CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER I
On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining
at his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied
the centre of the Salon Carré, in the Museum of the Louvre. This
commodious ottoman has since been removed, to the extreme regret of all
weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, but the gentleman in question had
taken serene possession of its softest spot, and, with his head thrown
back and his legs outstretched, was staring at Murillo’s beautiful
moon-borne Madonna in profound enjoyment of his posture. He had removed
his hat, and flung down beside him a little red guide-book and an
opera-glass. The day was warm; he was heated with walking, and he
repeatedly passed his handkerchief over his forehead, with a somewhat
wearied gesture. And yet he was evidently not a man to whom fatigue was
familiar; long, lean, and muscular, he suggested the sort of vigor that
is commonly known as “toughness.” But his exertions on this particular
day had been of an unwonted sort, and he had performed great physical
feats which left him less jaded than his tranquil stroll through the
Louvre. He had looked out all the pictures to which an asterisk was
affixed in those formidable pages of fine print in his Bädeker; his
attention had been strained and his eyes dazzled, and he had sat down
with an æsthetic headache. He had looked, moreover, not only at all the
pictures, but at all the copies that were going forward around them, in
the hands of those innumerable young women in irreproachable toilets
who devote themselves, in France, to the propagation of masterpieces,
and if the truth must be told, he had often admired the copy much more
than the original. His physiognomy would have sufficiently indicated
that he was a shrewd and capable fellow, and in truth he had often sat
up all night over a bristling bundle of accounts, and heard the cock
crow without a yawn. But Raphael and Titian and Rubens were a new kind
of arithmetic, and they inspired our friend, for the first time in his
life, with a vague self-mistrust.
An observer with anything of an eye for national types would have had
no difficulty in determining the local origin of this undeveloped
connoisseur, and indeed such an observer might have felt a certain
humorous relish of the almost ideal completeness with which he filled
out the national mould. The gentleman on the divan was a powerful
specimen of an American. But he was not only a fine American; he was in
the first place, physically, a fine man. He appeared to possess that
kind of health and strength which, when found in perfection, are the
most impressive—the physical capital which the owner does nothing to
“keep up.” If he was a muscular Christian, it was quite without knowing
it. If it was necessary to walk to a remote spot, he walked, but he had
never known himself to “exercise.” He had no theory with regard to cold
bathing or the use of Indian clubs; he was neither an oarsman, a
rifleman, nor a fencer—he had never had time for these amusements—and
he was quite unaware that the saddle is recommended for certain forms
of indigestion. He was by inclination a temperate man; but he had
supped the night before his visit to the Louvre at the Café
Anglais—someone had told him it was an experience not to be omitted—and
he had slept none the less the sleep of the just. His usual attitude
and carriage were of a rather relaxed and lounging kind, but when under
a special inspiration, he straightened himself, he looked like a
grenadier on parade. He never smoked. He had been assured—such things
are said—that cigars were excellent for the health, and he was quite
capable of believing it; but he knew as little about tobacco as about
homœopathy. He had a very well-formed head, with a shapely, symmetrical
balance of the frontal and the occipital development, and a good deal
of straight, rather dry brown hair. His complexion was brown, and his
nose had a bold well-marked arch. His eye was of a clear, cold gray,
and save for a rather abundant moustache he was clean-shaved. He had
the flat jaw and sinewy neck which are frequent in the American type;
but the traces of national origin are a matter of expression even more
than of feature, and it was in this respect that our friend’s
countenance was supremely eloquent. The discriminating observer we have
been supposing might, however, perfectly have measured its
expressiveness, and yet have been at a loss to describe it. It had that
typical vagueness which is not vacuity, that blankness which is not
simplicity, that look of being committed to nothing in particular, of
standing in an attitude of general hospitality to the chances of life,
of being very much at one’s own disposal so characteristic of many
American faces. It was our friend’s eye that chiefly told his story; an
eye in which innocence and experience were singularly blended. It was
full of contradictory suggestions, and though it was by no means the
glowing orb of a hero of romance, you could find in it almost anything
you looked for. Frigid and yet friendly, frank yet cautious, shrewd yet
credulous, positive yet sceptical, confident yet shy, extremely
intelligent and extremely good-humored, there was something vaguely
defiant in its concessions, and something profoundly reassuring in its
reserve. The cut of this gentleman’s moustache, with the two premature
wrinkles in the cheek above it, and the fashion of his garments, in
which an exposed shirt-front and a cerulean cravat played perhaps an
obtrusive part, completed the conditions of his identity. We have
approached him, perhaps, at a not especially favorable moment; he is by
no means sitting for his portrait. But listless as he lounges there,
rather baffled on the æsthetic question, and guilty of the damning
fault (as we have lately discovered it to be) of confounding the merit
of the artist with that of his work (for he admires the squinting
Madonna of the young lady with the boyish coiffure, because he thinks
the young lady herself uncommonly taking), he is a sufficiently
promising acquaintance. Decision, salubrity, jocosity, prosperity, seem
to hover within his call; he is evidently a practical man, but the idea
in his case, has undefined and mysterious boundaries, which invite the
imagination to bestir itself on his behalf.
As the little copyist proceeded with her work, she sent every now and
then a responsive glance toward her admirer. The cultivation of the
fine arts appeared to necessitate, to her mind, a great deal of
by-play, a great standing off with folded arms and head drooping from
side to side, stroking of a dimpled chin with a dimpled hand, sighing
and frowning and patting of the foot, fumbling in disordered tresses
for wandering hair-pins. These performances were accompanied by a
restless glance, which lingered longer than elsewhere upon the
gentleman we have described. At last he rose abruptly, put on his hat,
and approached the young lady. He placed himself before her picture and
looked at it for some moments, during which she pretended to be quite
unconscious of his inspection. Then, addressing her with the single
word which constituted the strength of his French vocabulary, and
holding up one finger in a manner which appeared to him to illuminate
his meaning, “_Combien?_” he abruptly demanded.
The artist stared a moment, gave a little pout, shrugged her shoulders,
put down her palette and brushes, and stood rubbing her hands.
“How much?” said our friend, in English. “_Combien?_”
“Monsieur wishes to buy it?” asked the young lady in French.
“Very pretty, _splendide. Combien?_” repeated the American.
“It pleases monsieur, my little picture? It’s a very beautiful
subject,” said the young lady.
“The Madonna, yes; I am not a Catholic, but I want to buy it.
_Combien?_ Write it here.” And he took a pencil from his pocket and
showed her the fly-leaf of his guide-book. She stood looking at him and
scratching her chin with the pencil. “Is it not for sale?” he asked.
And as she still stood reflecting, and looking at him with an eye
which, in spite of her desire to treat this avidity of patronage as a
very old story, betrayed an almost touching incredulity, he was afraid
he had offended her. She was simply trying to look indifferent, and
wondering how far she might go. “I haven’t made a mistake—_pas
insulté_, no?” her interlocutor continued. “Don’t you understand a
little English?”
The young lady’s aptitude for playing a part at short notice was
remarkable. She fixed him with her conscious, perceptive eye and asked
him if he spoke no French. Then, “_Donnez!_” she said briefly, and took
the open guide-book. In the upper corner of the fly-leaf she traced a
number, in a minute and extremely neat hand. Then she handed back the
book and took up her palette again.
Our friend read the number: “2,000 francs.” He said nothing for a time,
but stood looking at the picture, while the copyist began actively to
dabble with her paint. “For a copy, isn’t that a good deal?” he asked
at last. “_Pas beaucoup?_”
The young lady raised her eyes from her palette, scanned him from head
to foot, and alighted with admirable sagacity upon exactly the right
answer. “Yes, it’s a good deal. But my copy has remarkable qualities,
it is worth nothing less.”
The gentleman in whom we are interested understood no French, but I
have said he was intelligent, and here is a good chance to prove it. He
apprehended, by a natural instinct, the meaning of the young woman’s
phrase, and it gratified him to think that she was so honest. Beauty,
talent, virtue; she combined everything! “But you must finish it,” he
said. “_finish_, you know;” and he pointed to the unpainted hand of the
figure.
“Oh, it shall be finished in perfection; in the perfection of
perfections!” cried mademoiselle; and to confirm her promise, she
deposited a rosy blotch in the middle of the Madonna’s cheek.
But the American frowned. “Ah, too red, too red!” he rejoined. “Her
complexion,” pointing to the Murillo, “is—more delicate.”
“Delicate? Oh, it shall be delicate, monsieur; delicate as Sèvres
_biscuit_. I am going to tone that down; I know all the secrets of my
art. And where will you allow us to send it to you? Your address?”
“My address? Oh yes!” And the gentleman drew a card from his
pocket-book and wrote something upon it. Then hesitating a moment he
said, “If I don’t like it when it it’s finished, you know, I shall not
be obliged to take it.”
The young lady seemed as good a guesser as himself. “Oh, I am very sure
that monsieur is not capricious,” she said with a roguish smile.
“Capricious?” And at this monsieur began to laugh. “Oh no, I’m not
capricious. I am very faithful. I am very constant. _Comprenez?_”
“Monsieur is constant; I understand perfectly. It’s a rare virtue. To
recompense you, you shall have your picture on the first possible day;
next week—as soon as it is dry. I will take the card of monsieur.” And
she took it and read his name: “Christopher Newman.” Then she tried to
repeat it aloud, and laughed at her bad accent. “Your English names are
so droll!”
“Droll?” said Mr. Newman, laughing too. “Did you ever hear of
Christopher Columbus?”
“_Bien sûr!_ He invented America; a very great man. And is he your
patron?”
“My patron?”
“Your patron-saint, in the calendar.”
“Oh, exactly; my parents named me for him.”
“Monsieur is American?”
“Don’t you see it?” monsieur inquired.
“And you mean to carry my little picture away over there?” and she
explained her phrase with a gesture.
“Oh, I mean to buy a great many pictures—_beaucoup, beaucoup_,” said
Christopher Newman.
“The honor is not less for me,” the young lady answered, “for I am sure
monsieur has a great deal of taste.”
“But you must give me your card,” Newman said; “your card, you know.”
The young lady looked severe for an instant, and then said, “My father
will wait upon you.”
But this time Mr. Newman’s powers of divination were at fault. “Your
card, your address,” he simply repeated.
“My address?” said mademoiselle. Then with a little shrug, “Happily for
you, you are an American! It is the first time I ever gave my card to a
gentleman.” And, taking from her pocket a rather greasy portemonnaie,
she extracted from it a small glazed visiting card, and presented the
latter to her patron. It was neatly inscribed in pencil, with a great
many flourishes, “Mlle. Noémie Nioche.” But Mr. Newman, unlike his
companion, read the name with perfect gravity; all French names to him
were equally droll.
“And precisely, here is my father, who has come to escort me home,”
said Mademoiselle Noémie. “He speaks English. He will arrange with
you.” And she turned to welcome a little old gentleman who came
shuffling up, peering over his spectacles at Newman.
M. Nioche wore a glossy wig, of an unnatural color which overhung his
little meek, white, vacant face, and left it hardly more expressive
than the unfeatured block upon which these articles are displayed in
the barber’s window. He was an exquisite image of shabby gentility. His
scant ill-made coat, desperately brushed, his darned gloves, his highly
polished boots, his rusty, shapely hat, told the story of a person who
had “had losses” and who clung to the spirit of nice habits even though
the letter had been hopelessly effaced. Among other things M. Nioche
had lost courage. Adversity had not only ruined him, it had frightened
him, and he was evidently going through his remnant of life on tiptoe,
for fear of waking up the hostile fates. If this strange gentleman was
saying anything improper to his daughter, M. Nioche would entreat him
huskily, as a particular favor, to forbear; but he would admit at the
same time that he was very presumptuous to ask for particular favors.
“Monsieur has bought my picture,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. “When it’s
finished you’ll carry it to him in a cab.”
“In a cab!” cried M. Nioche; and he stared, in a bewildered way, as if
he had seen the sun rising at midnight.
“Are you the young lady’s father?” said Newman. “I think she said you
speak English.”
“Speak English—yes,” said the old man slowly rubbing his hands. “I will
bring it in a cab.”
“Say something, then,” cried his daughter. “Thank him a little—not too
much.”
“A little, my daughter, a little?” said M. Nioche perplexed. “How
much?”
“Two thousand!” said Mademoiselle Noémie. “Don’t make a fuss or he’ll
take back his word.”
“Two thousand!” cried the old man, and he began to fumble for his
snuff-box. He looked at Newman from head to foot; he looked at his
daughter and then at the picture. “Take care you don’t spoil it!” he
cried almost sublimely.
“We must go home,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. “This is a good day’s
work. Take care how you carry it!” And she began to put up her
utensils.
“How can I thank you?” said M. Nioche. “My English does not suffice.”
“I wish I spoke French as well,” said Newman, good-naturedly. “Your
daughter is very clever.”
“Oh, sir!” and M. Nioche looked over his spectacles with tearful eyes
and nodded several times with a world of sadness. “She has had an
education—_très-supérieure!_ Nothing was spared. Lessons in pastel at
ten francs the lesson, lessons in oil at twelve francs. I didn’t look
at the francs then. She’s an _artiste_, eh?”
“Do I understand you to say that you have had reverses?” asked Newman.
“Reverses? Oh, sir, misfortunes—terrible.”
“Unsuccessful in business, eh?”
“Very unsuccessful, sir.”
“Oh, never fear, you’ll get on your legs again,” said Newman cheerily.
The old man drooped his head on one side and looked at him with an
expression of pain, as if this were an unfeeling jest.
“What does he say?” demanded Mademoiselle Noémie.
M. Nioche took a pinch of snuff. “He says I will make my fortune
again.”
“Perhaps he will help you. And what else?”
“He says thou art very clever.”
“It is very possible. You believe it yourself, my father?”
“Believe it, my daughter? With this evidence!” And the old man turned
afresh, with a staring, wondering homage, to the audacious daub on the
easel.
“Ask him, then, if he would not like to learn French.”
“To learn French?”
“To take lessons.”
“To take lessons, my daughter? From thee?”
“From you!”
“From me, my child? How should I give lessons?”
“_Pas de raisons!_ Ask him immediately!” said Mademoiselle Noémie, with
soft brevity.
M. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter’s eye he collected his
wits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable smile, he executed her
commands. “Would it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful
language?” he inquired, with an appealing quaver.
“To study French?” asked Newman, staring.
M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his
shoulders. “A little conversation!”
“Conversation—that’s it!” murmured Mademoiselle Noémie, who had caught
the word. “The conversation of the best society.”
“Our French conversation is famous, you know,” M. Nioche ventured to
continue. “It’s a great talent.”
“But isn’t it awfully difficult?” asked Newman, very simply.
“Not to a man of _esprit_, like monsieur, an admirer of beauty in every
form!” and M. Nioche cast a significant glance at his daughter’s
Madonna.
“I can’t fancy myself chattering French!” said Newman with a laugh.
“And yet, I suppose that the more a man knows the better.”
“Monsieur expresses that very happily. _Hélas, oui!_”
“I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris, to know
the language.”
“Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say: difficult
things!”
“Everything I want to say is difficult. But you give lessons?”
Poor M. Nioche was embarrassed; he smiled more appealingly. “I am not a
regular professor,” he admitted. “I can’t nevertheless tell him that
I’m a professor,” he said to his daughter.
“Tell him it’s a very exceptional chance,” answered Mademoiselle
Noémie; “an _homme du monde_—one gentleman conversing with another!
Remember what you are—what you have been!”
“A teacher of languages in neither case! Much more formerly and much
less to-day! And if he asks the price of the lessons?”
“He won’t ask it,” said Mademoiselle Noémie.
“What he pleases, I may say?”
“Never! That’s bad style.”
“If he asks, then?”
Mademoiselle Noémie had put on her bonnet and was tying the ribbons.
She smoothed them out, with her soft little chin thrust forward. “Ten
francs,” she said quickly.
“Oh, my daughter! I shall never dare.”
“Don’t dare, then! He won’t ask till the end of the lessons, and then I
will make out the bill.”
M. Nioche turned to the confiding foreigner again, and stood rubbing
his hands, with an air of seeming to plead guilty which was not
intenser only because it was habitually so striking. It never occurred
to Newman to ask him for a guarantee of his skill in imparting
instruction; he supposed of course M. Nioche knew his own language, and
his appealing forlornness was quite the perfection of what the
American, for vague reasons, had always associated with all elderly
foreigners of the lesson-giving class. Newman had never reflected upon
philological processes. His chief impression with regard to
ascertaining those mysterious correlatives of his familiar English
vocables which were current in this extraordinary city of Paris was,
that it was simply a matter of a good deal of unwonted and rather
ridiculous muscular effort on his own part. “How did you learn
English?” he asked of the old man.
“When I was young, before my miseries. Oh, I was wide awake, then. My
father was a great _commerçant_; he placed me for a year in a
counting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me; but much I have
forgotten!”
“How much French can I learn in a month?”
“What does he say?” asked Mademoiselle Noémie.
M. Nioche explained.
“He will speak like an angel!” said his daughter.
But the native integrity which had been vainly exerted to secure M.
Nioche’s commercial prosperity flickered up again. “_Dame_, monsieur!”
he answered. “All I can teach you!” And then, recovering himself at a
sign from his daughter, “I will wait upon you at your hotel.”
“Oh yes, I should like to learn French,” Newman went on, with
democratic confidingness. “Hang me if I should ever have thought of it!
I took for granted it was impossible. But if you learned my language,
why shouldn’t I learn yours?” and his frank, friendly laugh drew the
sting from the jest. “Only, if we are going to converse, you know, you
must think of something cheerful to converse about.”
“You are very good, sir; I am overcome!” said M. Nioche, throwing out
his hands. “But you have cheerfulness and happiness for two!”
“Oh no,” said Newman more seriously. “You must be bright and lively;
that’s part of the bargain.”
M. Nioche bowed, with his hand on his heart. “Very well, sir; you have
already made me lively.”
“Come and bring me my picture then; I will pay you for it, and we will
talk about that. That will be a cheerful subject!”
Mademoiselle Noémie had collected her accessories, and she gave the
precious Madonna in charge to her father, who retreated backwards out
of sight, holding it at arm’s-length and reiterating his obeisance. The
young lady gathered her shawl about her like a perfect Parisienne, and
it was with the smile of a Parisienne that she took leave of her
patron.