Near the door the stout proprietress sat intrenched behind the cash-box
in a Parisian manner. She looked with practical amiability at her
guests, who dined noisily and with great fire, discussing momentous
problems furiously, making wide, maniacal gestures through the cigarette
smoke. Meanwhile the little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly.
Imperious and importunate cries rang at them from all directions.
"Gustave! Adolphe!" Their faces expressed a settled despair. They
answered calls, commands, oaths in a semi-distraction, fleeting among
the tables as if pursued by some dodging animal. Their breaths came in
gasps. If they had been convict labourers they could not have surveyed
their positions with countenances of more unspeakable injury. Withal,
they carried incredible masses of dishes and threaded their ways with
skill. They served people with such speed and violence that it often
resembled a personal assault. They struck two blows at a table and left
there a knife and fork. Then came the viands in a volley. The clatter of
this business was loud and bewilderingly rapid, like the gallop of a
thousand horses.
In a remote corner a band of mandolins and guitars played the long,
sweeping, mad melody of a Spanish waltz. It seemed to go tingling to the
hearts of many of the diners. Their eyes glittered with enthusiasm, with
abandon, with deviltry. They swung their heads from side to side in
rhythmic movement. High in air curled the smoke from the innumerable
cigarettes. The long, black claret bottles were in clusters upon the
tables. At an end of the hall two men with maudlin grins sang the waltz
uproariously, but always a trifle belated.
An unsteady person, leaning back in his chair to murmur swift
compliments to a woman at another table, suddenly sprawled out upon the
floor. He scrambled to his feet, and, turning to the escort of the
woman, heatedly blamed him for the accident. They exchanged a series of
tense, bitter insults, which spatted back and forth between them like
pellets. People arose from their chairs and stretched their necks. The
musicians stood in a body, their faces turned with expressions of keen
excitement toward this quarrel, but their fingers still twinkling over
their instruments, sending into the middle of this turmoil the
passionate, mad, Spanish music. The proprietor of the place came in
agitation and plunged headlong into the argument, where he thereafter
appeared as a frantic creature harried to the point of insanity, for
they buried him at once in long, vociferous threats, explanations,
charges, every form of declamation known to their voices. The music, the
noise of the galloping horses, the voices of the brawlers, gave the
whole thing the quality of war.
There were two men in the _café_ who seemed to be tranquil. Hollanden
carefully stacked one lump of sugar upon another in the middle of his
saucer and poured cognac over them. He touched a match to the cognac and
the blue and yellow flames eddied in the saucer. "I wonder what those
two fools are bellowing at?" he said, turning about irritably.
"Hanged if I know!" muttered Hawker in reply. "This place makes me
weary, anyhow. Hear the blooming din!"
"What's the matter?" said Hollanden. "You used to say this was the one
natural, the one truly Bohemian, resort in the city. You swore by it."
"Well, I don't like it so much any more."
"Ho!" cried Hollanden, "you're getting correct--that's it exactly. You
will become one of these intensely---- Look, Billie, the little one is
going to punch him!"
"No, he isn't. They never do," said Hawker morosely. "Why did you bring
me here to-night, Hollie?"
"I? I bring you? Good heavens, I came as a concession to you! What are
you talking about?--Hi! the little one is going to punch him, sure!"
He gave the scene his undivided attention for a moment; then he turned
again: "You will become correct. I know you will. I have been watching.
You are about to achieve a respectability that will make a stone saint
blush for himself. What's the matter with you? You act as if you thought
falling in love with a girl was a most extraordinary circumstance.--I
wish they would put those people out.--Of course I know that you----
There! The little one has swiped at him at last!"
After a time he resumed his oration. "Of course, I know that you are not
reformed in the matter of this uproar and this remarkable consumption of
bad wine. It is not that. It is a fact that there are indications that
some other citizen was fortunate enough to possess your napkin before
you; and, moreover, you are sure that you would hate to be caught by
your correct friends with any such _consommé_ in front of you as we had
to-night. You have got an eye suddenly for all kinds of gilt. You are in
the way of becoming a most unbearable person.--Oh, look! the little one
and the proprietor are having it now.--You are in the way of becoming a
most unbearable person. Presently many of your friends will not be fine
enough.--In heaven's name, why don't they throw him out? Are you going
to howl and gesticulate there all night?"
"Well," said Hawker, "a man would be a fool if he did like this dinner."
"Certainly. But what an immaterial part in the glory of this joint is
the dinner! Who cares about dinner? No one comes here to eat; that's
what you always claimed.--Well, there, at last they are throwing him
out. I hope he lands on his head.--Really, you know, Billie, it is such
a fine thing being in love that one is sure to be detestable to the rest
of the world, and that is the reason they created a proverb to the other
effect. You want to look out."
"You talk like a blasted old granny!" said Hawker. "Haven't changed at
all. This place is all right, only----"
"You are gone," interrupted Hollanden in a sad voice. "It is very
plain--you are gone."