Lajeunie, the luckless novelist, went to Pitou, the unrecognized
composer, saying, "I have a superb scenario for a revue. Let us join
forces! I promise you we shall make a fortune; we shall exchange our
attics for first floors of fashion, and be wealthy enough to wear sable
overcoats and Panama hats at the same time." In ordinary circumstances,
of course, Pitou would have collaborated only with Tricotrin, but
Tricotrin was just then engrossed by a tragedy in blank verse and seven
acts, and he said to them, "Make a fortune together by all means, my
comrades; I should be unreasonable if I raised objections to having
rich friends."
Accordingly the pair worked like heroes of biography, and, after
vicissitudes innumerable, _Patatras_ was practically accepted at
La Coupole. The manager even hinted that Fifi Blondette might be seen
in the leading part. La Coupole, and Blondette! Pitou and Lajeunie
could scarcely credit their ears. To be sure, she was no actress, and
her voice was rather unpleasant, and she would probably want everything
rewritten fifteen times before it satisfied her; but she was a
beautiful woman and all Paris paid to look at her when she graced a
stage; and she had just ruined Prince Czernowitz, which gave her name
an additional value. "Upon my word," gasped Pitou, "our luck seems as
incredible, my dear Lajeunie, as the plot of any of your novels! Come
and have a drink!"
"I feel like Rodolphe at the end of _La Vie de Bohème_," he
confided to Tricotrin in their garret one winter's night, as they went
supper-less to their beds. "Now that the days of privation are past, I
recall them with something like regret. The shock of the laundress's
totals, the meagre dinners at the Bel Avenir, these things have a
fascination now that I part from them. I do not wish to sound
ungrateful, but I cannot help wondering if my millions will impair the
taste of life to me."
"To me they will make it taste much better," said Tricotrin, "for I
shall have somebody to borrow money from, and I shall get enough
blankets. _Brrr_! how cold I am! Besides, you need not lose touch
with Montmartre because you are celebrated--you can invite us all to
your magnificent abode. Also, you can dine at the Bel Avenir still, if
sentiment pulls you that way."
"I shall certainly dine there," averred Pitou. "And I shall buy a house
for my parents, with a peacock and some deer on the lawn. At the same
time, a triumph is not without its pathos. I see my return to the Bel
Avenir, the old affections in my heart, the old greetings on my lips--
and I see the fellows constrained and formal in my presence. I see
madame apologising for the cuisine, instead of reminding me that my
credit is exhausted, and the waiter polishing my glass, instead of
indicating the cheapest item on the menu. Such changes hurt!" He was
much moved. "A fortune is not everything," he sighed, forgetting that
his pockets were as empty as his stomach. "Poverty yielded joys which I
no longer know."
The poet embraced him with emotion. "I rejoice to find that Fame has
not spoilt your nature," he cried; and he, too, forgot the empty
pockets, and that the contract from La Coupole had yet to come. "Yes,
we had hard times together, you and I, and I am still a nobody, but we
shall be chums as long as we live. I feel that you can unbosom yourself
to me, the poor bohemian, more freely than to any Immortal with whom
you hobnob in scenes of splendour."
"Oh indeed, indeed!" assented Pitou, weeping. "You are as dear to me
now as in the days of our struggles; I should curse my affluence if it
made you doubt that! Good-night, my brother; God bless you."
He lay between the ragged sheets; and half an hour crept by.
"Gustave!"
"Well?" said Tricotrin, looking towards the other bed. "Not asleep
yet?"
"I cannot sleep--hunger is gnawing at me."
"Ah, what a relentless realist is this hunger," complained the poet,
"how it destroys one's illusions!"
"Is there nothing to eat in the cupboard?"
"Not a crumb--I am ravenous myself. But I recall a broken cigarette in
my waistcoat pocket; let us cut it in halves!"
They strove, shivering, to appease their pangs by slow whiffs of a
Caporal, and while they supped in this unsatisfactory fashion, there
came an impetuous knocking at the street door.
"It must be that La Coupole has sent you a sack of gold to go on with!"
Tricotrin opined. "Put your head out and see."
"It is Lajeunie," announced the composer, withdrawing from the window
with chattering teeth. "What the devil can he want? I suppose I must go
down and let him in."
"Perhaps we can get some more cigarettes from him," said Tricotrin; "it
might have been worse."
But when the novelist appeared, the first thing he stammered was, "Give
me a cigarette, one of you fellows, or I shall die!"
"Well, then, dictate your last wishes to us!" returned Pitou. "Do you
come here under the impression that the house is a tobacconist's? What
is the matter with you, what is up?" "For three hours," snuffled
Lajeunie, who looked half frozen and kept shuddering violently, "for
three hours I have been pacing the streets, questioning whether I
should break the news to you to-night or not. In one moment I told
myself that it would be better to withhold it till the morning; in the
next I felt that you had a right to hear it without delay. Hour after
hour, in the snow, I turned the matter over in my mind, and--"
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Pitou, "is this an interminable serial at so much
a column? Come to the point!"
Lajeunie beat his breast. "I am distracted," he faltered, "I am no
longer master of myself. Listen! It occurred to me this evening that I
might do worse than pay a visit to La Coupole and inquire if a date was
fixed yet for the rehearsals to begin. Well, I went! For a long time I
could obtain no interview, I could obtain no appointment--the messenger
came back with evasive answers. I am naturally quick at smelling a rat
--I have the detective's instinct--and I felt that there was something
wrong. My heart began to fail me."
"For mercy's sake," groaned his unhappy collaborator, "explode the bomb
and bury my fragments! Enough of these literary introductions. Did you
see the manager, or didn't you?"
"I did see the miscreant, the bandit-king, I saw him in the street. For
I was not to be put off--I waited till he came out. Well, my friend, to
compress the tragedy into one act, our hope is shattered--
_Patatras_ is again refused!"
"Oh, heavens!" moaned Pitou, and fell back upon the mattress as white
as death.
"What explanation did he make?" cried Tricotrin; "what is the reason?"
"The reason is that Blondette is an imbecile--she finds the part
'unworthy of her talents.' A part on which I have lavished all the
wealth of my invention--she finds it beneath her, she said she would
'break her contract rather than play it.' Well, Blondette is the trump-card
of his season--he would throw over the whole of the Academy sooner
than lose Blondette. Since she objects to figuring in _Patatras,
Patatras_ is waste-paper to him. Alas! who would be an author? I
would rather shovel coke, or cut corns for a living. He himself
admitted that there was no fault to find with the revue, but, 'You know
well, monsieur, that we must humour Blondette!' I asked him if he would
try to bring her to her senses, but it seems that there have been a
dozen discussions already--he is sick of the subject. Now it is
settled--our manuscript will be banged back at us and we may rip!"
"Oh, my mother!" moaned Pitou. "Oh, the peacock and the deer!"
"What's that you say?" asked Lajeunie. "Are you positive that you
haven't got a cigarette anywhere?"
"I am positive that I have nothing," proclaimed Pitou vehemently,
"nothing in life but a broken heart! Oh, you did quite right to come to
me, but now leave me--leave me to perish. I have no words, I am
stricken. The next time you see me it will be in the Morgue. Mon Dieu,
that beautiful wretch, that creature without conscience, or a note in
her voice--by a shrug of her elegant shoulders she condemns me to the
Seine!"
"Ah, do not give way!" exclaimed Tricotrin, leaping out of bed.
"Courage, my poor fellow, courage! Are there not other managers in
Paris?"
"There are--and _Patatras_ has been refused by them. La Coupole
was our last chance, and it has collapsed. We have no more to expect--
it is all over. Is it not so, Lajeunie?"
"All over," sobbed Lajeunie, bowing his head on the washhand-stand.
"_Patatras_ is dead!"
Then for some seconds the only sound to be heard in the attic was the
laboured breathing of the three young men's despair.
At last Tricotrin, drawing himself upright in his tattered nightshirt,
said, with a gesture of dignity, "Well, the case may justify me--in the
present situation it appears to me that I have the right to use my
influence with Blondette!"
A signal from Mars could not have caused a more profound sensation.
Pitou and Lajeunie regarded him with open mouths. "Your influence?"
echoed Pitou: "your influence? I was not aware that you had ever met
her."
"No," rejoined the poet darkly; "I have not met her. But there are
circumstances in my life which entitle me to demand a service of this
triumphant woman. Do not question me, my friends--what I shall say to
her must remain a secret even from you. I declare, however, that nobody
has a stronger claim on her than Gustave Tricotrin, the poor penny-a-
liner whom she does not know!"
The sudden intervention--to say nothing of its literary flavour--so
excited the collaborators that they nearly wrung his hands off: and
Lajeunie, who recognised a promising beginning for another serial, was
athirst for further hints.
"She has perhaps committed a murder, that fair fiend?" he inquired
rapturously.
"Perhaps," replied Tricotrin.
"In that case she dare refuse you nothing."
"Why not, since I have never heard of it?"
"I was only jesting," said the novelist. "In sober earnest, I
conjecture that you are married to her, like Athos to Miladi. As you
stand there, with that grave air, you strongly resemble Athos."
"Nevertheless, Athos did not marry a woman to whom he had not spoken,
and I repeat that I have never spoken to Blondette in my life."
"Well," said Lajeunie, "I have too much respect for your wishes to show
any curiosity. Besides, by an expert the mystery is to be divined--
before the story opens, you rendered her some silent aid, and your name
will remind her of a great heroism?"
"I have never rendered her any aid at all," demurred Tricotrin, "and
there is not the slightest reason to suppose that she has ever heard my
name. But again, I have an incontestable right to demand a service of
her, and for the sake of the affection I bear you both, I shall go and
do it."
"When Tricotrin thinks that he is living in _The Three Musketeers_
it is useless to try to pump him," said Pitou; "let us content
ourselves with what we are told! Is it not enough? Our fate is in
Blondette's hands, and he is in a position to ask a favour of her. What
more can we want?"
But he could not resist putting a question on his own account after
Lajeunie had skipped downstairs.
"Gustave, why did you never mention to me that you knew Blondette?"
"Morbleu! how often must I say that I do _not_ know her?"
"Well--how shall I express it?--that some episode in your career gave
you a claim on her consideration?"
"Because, by doing so, I should have both violated a confidence, and
re-opened a wound which still burns," said Tricotrin, more like Athos
than ever. "Only the urgency of your need, my comrade, could induce me
to take the course that I project. Now let me sleep, for to-morrow I
must have all my wits!"
It was, however, five o'clock already, and before either of them had
slept long, the street was clattering with feet on their way to the
laundries, and vendors of delicacies were bawling suggestions for
appetising breakfasts.
"Not only do the shouts of these monsters disturb my slumber, but they
taunt my starvation!" yawned the poet. "Yet, now I come to think of it,
I have an appointment with a man who has sworn to lend me a franc, so
perhaps I had better get up before he is likely to have spent it. I
shall call upon Blondette in the afternoon, when she returns from her
drive. What is your own programme?"
"My first attempt will be at a crèmerie in the rue St. Rustique, where
I am inclined to think I may get credit for milk and a roll if I
swagger."
"Capital," said Tricotrin; "things are looking up with us both! And if
I raise the franc, there will be ten sous for you to squander on a
recherché luncheon. Meet me in the place Dancourt in an hour's time. So
long!"
Never had mademoiselle Blondette looked more captivating than when her
carriage brought her back that day. She wore--but why particularise?
Suffice it, that she had just been photographed. As she stepped to the
pavement she was surprised by the obeisance of a shabby young man, who
said in courtly tones, "Mademoiselle, may I beg the honour of an
interview? I came from La Coupole." Having bestowed a glance of
annoyance on him, she invited him to ascend the stairs, and a minute
later Tricotrin was privileged to watch her take off her hat before the
mirror.
"Well?" she inquired, "what's the trouble there now; what do they
want?"
"So far as I know, mademoiselle," returned the intruder deferentially,
"they want nothing but your beauty and your genius; but I myself want
infinitely more--I want your attention and your pity. Let me explain
without delay that I do not represent the Management, and that when I
said I came from La Coupole I should have added that I did not come
from the interior."
"Ça, par exemple!" she said sharply. "Who are you, then?"
"I am Tricotrin, mademoiselle--Gustave Tricotrin, at your feet. I have
two comrades, the parents of _Patatras_; you have refused to play
in it, and I fear they will destroy themselves. I come to beg you to
save their lives."
"Monsieur," exclaimed the lady, and her eyes were brilliant with
temper, "all that I have to say about _Patatras_ I have said! The
part gave me the hump."
"And yet," continued the suppliant firmly, "I hope to induce you to
accept it. I am an author myself, and I assure you that it teems with
opportunities that you may have overlooked in a casual reading."
"It is stupid!"
"As you would play it, I predict that it would make an epoch."
"And the music is no good."
"If I may venture to differ from you, the music is haunting--the
composer is my lifelong friend."
"I appreciate the argument," she said, with fine irony. "But you will
scarcely expect me to play a part that I don't like in order to please
you!"
"Frankly, that is just what I do expect," replied the poet. "I think
you will consent for my sake."
"Oh, really? For _your_ sake? Would you mind mentioning why,
before you go?"
"Because, mademoiselle," said Tricotrin, folding his arms, "in years
gone by, you ruined me!"
"Mon Dieu!" she gasped, and she did not doubt that she was in the
presence of a lunatic.
"Do not rush to the bell!" he begged. "If it will allay your panic, I
will open the door and address you from the landing. I am not insane, I
solemnly assert that I am one of the men who have had the honour of
being ruined by you." "I have never seen you in my life before!" "I
know it. I even admit that I attach no blame to you in the matter.
Nevertheless, you cost me two thousand five hundred and forty-three
francs, and--as you may judge by my costume--I do not own the Crédit
Lyonnais. If you will deign to hear my story, I guarantee that it will
convince you. Do you permit me to proceed?"
The beauty nodded wonderingly, and the shabby young man continued in
the following words:
"As I have said, I am an author; I shall 'live' by my poetry, but I
exist by my prose--in fact, I turn my pen to whatever promises a
dinner, be it a sonnet to the Spring, or a testimonial to a hair
restorer. One summer, when dinners had been even more elusive than
usual, I conceived the idea of calling attention to my talents by means
of an advertisement. In reply, I received a note bidding me be on the
third step of the Madeleine at four o'clock the following day, and my
correspondent proved to be a gentleman whose elegant apparel proclaimed
him a Parisian of the Boulevard.
"'You are monsieur Gustave Tricotrin?' he inquired.
"'I have that misfortune, monsieur,' said I. We adjourned to a café,
and after a preliminary chat, from which he deduced that I was a person
of discretion, he made me a proposal.
"He said, 'Monsieur Tricotrin, it is evident that you and I were
designed to improve each other's condition; _your_ dilemma is
that, being unknown, you cannot dispose of your stories--_mine_ is
that, being known so well, I am asked for more stories than I can
possibly write, I suggest that you shall write some for me. _I_
will sign them, they will be paid for in accordance with my usual
terms, and you shall receive a generous share of the swag. I need not
impress upon you that I am speaking in the strictest confidence, and
that you must never breathe a word about our partnership, even to the
wife of your bosom.'
"'Monsieur,' I returned, 'I have no wife to breathe to, and my bosom is
unsurpassed as a receptacle for secrets,'
"'Good,' he said. 'Well, without beating about the bush, I will tell
you who I am.' He then uttered a name that made me jump, and before we
parted it was arranged that I should supply him with a tale immediately
as a specimen of my abilities.
"This tale, which I accomplished the same evening, pleased him so well
that he forthwith gave me an order for two more. I can create a plot
almost as rapidly as a debt, and before long I had delivered
manuscripts to him in such wholesale quantities that if I had been paid
cash for them, I should have been in a position to paint the Butte the
richest shade of red. It was his custom, however, to make excuses and
payments on account, and as we were capital friends by now, I never
demurred.
"Well, things went on in this fashion until one day he hinted to me
that I had provided him with enough manuscripts to last him for two
years; his study was lumbered with evidence of my talent, and his
market, after all, was not unlimited. He owed me then close upon three
thousand francs, and it was agreed that he should wipe the debt out by
weekly instalments. Enfin, I was content enough--I foresaw an ample
income for two years to come, and renewed leisure to win immortality by
my epics. I trust that my narrative does not fatigue you,
mademoiselle?"
"What has it all to do with me, however?" asked the lady.
"You shall hear. Though the heroine comes on late, she brings the house
down when she enters. For a few weeks my patron fulfilled his compact
with tolerable punctuality, but I never failed to notice when we met
that he was a prey to some terrible grief. At last, when he had reduced
the sum to two thousand five hundred and forty-three francs--the
figures will be found graven on my heart--he confided in me, he made me
a strange request; he exclaimed:
"'Tricotrin, I am the most miserable of men!'
"'Poor fellow!' I responded. 'It is, of course, a woman?'
"'Precisely,' he answered. 'I adore her. Her beauty is incomparable,
her fascinations are unparalleled, her intelligence is unique. She has
only one blemish--she is mercenary.'
"'After all, perfection would be tedious,' I said.
"'You are a man of sensibility, you understand!' he cried. 'Her tastes
have been a considerable strain on my resources, and in consequence my
affairs have become involved. Now that I am in difficulties, she is
giving me the chuck. I have implored and besought, I have worn myself
out in appeals, but her firmness is as striking as her other gifts.
There remains only one chance for me--a letter so impassioned that it
shall awake her pity. _I_, as I tell you, am exhausted; I can no
longer plead, no longer phrase, I am a wreck! Will you, as a friend, as
a poet, compose such a letter and give it to me to copy?'
"Could I hesitate? I drove my pen for him till daybreak. All the
yearnings of my own nature, all the romance of my fiery youth, I poured
out in this appeal to a siren whom I had never seen, and whose name I
did not know. I was distraught, pathetic, humorous, and sublime by
turns. Subtle gleams of wit flashed artistically across the lurid
landscape of despair. I reminded her of scenes of happiness--vaguely,
because I had no details to elaborate; the reminiscences, however, were
so touching that I came near to believing in them. Mindful of her
solitary blemish, I referred to 'embarrassments now almost at an end';
and so profoundly did I affect myself, that while I wrote that I was
weeping, it was really true. Well, when I saw the gentleman again he
embraced me like a brother. 'Your letter was a masterpiece,' he told
me; 'it has done the trick!'
"Mademoiselle, I do not wish to say who he was, and as you have known
many celebrities, and had many love-letters, you may not guess. But the
woman was you! And if I had been a better business man, I should have
written less movingly, for I recognised, even during my inspiration,
that it was against my interests to reunite him to you. I was an
artist; I thrilled your heart, I restored you to his arms--and you had
the two thousand five hundred and forty-three francs that would
otherwise have come to me! Never could I extract another sou from him!"
As Tricotrin concluded his painful history, mademoiselle Blondette
seemed so much amused that he feared she had entirely missed its
pathos. But his misgiving was relieved when she spoke.
"It seems to me I have been expensive to you, monsieur," she said; "and
you have certainly had nothing for your money. Since this revue--which
I own that I have merely glanced at--is the apple of your eye, I
promise to read it with more attention."
* * * * *
A month later _Patatras_ was produced at La Coupole after all, and
no one applauded its performance more enthusiastically than the poet,
who subsequently went to supper arm-in-arm with its creators.
"Mon vieux," said the elated pair, "we will not ask again by what means
you accomplished this miracle, but let it teach you a lesson! Tonight's
experience proves that nothing is beyond your power if you resolve to
succeed!"
"It proves," replied Tricotrin, "that Blondette's first impression was
correct, for, between ourselves, my children, _Patatras_ is no
shakes."
Nevertheless, Lajeunie and Pitou wore laurels in Montmartre; and one is
happy to say that their fees raised the young collaborators from
privation to prosperity--thanks to Blondette's attractions--for nearly
three weeks.