo, I could
scarcely have believed it to be the cause of death. The wound had
evidently bled inwardly, and, being inflicted with some singularly
slender weapon, had closed again so completely as to leave an aperture
no larger than might have been caused by the prick of a needle. While I
was yet examining it, the fire fell together, and my conductor stirred
uneasily in his sleep. To cover the body hastily with the cloth and
resume my seat, was, with me, the instinctive work of a moment; but he
was quiet again the next instant, and breathing heavily. With trembling
hands, my visitor next re-closed the shirt and doublet, replaced the
outer covering, and bending down till her lips almost touched my ear,
whispered:--
"'You have seen it. If called upon to do so, will you swear it?'
"I promised.
"'You will not let yourself be intimidated by threats? nor bribed by
gold? nor lured by promises?
"'Never, so help me Heaven!'
"She looked into my eyes, as if she would read my very soul; then,
before I knew what she was about to do, seized my hand, and pressed it
to her lip.
"'I believe you,' she said. 'I believe, and I thank you. Not a word to
him that you have seen me'--here she pointed to the sleeper by the fire.
'He is faithful; but not to my interests alone. I dare tell you no
more--at all events, not now. Heaven bless and reward you. In this
portrait you give me the only treasure--the only consolation of my
future life!'
"So saying, she took a ring from her finger, pressed it, without another
word, into my unwilling hand; and, with the same passive dreary look
that her face had worn on first entering took up her lamp again, and
glided from the room.
"How the next hour, or half hour, went by, I know not--except that I sat
before the canvas like one dreaming. Now and then I added a few touches;
but mechanically, and, as it were, in a trance of wonder and dismay. I
had, however, made such good progress before being interrupted, that
when my companion woke and told me it would soon be day and I must make
haste to be gone, the portrait was even more finished than I had myself
hoped to make it in the time. So I packed up my colors and palette
again, and, while I was doing so, observed that he not only drew the
cloth once more over the features of the dead, but concealed the
likeness behind the altar in the oratory, and even restored the chairs
to their old positions against the wall. This done, he extinguished the
solar lamp; put it out of sight; desired me once more to follow him; and
led the way back along the same labyrinth of staircases and corridors by
which he brought me. It was gray dawn as he hurried me into the coach.
The blinds were already down--the door was instantly closed--again we
seemed to be going through an infinite number of streets--again we
stopped, and I found myself at the corner of the Via Margutta.
"'Alight, Signore,' said the stranger, speaking for the first time since
we started. 'Alight--you are but a few yards from your own door. Here
are a hundred scudi; and all that you have now to do, is to forget your
night's work, as if it had never been.'
"With this he closed the carriage-door, the horses dashed on again, and,
before I had time even to see if any arms were blazoned on the panels,
the whole equipage had disappeared.
"And here, strange to say, the adventure ended. I never was called upon
for evidence. I never saw anything more of the stranger, or the lady. I
never heard of any sudden death, or accident, or disappearance having
taken place about that time; and I never even obtained any clue to the
neighborhood of the house in which these things took place. Often and
often afterwards, when I was strolling by night along the streets of
Rome, I lingered before some old palazzo, and fancied that I recognised
the gloomy outline that caught my eye in that hurried transit from the
carriage to the house. Often and often I paused and started, thinking
that I had found at last the very side-door by which I entered. But
these were mere guesses after all. Perhaps that house stood in some
remote quarter of the city where my footsteps never went again--perhaps
in some neighboring street or piazza, where I passed it every day! At
all events, the whole thing vanished like a dream, and, but for the ring
and the hundred scudi, a dream I should by this time believe it to have
been. The scudi, I am sorry to say, were spent within a month--the ring
I have never parted from, and here it is."
Hereupon the student took from his finger a superb ruby set between two
brilliants of inferior size, and allowed it to pass from hand to hand,
all round the table. Exclamations of surprise and admiration,
accompanied by all sorts of conjectures and comments, broke from
every lip.
"The dead man was the lady's lover," said one. "That is why she wanted
his portrait."
"Of course, and her husband had murdered him," said another.
"Who, then, was the man in black?" asked a third.
"A servant, to be sure. She said, if you remember, that he was faithful;
but not devoted to her interests alone. That meant that he would obey to
the extent of procuring for her the portrait of her lover; but that he
did not choose to betray his master, even though his master was a
murderer."
"But if so, where was the master?" said the first speaker. "Is it likely
that he would have neglected to conceal the body during all
these hours?"
"Certainly. Nothing more likely, if he were a man of the world, and knew
how to play his game out boldly to the end. Have we not been told that
it was the last night of the Carnival, and what better could he do, to
avert suspicion, than show himself at as many balls as he could visit in
the course of the evening? But really, this ring is magnificent!"
"Superb. The ruby alone must be worth a thousand francs."
"To say nothing of the diamonds, and the setting," observed the next to
whom it was handed.
At length, after having gone nearly the round of the table, the ring
came to a little dark, sagacious-looking man, just one seat beyond
Dalrymple's, who peered at it suspiciously on every side, breathed upon
it, rubbed it bright again upon his coat-sleeve, and, finally, held the
stones up sideways between his eyes and the light.
"Bah!" said he, sending it on with a contemptuous fillip of the
forefinger and thumb. "Glass and paste, _mon ami_. Not worth five francs
of anybody's money."
Müller, who had been eyeing him all the time with an odd smile lurking
about the corners of his mouth, emptied his last drop of Chablis, turned
the glass over on the table, bottom upwards, and said very coolly:--
"Well, I'm sorry for that; because I gave seven francs for it myself
this morning, in the Palais Royal."
"You!"
"Seven francs!"
"Bought in the Palais Royal!"
"What does he mean?"
"Mean?" echoed the student, in reply to this chorus of exclamations. "I
mean that I bought it this morning, and gave seven francs for it. It is
not every morning of my life, let me tell you, that I have seven francs
to throw away on my personal appearance."
"But then the ring that the lady took from her finger?"
"And the murder?"
"And the servant in black?"
"And the hundred scudi?"
"One great invention from beginning to end, Messieurs les Chicards, and
being got up expressly for your amusement, I hope you liked it.
_Garçon?_--another _grog au vin_, and sweeter than the last!"
It would be difficult to say whether the Chicards were most disappointed
or delighted at this _dénoûment_--disappointed at its want of fact, or
delighted with the story-weaving power of Herr Franz Müller. They
expressed themselves, at all events, with a tumultuous burst of
applause, in the midst of which we rose and left the room. When we once
more came out into the open air, the stars had disappeared and the air
was heavy with the damps of approaching daybreak. Fortunately, we caught
an empty _fiacre_ in the next street and, as we were nearer the Rue du
Faubourg Montmartre than the Chaussée d' Antin, Dalrymple set me
down first.
"Adieu, Damon," he said, laughingly, as we shook hands through the
window. "If we don't meet before, come and dine with me next Sunday at
seven o'clock--and don't dream of dreadful murders, if you can help it!"
I did not dream of dreadful murders. I dreamt, instead, of Madame de
Marignan, and never woke the next morning till eleven o'clock, just two
hours later than the time at which I should have presented myself at
Dr. Chéron's.
* * * * *