A CHAPTER THAT BEGINS WELL AND ENDS BADLY
“J’aime Paimpol et sa falaise,
Son clocher et son grand pardon;
J’aime surtout la Paimpolaise
Qui m’attend au pays Breton.”
It is Little Thing singing as she sits by the poppy patch before the
door. There are hundreds of poppies. They dance in gleeful glory and
their scarlet is so luminous it seems about to burst into flame. Maybe
the shell-pink in the girl’s cheeks is a reflexion of that radiant glow.
The coast of Brittany dimples as it smiles, and in its most charming
dimple is tucked away our little village. The sea has all the glitter
of crushed gems. It sparkles in amethyst and emerald; it glooms to
garnet and sardonyx. There is a bow of golden sand, and the hill-side
is ablaze with yellow brown.
“Dreamhaven” I call our house, and it stands between the poppies and
the pines. A house of Breton granite, built to suffice a score of
generations, it glimmers like some silvery grand-dame, and its roof is
velvety with orange-coloured moss.
We have been here three weeks and Anastasia has responded wonderfully
to the change. Nothing can exceed her delight. She sings all day,
rivalling the merle that wakes us every morning with his flute-like run
of melody.
She loves to sit in a corner of the old garden where a fig tree climbs
the silvery wall. There she will knit tranquilly and watch the little
lizards flicker over the sun-warmed stone, then pause with panting
sides and bead-like eyes to peer around. But for me, I prefer the
scented gloom of the pine coppice beyond the garden. Dearly do I love
the sudden solitude of pines.
I have corrected the proofs of _Tom, Dick and Harry_ there. I am
relieved to find the story goes with _vim_. It is as light as a
biscuit, and as easy of mental digestion. I have sent off the last
batch of proofs; my part is done; the rest is Fate.
Now I turn to my jolly Bretons, so dirty and devout, so toilworn and so
tranquil. My old women have the bright, clear eyes of children. Never
have they worn hat or shoes, never left their native heaths. Yet they
are happy--because it has never struck them that they are not happy.
My young women all want to marry sailors so that they may be left at
home in tranquillity. They do not desire to see over-much of their
lords and masters, who I fear, are fond of mixing _eau-de-vie_ with
their cider. If they go to live in cities they generally die of
consumption. Their costume is hauntingly Elizabethan, and they are
three hundred years behind the times.
* * * * *
About a week ago I had a curious conversation with Anastasia.
“Little Thing,” I began, “do you know that if I like I can go away and
marry some other French girl?”
“What do you mean?” she said, somewhat startled.
“I mean that as far as France is concerned our marriage doesn’t hold.”
“_Mon Dieu!_”
“It’s all right by English law, but French law doesn’t recognise it.”
“How droll! But what does it matter? You don’t want marry other French
girls?”
“No, but it’s interesting to know that one can.”
“But me, too. Have I not right to marry some other persons?”
“Hum! I never thought of that.”
“Another thing,” I continued, “under French law man and wife hold
property in common. Now, supposing you came into fortune, I couldn’t
touch it.”
“Ah! now you speak for laughing. I nevaire come into fortune.”
“Well, suppose I come into a fortune--but then that’s equally absurd;
anyway, I just wanted to point out to you that by a curious vagary of
the law we could repudiate our marriage and contract others--in France.”
Anastasia looked very thoughtful. Though I had spoken jestingly I might
have known that with her serious imagination she would take it gravely.
Surely enough, a few days after she brought up the subject.
“I sink I like very much, darleen, if we get marry once more, French
way, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all; only--I don’t want to make a habit of it.”
“Excuse me, darleen; and please I like it very much if we get marry in
Catolick church.”
“All right. We’ll get married in Notre Dame this time.”
“But....” Here she hesitated--“zere is one trouble.”
“Well, what is it?”
“In France it is necessaire by law I have consent of my fazzaire and my
muzzaire.”
“Well, seeing that they’re in (we hope) heaven, it won’t be very easy
to get it.”
“Oh, no! I nevaire say my muzzaire is dead.”
“But isn’t she?”
“I don’t know. I have not hear of her for many year. I leave wiz my
fazzaire when I was leetle girls, before he put me in the _couvent_. My
fazzaire get separation from my muzzaire. She’s very bad womans. She’s
beat my fazzaire very cruel, so’s he get separation. My fazzaire was
poet.”
“And your mother?”
“Oh, she was not at all _chic_. She was what we call ‘merchant of the
four seasons.’”
“Good heavens! You don’t mean one of those women that hawk stuff in the
street with hand barrows?”
Anastasia nodded gravely.
I shuddered. Father a _cabaret_ poet; mother a street pedlar of
cabbages and onions. _Sacré mud!_ Then a sudden suspicion curdled my
blood.
“Tell me,” I demanded, “is it not that your mother’s name is Séraphine?”
“Yes,” she exclaimed, amazedly.
“And she’s a very big woman with a large nose?”
“Yes, yes; how you know?”
“Well then, let me inform you that your respected parent is at present
doing business in a rather flourishing way in the _Halles_. She imports
_escargots_ and wears seven diamond rings on one hand. Judging by that
hand alone, there’s a respectable prospect of your becoming an heiress
after all.”
“She’s terrible woman,” said Anastasia, after I had explained my
meeting with her mother. “I’m afraid she’s make trooble. She’s behave
very cruel to my fazzaire and she not like me, because when they
separate I choose go wiz heem. She nevaire forgeeve me. I’m ’fraid
she’s never consent to our marriage in France.”
“Wait till we get back to Paris and we’ll tackle her.”
“When we go back to Paris?”
“Next week. I can’t afford to rent the house after the end of the
month.”
“I’m sorry to go. I love it here.”
“Yes, but I must get back to work again. We must bid our jolly Bretons
good-bye.”
* * * * *
We bade them good-bye this morning; great, great grandfather Dagorn
herding his cows on the velvety dune; Yyves swinging his scythe as he
whisked down the heavy crimson clover; Marie stooped over her churn;
Mother Dagorn whose withered cheeks are apple-bright; the rosy-faced
children, the leaping dogs. We looked our last on that golden beach,
that jewelled sea; we roamed our last amid the hedges of honeysuckle,
the cherry-trees snowed with blossom, the stream where the embattled
lilies brandished blades and flaunted starry banners. Last of all, and
with something very like sadness, we bade good-bye to that old house I
called Dreamhaven, which stands between the poppies and the pines.
* * * * *
Back in Paris. The dear sunny boulevards are once more embowered in
tender green, and once more I am a dreamy Luxemburger, feeding my
Bohemian sparrows in that cool, still grove where gleam the busts of
Murger and Verlaine: once more I roam the old streets, seeking the
spirit of the past; once more I am the apostle of the clear laugh and
the joyous mind.
One of the first persons I met as I walked down the spinal column of
the Quarter, the _Boul’ Mich’_, was Helstern. He had just come from a
lecture by Bergson at the Sorbonne and was indignant because he had
been obliged to stand near the door.
“Bergson’s a society craze just now. The place was crowded with
wretched women that couldn’t understand a word of his lecture. They
chattered and stared at one another through their lorgnettes. One
wretched _cocotte_ threw the old man a bunch of violets.”
“What did he do?”
“He took it up and after looking at it as if he didn’t know what it was
he put it in his pocket.”
“Well, how’s every one? What have you been doing? Some symbolical
group, I suppose?”
“No; I’ve decided to go in for simple things, the simpler the better.
I’ve done a little head and bust of Solonge I want you to see. I’m
rather pleased with it.”
“All right. I’ll come as soon as we get settled.”
“Where are you going this time?”
“I’ve taken a _logement_ on the _Passage d’Enfer_; you know it--a
right-angled street of quaint old houses that runs into the Boulevard
Raspail.”
“I know. I once lived in the rue Boissonniere. What are you going to do
now?”
“Another novel, I suppose. I have enough money to last me for five
months. Just fancy! five months to write and not worry about anything
at all. How’s Frosine and the Môme?”
Helstern beamed. Then for the first time I noticed a remarkable change
in him. No longer could I call him the “melancholy Dane” (he was really
a Swede, by the way). He had discarded his severe black stock for a
polka-dot Lavallière, and he was actually wearing a check suit.
“Come with us on Sunday. We are all going to St. Cloud.”
“I’ll ask my wife. Thing’s going all right?”
“Yes, I think she’ll consent to name the day.”
“Well, I congratulate you. And how’s Lorrimer?”
“He seems to have taken up with a new girl, a dark, Italian kind
of a type. I’ve seen him with her at the cafés. He’s fickle in his
attachments.”
“That must be Lucretia,” I thought; and I congratulated myself on my
adroit disentanglement. Then I felt some compunction as I thought of
Rougette.
But I was reassured, for I saw the two together that very afternoon
in front of the café du Panthéon. Rougette looked sweet and serene.
Whatever might have been the philandering of Lorrimer it had not
disturbed her Breton phlegm. Or, perhaps it was that in her simple
faith she was incapable of believing him a gay deceiver. She was more
than ever distractingly pretty, so that, looking at her, I could not
imagine how any one could neglect her for the olive-skinned Lucretia.
Lorrimer, too, was the picture of prosperity. He wore a new Norfolk
suit, and a wide-brimmed grey hat. He looked more faunesque and
insouciant than ever, a being all nerves and energy and indomitable
gaiety.
“Hullo,” he greeted me; “here’s old Daredeath Dick. Come and join us.
Rougette wants to hear all about her ‘pays Breton.’ You’re looking very
fit. How’s everything?”
“Excellent, I’m to have a novel published next week, and I’ve got
enough money to follow it up with another.”
“What a wonderful chap you are to be able to spread your money out
like that! You know wealth would be my ruin. Poverty’s my best friend.
Wealth really worries me. I never could work if I had lots of money.
By the way, you must see my picture at the Salon des Independents.
Rougette and the Neapolitaine are in it. It’s creating quite a
sensation.”
“How is our dark friend?”
He shrugged his shoulders gaily. “Just a little embarrassing at times.
She’s awfully jealous of Rougette. The other day in the studio she
snatched up a knife, and I thought she was going to stick it into me;
but she only proceeded to slash up a picture I had done called _The
Jolie Bretonne_, for which Rougette had posed. After that we had a
fuss, and I told her all was over between us. So we parted in wrath,
and I haven’t spoken to her since. She has a devil of a temper; a good
girl to keep away from.”
Poor unsuspecting Lorrimer! I felt guilty for a moment. Then I changed
the subject.
“But you’re looking very spruce. Don’t tell me you’ve sold a picture.”
“No, but I’ve got a job, a steady job. I’m doing cartoons every night
at the Noctambules. You must come round and see me.”
I promised I would, and returned to the Passage d’Enfer, where
Anastasia was busy putting our new apartment in order. There was a
bedroom, dining-room, and a kitchen, about the size of a packing-box;
but she was greatly pleased with everything. We supplemented our old
furniture with some new articles from the bazaars. A dressing-table
of walnut, a wardrobe with mirror doors, and cretonne curtains with
a design of little roses. Soon, we found ourselves installed with a
degree of comfort we had not hitherto known.
It was one evening that Anastasia, who had been papering the
dining-room, retired to bed quite early, that I decided to accept
Lorrimer’s invitation and visit the Noctambules. This is a cabaret in
a dark side-street that parallels the “Boul’ Mich’.” I found myself in
a long, low room whose walls were covered with caricatures of artists
who in their Bohemian days had been habitués of the place. There was
an array of chairs, a shabby little platform, and a piano. As each
_chansonnier_ came on he was introduced by an irrepressible young man
with a curly mop of hair and merry eyes. Then, as the singer finished,
the volatile young man called for three rounds of hearty applause.
The cabaret _chansonniers_ of Paris are unique in their way. They are
a connecting-link between literature and the stage--hermaphrodites
of the entertaining world. They write, compose, and sing their own
songs, which, often, not only have a distinctive note that makes for
art, but are sung inimitably well. Ex-poets, students with a turn
for satiric diversion, journalists of Bohemia, all go to swell the
ranks of these inheritors of the traditions of Beranger. From that
laureate of the gutter, Aristide Bruant, down to the smallest of them,
they portray with passionate fidelity the humour and tragedy of the
street--irreverently Rabelaisian at one moment, pathetically passionate
at the next.
As I enter, Marcel Legay is in the midst of a song of fervid
patriotism. In spite of his poetic name, he is a rubicund little man
with a voice and the mane of a lion. Then follows Vincent Hispy, with
catlike eyes and droll, caustic wit. Then comes Zavier Privas, big and
boisterous as the west wind, lover to his soul of the _chansons_ he
writes and sings. Finally, with a stick of charcoal and an eager smile,
Lorrimer appears. A screen is wheeled up on which are great sheets of
coarse paper. The artist announces that his first effort will be Sarah
Bernhardt. He makes about five lightning lines, and there is the divine
Sarah. Then follow in swift succession Polaire, Dranem, Mistinguette,
Mayol, and other lights of the Paris stage.
And now the cartoonist turns to the audience and asks them to name
some one high in politics. A voice shouts Clemenceau. In a moment the
well-known features are on the board. Poincaré! It is done. And so on
for a dozen others. Applause greets every new cartoon, and the artist
retires covered with glory.
“How did you like it?” grins Lorrimer, as he joins me in the audience.
“Splendid! Why, man, you could make barrels of money in America doing
that sort of thing.”
“I’d rather be a pauper in Paris than a money-changer in Chicago. But
there’s Rougette at the back of the hall. Doesn’t she look stunning?
Thanks to this job, I’ve been able to pay her for a good many sittings,
and now she’s got a new gown and hat. By Jove! that girl will be the
making of me yet. Her loveliness really inspires me. Nature leaves me
cold, but woman, beautiful woman!--I could go on painting her eternally
and not ask for other reward.”
And, indeed, the Breton girl, with her ash-gold hair and her complexion
of roses and cream, was a delicate vision of beauty.
“Never let a woman see that you cannot be serenely happy without her,”
says Lorrimer. “I’d do anything for Rougette (short of marrying her),
yet I never let her know it. And so she’s faithful to me. Others have
tried to steal her from me; have offered her luxury; but no, she’s the
same devoted, unspoiled girl. Just look at her, Madden, a pure lustrous
pearl. Think what a life such a girl might have in this Paris, where
men make queens of beautiful women! What triumphs! what glories! Yet
there she is, content to follow the fortunes of an obscure painter.
But come on and join the girl. They’re going to do a little silhouette
drama.”
As we sit by Rougette, who smiles radiantly, the lights go out, and
beyond the stage a little curtain goes up, showing a fisher cottage in
Brittany. The scene is early morning, the sea flooded with the coral
light of dawn. Then across the face of the picture comes the tiny
silhouettes of the fishermen carrying their nets. The cottage is next
shown in the glow of noon, and, lastly, by night, with the fisher boats
passing over the face of the moon.
Then the scene changes. We see the inside of the cabin--the bed, the
wardrobe of oak and brass, the great stone fireplace, the ship hanging
over it, the old grandmother sitting by her spinning-wheel. To her come
the children begging for a story, and she tells them one from out the
past--a story of her youth, the rising of the Vendée.
All this is made clear by three singers, who, somewhere in the
darkness, tell it in sweet, wild strains of Breton melody. There is a
soprano, a tenor, a bass; now one takes up the story, then another;
then all three voices blend with beautiful effect. And as they sing we
see the tiny silhouettes of the peasants, vivid and clear-cut, passing
across the face of the changing scene. Those strong, melodious voices
tell of how the farmer-soldiers rose and fought; how they marched
in the snow; how they suffered; how they died. It is sad, sweet,
beautiful; and now the music grows more dramatic; the action quickens;
the climax draws near.
And as I sit there with eyes fixed on that luminous space, I feel
that something else, also terrible, is about to happen. Surely some
one is moving in the darkness behind us? Even in that black silence I
am conscious of a shadow blacker still. Surely I can hear the sound
of hard, panting breath? That dreadful breathing passes me, passes
Lorrimer, comes to an arrest behind Rougette.
Then I hear a scream, shriek on shriek, such as I never dreamed within
the gamut of human agony. And in the hush of panic that follows the
lights go up.
Rougette is lying on the floor, her head buried in her arms, uttering
heart-rending cries. Lorrimer, with a face of absolute horror, is
bending over her, trying to raise her as she grovels there in agony.
What is it? A hundred faces are turned towards us, each the mask of
terror and dismay. I will always remember those faces that suddenly
flamed at us out of the dark, all so different, yet with the one awful
expression.
Then I see a tiny bottle at my feet. Almost mechanically I stoop and
pick it up; but I drop it as if I had been stung. I fall to rubbing
my fingers in agony, and everywhere I rub there is a brown burn. Now
I understand the poor, writhing, twisting girl on the floor, and a
similar shudder of understanding seems to convulse the crowd. There
comes a hoarse whisper--“_Vitriol!_”
Turning to the door, I am just in time to see a girl in black make her
escape, an olive-skinned girl with beetle-black hair and the eyes of an
odalisque. And Lorrimer looks at me in a ghastly way, and I know that
he too has seen.