Nevertheless one does not pretend that it was owing to her talent, or her costume, or the weird melody proposed by the chef d'orchestre, that she became the rage. Not at all. That was due to her reputation. Sceptics might smile and murmur the French for "Rats!" but, again, nobody could say positively that the tragedies had not occurred. And above all, there were the eyes—it was conceded that a woman with eyes like thatoughtto be abnormal. La Coupole was thronged every night, and the stage doorkeeper grew rich, so numerous were the daring spirits, coquetting with death, who tendered notes inviting the Fatal One to supper.
Somehow the suppers were rather dreary. The cause may have been that the guest was handicapped by circumstances—to be good company without discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a tête-à-tête; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that she wished she were 'on the road' again, with a jolly good fellow who was not afraid of her!"
Then the tattered aunt cooed to her, reminding her that little ducklings had run to her already roasted, and adding that she (the tattered aunt) had never heard of equal luck in all the years she had been in the show business.
"Ah, zut!" cried Florozonde. "It does not please me to be treated as ifI had scarlet fever. If I lean towards a man, he turns pale."
"Life is good," said her aunt philosophically, "and men have no wish to die for the sake of an embrace—remember your reputation! II faut souffrir pour être fatale. Look at your salary, sweetie—and you have had nothing to do but hold your tongue! Ah, was anything ever heard like it? A miracle of le bon Dieu!"
"It was monsieur de Fronsac, the journalist, who started it," said Florozonde. "I supposed he had made it up, to give me a lift; but, ma foi, I thinkhehalf believes it, too! What can have put it in his head? I have a mind to ask him the next time he comes behind."
"What a madness!" exclaimed the old woman; "you might queer your pitch! Never, never perform a trick with a confederate when you can work alone; that is one of the first rules of life. If he thinks it is true, so much the better. Now get to bed, lovey, and think of pleasant things—what did you have for supper?"
Florozonde was correct in her surmise—de Fronsac did half believe it, and de Fronsac was accordingly much perturbed. Consider his dilemma! The nature of his pursuits had demanded a love affair, and he had endeavoured conscientiously to comply, for the man was nothing if not an artist. But, as he had said to Pitou, he had loved so much, and so many, that the thing was practically impossible for him, He was like the pastrycook's boy who is habituated and bilious. Then suddenly a new type, which he had despaired of finding, was displayed. His curiosity awoke; and, fascinated in the first instance by her ghastly reputation, he was fascinated gradually by her physical charms. Again he found himself enslaved by a woman—and the woman, who owed her fame to his services, was clearly appreciative. But he had a strong objection to committing suicide.
His eagerness for her love was only equalled by his dread of what might happen if she gave it to him. Alternately he yearned, and shuddered, On Monday he cried, "Idiot, to be frightened by such blague!" and on Tuesday he told himself, "All the same, there may be something in it!" It was thus tortured that he paid his respects to Florozonde at the theatre on the evening after she complained to her aunt. She was in her dressing-room, making ready to go.
"You have danced divinely," he said to her. "There is no longer a programme at La Coupole—there is only 'Florozonde.'"
She smiled the mysterious smile that she was cultivating. "What have you been doing with yourself, monsieur? I have not seen you all the week."
De Fronsac sighed expressively. "At my age one has the wisdom to avoid temptation."
"May it not be rather unkind to temptation?" she suggested, raising her marvellous eyes.
De Fronsac drew a step back. "Also I have had a great deal to do," he added formally; "I am a busy man. For example, much as I should like to converse with you now.—" But his resolution forsook him and he was unable to say that he had looked in only for a minute.
"Much as you would like to converse with me—?" questioned Florozonde.
"I ought, by rights, to be seated at my desk," he concluded lamely.
"I am pleased that you are not seated at your desk," she said.
"Because?" murmured de Fronsac, with unspeakable emotions.
"Because I have never thanked you enough for your interest in me, and I want to tell you that I remember." She gave him her hand. He held it, battling with terror.
"Mademoiselle," he returned tremulously, "when I wrote the causerie you refer to, my interest in you was purely the interest of a journalist, so for that I do not deserve your thanks. But since I have had the honour to meet you I have experienced an interest altogether different; the interest of a man, of a—a—" Here his teeth chattered, and he paused.
"Of a what?" she asked softly, with a dreamy air.
"Of a friend," he muttered. A gust of fear had made the "friend" an iceberg. But her clasp tightened.
"I am glad," she said. "Ah, you have been good to me, monsieur! And if, in spite of everything, I am sometimes sad, I am, at least, never ungrateful."
"You are sad?" faltered the vacillating victim. "Why?"
Her bosom rose. "Is success all a woman wants?"
"Ah!" exclaimed de Fronsac, in an impassioned quaver, "is that not life? To all of us there is the unattainable—to you, to me!"
"To you?" she murmured. Her eyes were transcendental. Admiration and alarm tore him in halves.
"In truth," he gasped, "I am the most miserable of men! What is genius, what is fame, when one is lonely and unloved?"
She moved impetuously closer—so close that the perfume of her hair intoxicated him. His heart seemed to knock against his ribs, and he felt the perspiration burst out on his brow. For an instant he hesitated—on the edge of his grave, he thought. Then he dropped her hand, and backed from her. "But why should I bore you with my griefs?" he stammered. "Au revoir, mademoiselle!"
Outside the stage door he gave thanks for his self-control. Also, pale with the crisis, he registered an oath not to approach her again.
Meanwhile the expatriated Pitou had remained disconsolate. Though the people at the Hague spoke French, they said foreign things to him in it. He missed Montmartre—the interests of home. While he waxed eloquent to customers on the tone of pianos, or the excellence of rival composers' melodies, he was envying Florozonde in Paris. Florozonde, whom he had created, obsessed the young man. In the evening he read about her at Van der Pyl's; on Sundays, when the train carried him to drink beer at Scheveningen, he read about her in the Kurhaus. And then the unexpected happened. In this way:
Pitou was discharged.
Few things could have surprised him more, and, to tell the truth, few things could have troubled him less. "It is better to starve in Paris than grow fat in Holland," he observed. He jingled his capital in his trouser-pocket, in fancy savoured his dinner cooking at the Café du Bel Avenir, and sped from the piano shop as if it had been on fire.
The clock pointed to a quarter to six as Nicolas Pitou, composer, emerged from the gare du Nord, and lightly swinging the valise that contained his wardrobe, proceeded to the rue des Trois Frères. Never had it looked dirtier, or sweeter. He threw himself on Tricotrin's neck; embraced the concierge—which took her breath away, since she was ill-favoured and most disagreeable; fared sumptuously for one franc fifty at the Café du Bel Avenir—where he narrated adventures abroad that surpassed de Rougemont's; and went to La Coupole.
And there, jostled by the crowd, the poor fellow looked across the theatre at the triumphant woman he had invented—and fell in love with her.
One would have said there was more than the width of a theatre between them—one would have said the distance was interminable. Who in the audience could suspect that Florozonde would have been unknown but for a boy in the Promenoir?
Yes, he fell in love—with her beauty, her grace—perhaps also with the circumstances. The theatre rang with plaudits; the curtain hid her; and he went out, dizzy with romance. He could not hope to speak to her to-night, but he was curious to see her when she left. He decided that on the morrow he would call upon de Fronsac, whom she doubtless knew now, and ask him for an introduction. Promising himself this, he reached the stage door—where de Fronsac, with trembling limbs, stood giving thanks for his self-control.
"My friend!" cried Pitou enthusiastically, "how rejoiced I am to meet you!" and nearly wrung his hand off.
"Aïe! Gently!" expostulated de Fronsac, writhing. "Aïe, aïe! I did not know you loved me so much. So you are back from Sweden, hein?"
"Yes. I have not been there, but why should we argue about geography? What were you doing as I came up—reciting your poems? By the way, I have a favour to ask; I want you to introduce me to Florozonde."
"Never!" answered the poet firmly; "I have too much affection for you— I have just resolved not to see her again myself. Besides, I thought you knew her in the circus?"
"I never spoke to her there—I simply admired her from the plank. Come, take me inside, and present me!"
"It is impossible," persisted de Fronsac; "I tell you I will not venture near her any more. Also, she is coming out—that is her coupé that you see waiting."
She came out as he spoke, and, affecting not to recognise him, moved rapidly towards the carriage. But this would not do for Pitou at all. "Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, sweeping his hat nearly to the pavement.
"Yes, well?" she said sharply, turning.
"I have just begged my friend de Fronsac to present me to you, and he feared you might not pardon his presumption. May I implore you to pardon mine?"
She smiled. There was the instant in which neither the man nor the woman knows who will speak next, nor what is to be said—the instant on which destinies hang. Pitou seized it.
"Mademoiselle, I returned to France only this evening. All the journey my thought was—to see you as soon as I arrived!"
"Your friend," she said, with a scornful glance towards de Fronsac, who sauntered gracefully away, "would warn you that you are rash."
"I am not afraid of his warning."
"Are you not afraid ofme?"
"Afraid only that you will banish me too soon."
"Mon Dieu! then you must be the bravest man in Paris," she said.
"At any rate I am the luckiest for the moment."
It was a delightful change to Florozonde to meet a man who was not alarmed by her; and it pleased her to show de Fronsac that his cowardice had not left her inconsolable. She laughed loud enough for him to hear.
"I ought not to be affording you the luck," she answered. "I have friends waiting for me at the Café de Paris." "I expected some such blow," said Pitou. "And how can I suppose you will disappoint your friends in order to sup with me at the Café du Bel Avenir instead?"
"The Café du—?" She was puzzled.
"Bel Avenir."
"I do not know it."
"Nor would your coachman. We should walk there—and our supper would cost three francs, wine included."
"Is it an invitation?"
"It is a prayer."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Nicolas Pitou,"
"Of Paris?"
"Of bohemia."
"What do you do in it?"
"Hunger, and make music."
"Unsuccessful?"
"Not to-night!"
"Take me to the Bel Avenir," she said, and sent the carriage away.
De Fronsac, looking back as they departed, was distressed to see the young man risking his life.
At the Bel Avenir their entrance made a sensation. She removed her cloak, and Pitou arranged it over two chairs. Then she threw her gloves out of the way, in the bread-basket; and the waiter and the proprietress, and all the family, did homage to her toilette.
"Who would have supposed?" she smiled, and her smile forgot to be mysterious.
"That the restaurant would be so proud?"
"That I should be supping with you in it! Tell me, you had no hope of this on your journey? It was true about your journey, hein?"
"Ah, really! No, how could I hope? I went round after your dance simply to see you closer; and then I met de Fronsac, and then—"
"And then you were very cheeky. Answer! Why do I interest you? Because of what they say of me?"
"Not altogether."
"What else?"
"Because you are so beautiful. Answer! Why did you come to supper with me? To annoy some other fellow?"
"Not altogether."
"What else?"
"Because you were not frightened of me. Are you sure you are not frightened? Oh, remember, remember your horrible fate if I should like you too much!"
"It would be a thumping advertisement for you," said Pitou. "Let me urge you to try to secure it."
"Reckless boy!" she laughed, "Pour out some more wine. Ah, it is good, this! it is like old times. The strings of onions on the dear, dirty walls, and the serviettes that are so nice and damp! It was in restaurants like this, if my salary was paid, I used to sup on fête days."
"And if it was not paid?"
"I supped in imagination. My dear, I have had a cigarette for a supper, and the grass for a bed. I have tramped by the caravan while the stars faded, and breakfasted on the drum in the tent. And you—on a bench in the Champs Elysées, hein?"
"It has occurred."
"And you watched the sun rise, and made music, and wishedyoucould rise, too? I must hear your music some day. You shall write me a dance. Is it agreed?"
"The contract is already stamped," said Pitou.
"I am glad I met you—it is the best supper I have had in Paris. Why are you calculating the expenses on the back of the bill of fare?"
"I am not. I am composing your dance," said Pitou. "Don't speak for a minute, it will be sublime! Also it will be a souvenir when you have gone."
But she did not go for a long while. It was late when they left the Café du Bel Avenir, still talking—and there was always more to say. By this time Pitou did not merely love her beauty—he adored the woman. As for Florozonde, she no longer merely loved his courage—she approved the man.
Listen: he was young, fervid, and an artist; his proposal was made before they reached her doorstep, and she consented!
Their attachment was the talk of the town, and everybody waited to hear that Pitou had killed himself. His name was widely known at last. But weeks and months went by; Florozonde's protracted season came to an end; and still he looked radiantly well. Pitou was the most unpopular man in Paris.
In the rue Dauphine, one day, he met de Fronsac.
"So you are still alive!" snarled the poet.
"Never better," declared Pitou. "It turns out," he added confidentially, "there was nothing in that story—it was all fudge."
"Evidently! I must congratulate you," said de Fronsac, looking bomb-shells.
In Bordeaux, on the 21st of December, monsieur Petitpas, a clerk with bohemian yearnings, packed his portmanteau for a week's holiday. In Paris, on the same date, monsieur Tricotrin, poet and pauper, was commissioned by the Editor ofLe Demi-Motto convert a rough translation into literary French. These two disparate incidents were destined by Fate—always mysterious in her workings—to be united in a narrative for the present volume.
Three evenings later the poet's concierge climbed the stairs and rapped peremptorily at the door.
"Well?" cried Tricotrin, raising bloodshot eyes from the manuscript; "who disturbs me now? Come in!"
"I have come in," panted madame Dubois, who had not waited for his invitation, "and I am here to tell you, monsieur, that you cannot be allowed to groan in this agonised fashion. Your lamentations can be heard even in the basement."
"Is it in my agreement, madame, that I shall not groan if I am so disposed?" inquired the poet haughtily.
"There are things tacitly understood. It is enough that you are in arrears with your rent, without your doing your best to drive away the other tenants. For two days they have all complained that it would be less disturbing to reside in a hospital."
"Well, they have my permission to remove there," said Tricotrin. "Now that the matter is settled, let me get on with my work!" And with the groan of a soul in Hades, he perused another line.
"There you go again!" expostulated the woman angrily, "It is not to be endured, monsieur. What is the matter with you, for goodness' sake?"
"With me, madame, there is nothing the matter; the fault lies with an infernal Spanish novel. A misguided editor has commissioned me to rewrite it from a translation made by a foreigner. How can I avoid groans when I read his rot? Miranda exclaims, 'May heaven confound you, bandit!' And the fiancé of the ingénue addresses her as 'Angel of this house!'"
"Well, at least groan quietly," begged the concierge; "do not bellow your sufferings to the cellar."
"To oblige you I will be as Spartan as I can," agreed Tricotrin. "Now I have lost my place in the masterpiece. Ah, here we are! 'I feel she brings bad tidings—she wears a disastrous mien.' It is sprightly dialogue! If the hundred and fifty francs were not essential to keep a roof over my head, I would send the Editor a challenge for offering me the job."
Perspiration bespangled the young man's brow as he continued his task. When another hour had worn by he thirsted to do the foreign translator a bodily injury, and so intense was his exasperation that, by way of interlude, he placed the manuscript on the floor and jumped on it. But the climax was reached in Chapter XXVII; under the provocation of the love scene in Chapter XXVII frenzy mastered him, and with a yell of torture he hurled the whole novel through the window, and burst into hysterical tears.
The novel, which was of considerable bulk, descended on the landlord, who was just approaching the house to collect his dues.
"What does it mean," gasped monsieur Gouge, when he had recovered his equilibrium, and his hat; "what does it mean that I cannot approach my own property without being assaulted with a ton of paper? Who has dared to throw such a thing from a window?"
"Monsieur," stammered the concierge, "I do not doubt that it was the top-floor poet; he has been behaving like a lunatic for days."
"Aha, the top-floor poet?" snorted monsieur Gouge. "I shall soon dispose ofhim!" And Tricotrin's tears were scarcely dried whenbangcame another knock at his door.
"So, monsieur," exclaimed the landlord, with fine satire, "your poems are of small account, it appears, since you use them as missiles? The value you put upon your scribbling does not encourage me to wait for my rent!"
"Mine?" faltered Tricotrin, casting an indignant glance at the muddy manuscript restored to him; "you accusemeof having perpetrated that atrocity? Oh, this is too much! I have a reputation to preserve, monsieur, and I swear by all the Immortals that it was no work of mine."
"Did you not throw it?"
"Throw it? Yes, assuredly I threw it. But I did not write it."
"Morbleu! what do I care who wrote it?" roared monsieur Gouge, purple with spleen. "Does its authorship improve the condition of my hat? My grievance is its arrival on my head, not its literary quality. Let me tell you that you expose yourself to actions at law, pitching weights like this from a respectable house into a public street."
"I should plead insanity," said Tricotrin; "twenty-seven chapters of that novel, translated into a Spaniard's French, would suffice to people an asylum. Nevertheless, if it arrived on your hat, I owe you an apology."
"You also owe me two hundred francs!" shouted the other, "and I have shown you more patience than you deserve. Well, my folly is finished! You settle up, or you get out, right off!"
"Have you reflected that it is Christmas Eve—do we live in a melodrama, that I should wander homeless on Christmas Eve? Seriously, you cannot expect a man of taste to lend himself to so hackneyed a situation? Besides, I share this apartment with the composer monsieur Nicolas Pitou. Consider how poignant he would find the room's associations if he returned to dwell here alone!"
"Monsieur Pitou will not be admitted when he returns—there is not a pin to choose between the pair of you. You hand me the two hundred francs, or you go this minute—and I shall detain your wardrobe till you pay. Where is it?"
"It is divided between my person and a shelf at the pawnbroker's," explained the poet; "but I have a soiled collar in the left-hand corner drawer. However, I can offer you more valuable security for this trifling debt than you would dare to ask; the bureau is full of pearls —metrical, but beyond price. I beg your tenderest care of them, especially my tragedy in seven acts. Do not play jinks with the contents of that bureau, or Posterity will gibbet you and the name of 'Gouge' will one day be execrated throughout France. Garbage, farewell!"
"Here, take your shaving paper with you!" cried monsieur Gouge, flinging the Spanish novel down the stairs. And the next moment the man of letters stood dejected on the pavement, with the fatal manuscript under his arm.
"Ah, Miranda, Miranda, thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!" he murmured, unconsciously plagiarising. "She brought bad tidings indeed, with her disastrous mien," he added. "What is to become of me now?"
The moon, to which he had naturally addressed this query, made no answer; and, fingering the sou in his trouser-pocket, he trudged in the direction of the rue Ravignan. "The situation would look well in print," he reflected, "but the load under my arm should, dramatically, be a bundle of my own poems. Doubtless the matter will be put right by my biographer. I wonder if I can get half a bed from Goujaud?"
Encouraged by the thought of the painter's hospitality, he proceeded to the studio; but he was informed in sour tones that monsieur Goujaud would not sleep there that night.
"So much the better," he remarked, "for I can have all his bed, instead of half of it! Believe me, I shall put you to no trouble, madame."
"I believe it fully," answered the woman, "for you will not come inside—not monsieur Goujaud, nor you, nor any other of his vagabond friends. So, there!"
"Ah, is that how the wind blows—the fellow has not paid his rent?" said Tricotrin. "How disgraceful of him, to be sure! Fortunately Sanquereau lives in the next house."
He pulled the bell there forthwith, and the peal had scarcely sounded when Sanquereau rushed to the door, crying, "Welcome, my Beautiful!"
"Mon Dieu, what worthless acquaintances I possess!" moaned the unhappy poet. "Since you are expecting your Beautiful I need not go into details."
"What on earth did you want?" muttered Sanquereau, crestfallen.
"I came to tell you the latest Stop Press news—Goujaud's landlord has turned him out and I have no bed to lie on. Au revoir!"
After another apostrophe to the heavens, "That inane moon, which makes no response, is beginning to get on my nerves," he soliloquised. "Let me see now! There is certainly master Criqueboeuf, but it is a long journey to the quartier Latin, and when I get there his social engagements may annoy me as keenly as Sanquereau's. It appears to me I am likely to try the open-air cure to-night. In the meanwhile I may as well find Miranda a seat and think things over."
Accordingly he bent his steps to the place Dancourt, and having deposited the incubus beside him, stretched his limbs on a bench beneath a tree. His attitude, and his luxuriant locks, to say nothing of his melancholy aspect, rendered him a noticeable figure in the little square, and monsieur Petitpas, from Bordeaux, under the awning of the café opposite, stood regarding him with enthusiasm.
"Upon my word of honour," mused Petitpas, rubbing his hands, "I believeI see a Genius in the dumps! At last I behold the Paris of my dreams.If I have read my Murger to any purpose, I am on the verge of an epoch.What a delightful adventure!"
Taking out his Marylands, Petitpas sauntered towards the bench with a great show of carelessness, and made a pretence of feeling in his pockets for a match. "Tschut!" he exclaimed; then, affecting to observe Tricotrin for the first time, "May I beg you to oblige me with a light, monsieur?" he asked deferentially. A puff of wind provided an excuse for sitting down to guard the flame; and the next moment the Genius had accepted a cigarette, and acknowledged that the weather was mild for the time of year.
Excitement thrilled Petitpas. How often, after business hours, he had perused his well-thumbed copy ofLa Vie de Bohèmeand in fancy consorted with the gay descendants of Rodolphe and Marcel; how often he had regretted secretly that he, himself, did not woo a Muse and jest at want in a garret, instead of totting up figures, and eating three meals a day in comfort! And now positively one of the fascinating beings of his imagination lolled by his side! The little clerk on a holiday longed to play the generous comrade. In his purse he had a couple of louis, designed for sight-seeing, and, with a rush of emotion, he pictured himself squandering five or six francs in half an hour and startling the artist by his prodigality.
"If I am not mistaken, I have the honour to address an author, monsieur?" he ventured.
"Your instincts have not misled you," replied the poet; "I am Tricotrin, monsieur—Gustave Tricotrin. The name, however, is to be found, as yet, on no statues."
"My own name," said the clerk, "is Adolphe Petitpas. I am a stranger inParis, and I count myself fortunate indeed to have made monsieurTricotrin's acquaintance so soon."
"He expresses himself with some discretion, this person," reflectedTricotrin. "And his cigarette was certainly providential!"
"To meet an author has always been an ambition of mine," Petitpas continued; "I dare to say that I have the artistic temperament, though circumstances have condemned me to commercial pursuits. You have no idea how enviable the literary life appears to me, monsieur!"
"Its privileges are perhaps more monotonous than you suppose," drawled the homeless poet. "Also, I had to work for many years before I attained my present position."
"This noble book, for instance," began the clerk, laying a reverent hand on the abominable manuscript.
"Hein?" exclaimed its victim, starting.
"To have written this noble book must be a joy compared with which my own prosperity is valueless."
"The damned thing is no work of mine," cried Tricotrin; "and if we are to avoid a quarrel, I will ask you not to accuse me of it! A joy, indeed? In that block of drivel you view the cause of my deepest misfortunes."
"A thousand apologies!" stammered his companion; "my inference was hasty. But what you say interests me beyond words. This manuscript, of seeming innocence, is the cause of misfortunes? May I crave an enormous favour; may I beg you to regard me as a friend and give me your confidence?"
"I see no reason why I should refuse it," answered Tricotrin, on whom the boast of "prosperity" had made a deep impression. "You must know, then, that this ineptitude, inflicted on me by an eccentric editor for translation, drove me to madness, and not an hour ago I cast it from my window in disgust. It is a novel entirely devoid of taste and tact, and it had the clumsiness to alight on my landlord's head. Being a man of small nature, he retaliated by demanding his rent."
"Which it was not convenient to pay?" interrupted Petitpas, all the pages ofLa Vie de Bohèmeplaying leapfrog through his brain.
"I regret to bore you by so trite a situation. 'Which it was not convenient to pay'! Indeed, I was not responsible for all of it, for I occupied the room with a composer named Pitou. Well, you can construct the next scene without a collaborator; the landlord has a speech, and the tragedy is entitled 'Tricotrin in Quest of a Home.'"
"What of the composer?" inquired the delighted clerk; "what has become of monsieur Pitou?"
"Monsieur Pitou was not on in that Act. The part of Pitou will attain prominence when he returns and finds himself locked out."
"But, my dear monsieur Tricotrin, in such an extremity you should have sought the services of a friend."
"I had that inspiration myself; I sought a painter called Goujaud. And observe how careless is Reality in the matter of coincidences! I learnt from his concierge that precisely the same thing had befallen monsieur Goujaud. He, too, is Christmassing alfresco."
"Mon Dieu," faltered the clerk, "how it rejoices me that I have met you! All my life I have looked forward to encountering a genius in such a fix."
"Alas!" sighed Tricotrin, with a pensive smile, "to the genius the fix is less spicy. Without a supper—"
"Without a supper!" crowed Petitpas.
"Without a bed—"
"Without a bed!" babbled Petitpas, enravished.
"With nothing but a pen and the sacred fire, one may be forgiven sadness."
"Not so, not so," shouted Petitpas, smacking him on the back. "You are omittingmefrom your list of assets! Listen, I am staying at an hotel. You cannot decline to accord me the honour of welcoming you there as my guest for the night. Hang the expense! I am no longer in business, I am a bohemian, like yourself; some supper, a bed, and a little breakfast will not ruin me. What do you say, monsieur?"
"I say, drop the 'monsieur,' old chap," responded Tricotrin. "Your suggestions for the tragedy are cordially accepted. I have never known a collaborator to improve a plot so much. And understand this: I feel more earnestly than I speak; henceforth we are pals, you and I."
"Brothers!" cried Petitpas, in ecstasy. "You shall hear all about a novel that I have projected for years. I should like to have your opinion of it."
"I shall be enchanted," said Tricotrin, his jaw dropping.
"You must introduce me to your circle—the painters, and the models, and the actresses. Your friends shall bemyfriends in future."
"Don't doubt it! When I tell them what a brick you are, they will be proud to know you."
"No ceremony, mind!"
"Not a bit. You shall be another chum. Already I feel as if we had been confidants in our cradles."
"It is the same with me. How true it is that kindred spirits recognise each other in an instant. What is environment? Bah! A man may be a bohemian and an artist although his occupations are commercial?"
"Perfectly! I nearly pined amid commercial occupations myself."
"What an extraordinary coincidence! Ah, that is the last bond between us! You can realise my most complex moods, you can penetrate to the most distant suburbs of my soul! Gustave, if I had been free to choose my career, I should have become a famous man." "My poor Adolphe! Still, prosperity is not an unmixed evil. You must seek compensation in your wealth," murmured the poet, who began to think that one might pay too high a price for a bed.
"Oh—er—to be sure!" said the little clerk, reminded that he was pledged to a larger outlay than he had originally proposed. "That is to say, I am not precisely 'wealthy.'" He saw his pocket-money during the trip much curtailed, and rather wished that his impulse had been less expansive.
"A snug income is no stigma, whether one derives it from Parnassus or the Bourse," continued Tricotrin. "Hold! Who is that I see, slouching over there? As I live, it's Pitou, the composer, whose dilemma I told you of!"
"Another?" quavered the clerk, dismayed.
"Hé, Nicolas! Turn your symphonic gaze this way! 'Tis I, Gustave!"
"Ah, mon vieux!" exclaimed the young musician joyfully; "I was wondering what your fate might be. I have only just come from the house. Madame Dubois refused me admission; she informed me that you had been firing Spanish novels at Gouge's head. Why Spanish? Is the Spanish variety deadlier? So the villain has had the effrontery to turn us out?"
"Let me make your affinities known to each other," said Tricotrin. "My brother Nicolas—my brother Adolphe. Brother Adolphe has received a scenario of the tragedy already, and he has a knack of inventing brilliant 'curtains.'"
Behind Pitou's back he winked at Petitpas, as if to say, "He little suspects what a surprise you have in store for him!"
"Oh—er—I am grieved to hear of your trouble, monsieur Pitou," saidPetitpas feebly.
"What? 'Grieved'? Come, that isn't all about it!" cried Tricotrin, who attributed his restraint to nothing but diffidence. In an undertone he added, "Don't be nervous, dear boy. Your invitation won't offend him in the least!"
Petitpas breathed heavily. He aspired to prove himself a true bohemian, but his heart quailed at the thought of such expense. Two suppers, two beds, and two little breakfasts as a supplement to his bill would be no joke. It was with a very poor grace that he stammered at last, "I hope you will allow me to suggest a way out, monsieur Pitou? A room at my hotel seems to dispose of the difficulty."
"Hem?" exclaimed Pitou. "Is that room a mirage, or are you serious?"
"'Serious'?" echoed Tricotrin. "He is as serious as an English adaptation of a French farce." He went on, under his breath, "You mustn't judge him by his manner, I can see that he has turned a little shy. Believe me, he is the King of Trumps."
"Well, upon my word I shall be delighted, monsieur," responded Pitou."It was evidently the good kind fairies that led me to the placeDancourt. I would ask you to step over the way and have a bock, but myfinances forbid."
"Your finances need cause no drought—Adolphe will be paymaster!" declared Tricotrin gaily, shouldering his manuscript. "Come, let us adjourn and give the Réveillon its due!"
Petitpas suppressed a moan. "By all means," he assented; "I was about to propose it myself. I am a real bohemian, you know, and think nothing of ordering several bocks at once."
"Are you sure he is all you say?" whispered Pitou to Tricotrin, with misgiving.
"A shade embarrassed, that is all," pronounced the poet. And then, as the trio moved arm-in-arm toward the café, a second solitary figure emerged from the obscurity of the square.
"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Tricotrin; "am I mistaken, or—Look, look, Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the painter, whose plight I mentioned to you!"
"Yet another?" gasped Petitpas, panic-stricken.
"Sst! Hé, Goujaud! Come here, you vagrant, and be entertaining!"
"Well met, you fellows!" sighed Goujaud. "Where are you off to?"
"We are going to give Miranda a drink," said the poet; "she is drier than ever. Let there be no strangers—my brother Adolphe, my brother Théodose! What is your secret woe, Théo? Your face is as long as this Spaniard's novel, Adolphe, have you a recipe in your pocket for the hump?"
"Perhaps monsieur Goujaud will join us in a glass of beer?" saidPetitpas very coldly.
"There are more unlikely things than that!" affirmed the painter; and when the café was entered, he swallowed his bock like one who has a void to fill. "The fact is," he confided to the group, "I was about to celebrate the Réveillon on a bench. That insolent landlord of mine has kicked me out."
"And you will not get inside," said Tricotrin, "'not you, nor I, nor any other of your vagabond friends. So there!' I had the privilege of conversing with your concierge earlier in the evening."
"Ah, then, you know all about it. Well, now that I have run across you, you can give me a shakedown in your attic. Good business!"
"I discern only one drawback to the scheme," said Pitou; "we haven't any attic. It must be something in the air—all the landlords seem to have the same complaint."
"But if you decide in the bench's favour, after all, you may pillow your curls on Miranda," put in Tricotrin. "She would be exhilarating company for him, Adolphe, hein? What do you think?" He murmured aside, "Give him a dig in the ribs and say, 'You silly ass,Ican fix you up all right!' That's the way we issue invitations in Montmartre."
The clerk's countenance was livid; his tongue stuck to his front teeth. At last, wrenching the words out, he groaned, "If monsieur Goujaud will accept my hospitality, I shall be charmed!" He was not without a hope that his frigid bearing would beget a refusal.
"Ah, my dear old chap!" shouted Goujaud without an instant's hesitation, "consider it done!" And now there were to be three suppers, three beds, and three little breakfasts, distorting the account!
Petitpas sipped his bock faintly, affecting not to notice that his guests' glasses had been emptied. With all his soul he repented the impulse that had led to his predicament. Amid the throes of his mental arithmetic he recognised that he had been deceived in himself, that he had no abiding passion for bohemia. How much more pleasing than to board and lodge this disreputable collection would have been the daily round of amusements that he had planned! Even now—he caught his breath—even now it was not too late; he might pay for the drinks and escape! Why shouldn't he run away?
"Gentlemen," cried Petitpas, "I shall go and fetch a cab for us all.Make yourselves comfortable till I come back!"
When the café closed, messieurs Tricotrin, Goujaud, and Pitou crept forlornly across the square and disposed themselves for slumber on the bench.
"Well, there is this to be said," yawned the poet, "if the little bounder had kept his word, it would have been an extraordinary conclusion to our adventures—as persons of literary discretion, we can hardly regret that a story did not end so improbably…. My children, Miranda, good-night—and a Merry Christmas!"
On the last day of the year, towards the dinner-hour, a young and attractive woman, whose costume proclaimed her a widow, entered the Café of the Broken Heart. That modest restaurant is situated near the Cemetery of Mont-martre. The lady, quoting from an announcement over the window, requested the proprietor to conduct her to the "Apartment reserved for Those Desirous of Weeping Alone."
The proprietor's shoulders became apologetic. "A thousand regrets, madame," he murmured; "the Weeping Alone apartment is at present occupied."
This visibly annoyed the customer.
"It is the second anniversary of my bereavement," she complained, "and already I have wept here twice. The woe of an habituée should find a welcome!"
Her reproof, still more her air of being well-to-do, had an effect onBrochat. He looked at his wife, and his wife said hesitatingly:
"Perhaps the young man would consent to oblige madame if you asked him nicely. After all, he engaged the room for seven o'clock, and it is not yet half-past six."
"That is true," said Brochat. "Alors, I shall see what can be arranged!I beg that madame will put herself to the trouble of sitting down whileI make the biggest endeavours."
But he returned after a few minutes to declare that the young man's sorrow was so profound that no reply could be extracted from him.
The lady showed signs of temper. "Has this person the monopoly of sorrowing on your premises?" she demanded. "Whom does he lament? Surely the loss of a husband should give me prior claim?"
"I cannot rightly say whom the gentleman laments," stammered Brochat; "the circumstances are, in fact, somewhat unusual. I would mention, however, that the apartment is a spacious one, as madame doubtless recalls, and no further mourners are expected for half an hour. If in the meantime madame would be so amiable as to weep in the young man's presence, I can assure her that she would find him too stricken to stare."
The widow considered. "Well," she said, after the pause, "if you can guarantee his abstraction, so be it! It is a matter of conscience with me to behave in precisely the same way each year, and, rather than miss my meditations there altogether, I am willing to make the best of him."
Brochat, having taken her order for refreshments—for which he always charged slightly higher prices on the first floor—preceded her up the stairs. The single gas-flame that had been kindled in the room was very low, and the lady received but a momentary impression of a man's figure bowed over a white table. She chose a chair at once with her back towards him, and resting her brow on her forefinger, disposed herself for desolation.
It may have been that the stranger's proximity told on her nerves, or it may have been that Time had done something to heal the wound. Whatever the cause, the frame of mind that she invited was slow in arriving, and when the bouillon and biscottes appeared she was not averse from trifling with them. Meanwhile, for any sound that he had made, the young man might have been as defunct as Henri IV; but as she took her second sip, a groan of such violence escaped him that she nearly upset her cup.
His abandonment of despair seemed to reflect upon her own insensibility; and, partly to raise herself in his esteem, the lady a moment later uttered a long-drawn, wistful sigh. No sooner had she done so, however, than she deeply regretted the indiscretion, for it stimulated the young man to a howl positively harrowing.
An impatient movement of her graceful shoulders protested against these demonstrations, but as she had her back to him, she could not tell whether he observed her. Stealing a glance, she discovered that his face was buried in his hands, and that the white table seemed to be laid for ten covers. Scrutiny revealed ten bottles of wine around it, the neck of each bottle embellished with a large crape bow. Curiosity now held the lady wide-eyed, and, as luck would have it, the young man, at this moment, raised his head.
"I trust that my agony does not disturb you, madame?" he inquired, meeting her gaze with some embarrassment.
"I must confess, monsieur," said she, "that you have been carrying it rather far."
He accepted the rebuke humbly. "If you divined the intensity of my sufferings, you would be lenient," he murmured. "Nevertheless, it was dishonest of me to moan so bitterly before seven o'clock, when my claim to the room legally begins. I entreat your pardon."
"It is accorded freely," said the lady, mollified by his penitence. "She would be a poor mourner who quarrelled with the affliction of another."
Again she indulged in a plaintive sigh, and this time the young man's response was tactfully harmonious.
"Life is a vale of tears, madame," he remarked, with more solicitude than originality.
"You may indeed say so, monsieur," she assented. "To have lost one who was beloved—"
"It must be a heavy blow; I can imagine it!"
He had made a curious answer. She stared at him, perplexed.
"You can 'imagine' it?"
"Very well."
"But you yourself have experienced such a loss, monsieur?" faltered the widow nervously. Had trouble unhinged his brain?
"No," said the young man; "to speak by the clock, my own loss has not yet occurred."
A brief silence fell, during which she cast uneasy glances towards the door.
He added, as if anxious that she should do him justice: "But I would not have you consider my lamentations premature."
"How true it is," breathed the lady, "that in this world no human soul can wholly comprehend another!"
"Mine is a very painful history," he warned her, taking the hint; "yet if it will serve to divert your mind from your own misfortune, I shall be honoured to confide it to you. Stay, the tenth invitation, which an accident prevented my dispatching, would explain the circumstances tersely: but I much fear that the room is too dark for you to decipher all the subtleties. Have I your permission to turn up the gas?"
"Do so, by all means, monsieur," said the lady graciously. And the light displayed to her, first, as personable a young man as she could have desired to see; second, an imposing card, which was inscribed as follows:
Forewarns you of the
The Interment will take place at theCafé of the Broken Hearton December 31st.
Valedictory N.B.—A sympathetic costumeVictuals will be appreciated.7 p.m.
"I would call your attention to the border of cypress, and to the tomb in the corner," said the young man, with melancholy pride. "You may also look favourably on the figure with the shovel, which, of course, depicts me in the act of burying my hopes. It is a symbolic touch that no hope is visible."
"It is a very artistic production altogether," said the widow, dissembling her astonishment. "So you are a painter, monsieur Flamant?"
"Again speaking by the clock, I am a painter," he concurred; "but at midnight I shall no longer be in a position to say so—in the morning I am pledged to the life commercial. You will not marvel at my misery when I inform you that the existence of Achille Flamant, the artist, will terminate in five hours and twenty odd minutes!"
"Well, I am commercial myself," she said. "I am madame Aurore, the Beauty Specialist, of the rue Baba. Do not think me wanting in the finer emotions, but I assure you that a lucrative establishment is not a calamity."
"Madame Aurore," demurred the painter, with a bow, "your own business is but a sister art. In your atelier, the saffron of a bad complexion blooms to the fairness of a rose, and the bunch of a lumpy figure is modelled to the grace of Galatea. With me it will be a different pair of shoes; I shall be condemned to perch on a stool in the office of a wine-merchant, and invoice vintages which my thirty francs a week will not allow me to drink. No comparison can be drawn between your lot and my little."
"Certainly I should not like to perch," she confessed.
"Would you rejoice at the thirty francs a week?"
"Well, and the thirty francs a week are also poignant. But you may rise, monsieur; who shall foretell the future? Once I had to make both ends meet with less to coax them than the salary you mention. Even when my poor husband was taken from me—heigho!" she raised a miniature handkerchief delicately to her eyes—"when I was left alone in the world, monsieur, my affairs were greatly involved—I had practically nothing but my resolve to succeed."
"And the witchery of your personal attractions, madame," said the painter politely.
"Ah!" A pensive smile rewarded him. "The business was still in its infancy, monsieur; yet to-day I have the smartest clientèle in Paris. I might remove to the rue de la Paix to-morrow if I pleased. But, I say, why should I do that? I say, why a reckless rental for the sake of a fashionable address, when the fashionable men and women come to me where I am?"
"You show profound judgment, madame," said Flamant. "Why, indeed!"
"And you, too, will show good judgment, I am convinced," continued madame Aurore, regarding him with approval. "You have an air of intellect. If your eyebrows were elongated a fraction towards the temples—an improvement that might be effected easily enough by regular use of my Persian Pomade—you would acquire the appearance of a born conqueror."
"Alas," sighed Flamant, "my finances forbid my profiting by the tip!"
"Monsieur, you wrong me," murmured the specialist reproachfully. "I was speaking with no professional intent. On the contrary, if you will permit me, I shall take joy in forwarding a pot to you gratis."
"Is it possible?" cried Flamant: "you would really do this for me? You feel for my sufferings so much?"
"Indeed, I regret that I cannot persuade you to reduce the sufferings," she replied. "But tell me why you have selected the vocation of a wine-merchant's clerk."
"Fate, not I, has determined my cul-de-sac in life," rejoined her companion. "It is like this: my father, who lacks an artistic soul, consented to my becoming a painter only upon the understanding that I should gain the Prix de Rome and pursue my studies in Italy free of any expense to him. This being arranged, he agreed to make me a minute allowance in the meanwhile. By a concatenation of catastrophes upon which it is unnecessary to dwell, the Beaux-Arts did not accord the prize to me; and, at the end of last year, my parent reminded me of our compact, with a vigour which nothing but the relationship prevents my describing as 'inhuman'. He insisted that I must bid farewell to aspiration and renounce the brush of an artist for the quill of a clerk! Distraught, I flung myself upon my knees. I implored him to reconsider. My tribulation would have moved a rock—it even moved his heart!"
"He showed you mercy?"
"He allowed me a respite."
"It was for twelve months?"
"Precisely. What rapid intuitions you have!—if I could remain in Paris, we should become great friends. He allowed me twelve months' respite. If, at the end of that time, Art was still inadequate to supply my board and lodging, it was covenanted that, without any more ado, I should resign myself to clerical employment at Nantes. The merchant there is a friend of the family, and had offered to demonstrate his friendship by paying me too little to live on. Enfin, Fame has continued coy. The year expires to-night. I have begged a few comrades to attend a valedictory dinner—and at the stroke of midnight, despairing I depart!"
"Is there a train?"
"I do not depart from Paris till after breakfast to-morrow; but at midnight I depart from myself, I depart psychologically—the Achille Flamant of the Hitherto will be no more."
"I understand," said madame Aurore, moved. "As you say, in my own way I am an artist, too, there is a bond between us. Poor fellow, it is indeed a crisis in your life!… Who put the crape bows on the bottles? they are badly tied. Shall I tie them properly for you?"
"It would be a sweet service," said Flamant, "and I should be grateful.How gentle you are to me—pomade, bows, nothing is too much for you!"
"You must give me your Nantes address," she said, "and I will post the pot without fail."
"I shall always keep it," he vowed—"not the pomade, but the pot—as a souvenir. Will you write a few lines to me at the same time?"
Her gaze was averted; she toyed with her spoon. "The directions will be on the label," she said timidly.
"It was not of my eyebrows I was thinking," murmured the man.
"What should I say? The latest quotation for artificial lashes, or a development in dimple culture, would hardly be engrossing to you."
"I am inclined to believe that anything that concerned you would engross me."
"It would be so unconventional," she objected dreamily.
"To send a brief message of encouragement? Have we not talked like confidants?"
"That is queerer still."
"I admit it. Just now I was unaware of your existence, and suddenly you dominate my thoughts. How do you work these miracles, madame? Do you know that I have an enormous favour to crave of you?"
"What, another one?"
"Actually! Is it not audacious of me? Yet for a man on the verge of parting from his identity, I venture to hope that you will strain a point."
"The circumstances are in the man's favour," she owned. "Nevertheless, much depends on what the point is."
"Well, I ask nothing less than that you accept the invitation on the card that you examined; I beg you to soothe my last hours by remaining to dine."
"Oh, but really," she exclaimed. "I am afraid—"
"You cannot urge that you are required at your atelier so late. And as to any social engagement, I do not hesitate to affirm that my approaching death in life puts forth the stronger claim."
"On me? When all is said, a new acquaintance!"
"What is Time?" demanded the painter. And she was not prepared with a reply.
"Your comrades will be strangers to me," she argued.
"It is a fact that now I wish they were not coming," acknowledged the host; "but they are young men of the loftiest genius, and some day it may provide a piquant anecdote to relate how you met them all in the period of their obscurity."
"My friend," she said, hurt, "if I consented, it would not be to garner anecdotes."
"Ah, a million regrets!" he cried; "I spoke foolishly."
"It was tactless."
"Yes—I am a man. Do you forgive?"
"Yes—I am a woman. Well, I must take my bonnet off!"
"Oh, you are not a woman, but an angel! What beautiful hair you have!And your hands, how I should love to paint them!"
"I have painted them, myself—with many preparations. My hands have known labour, believe me; they have washed up plates and dishes, and often the dishes had provided little to eat."
"Poor girl! One would never suspect that you had struggled like that."
"How feelingly you say it! There have been few to show me sympathy. Oh, I assure you, my life has been a hard one; it is a hard one now, in spite of my success. Constantly, when customers moan before my mirrors, I envy them, if they did but know it. I think: 'Yes, you have a double chin, and your eyes have lost their fire, and nasty curly little veins are spoiling the pallor of your nose; but you have the affection of husband and child, whileIhave nothing but fees.' What is my destiny? To hear great-grandmothers grumble because I cannot give them back their girlhood for a thousand francs! To devote myself to making other women beloved, whileIremain loveless in my shop!"
"Honestly, my heart aches for you. If I might presume to advise, I would say, 'Do not allow the business to absorb your youth—you were meant to be worshipped.' And yet, while I recommend it, I hate to think of another man worshipping you."
"Why should you care, my dear? But there is no likelihood of that; I am far too busy to seek worshippers. A propos an idea has just occurred to me which might be advantageous to us both. If you could inform your father that you would be able to earn rather more next year by remaining in Paris than by going to Nantes, would it be satisfactory?"
"Satisfactory?" ejaculated Flamant. "It would be ecstatic! But how shall I acquire such information?"
"Would you like to paint a couple of portraits of me?"
"I should like to paint a thousand."
"My establishment is not a picture-gallery. Listen. I offer you a commission for two portraits: one, present day, let us say, moderately attractive—"
"I decline to libel you."
"O, flatterer! The other, depicting my faded aspect before I discovered the priceless secrets of the treatment that I practise in the rue Baba. I shall hang them both in the reception-room. I must look at least a decade older in the 'Before' than in the 'After,' and it must, of course, present the appearance of having been painted some years ago. That can be faked?"
"Perfectly."
"You accept?" "I embrace your feet. You have saved my life; you have preserved my hopefulness, you have restored my youth!"
"It is my profession to preserve and restore."
"Ah, mon Dieu!" gasped Flamant in a paroxysm of adoration. "Aurore, I can no longer refrain from avowing that—"
At this instant the door opened, and there entered solemnly nine young men, garbed in such habiliments of woe as had never before been seen perambulating, even on the figures of undertakers. The foremost bore a wreath of immortelles, which he laid in devout silence on the dinner-table.
"Permit me," said Flamant, recovering himself by a stupendous effort: "monsieur Tricotrin, the poet—madame Aurore."
"Enchanted!" said the poet, in lugubrious tones. "I have a heavy cold, thank you, owing to my having passed the early hours of Christmas Day on a bench, in default of a bed. It is superfluous to inquire as to the health of madame."
"Monsieur Goujaud, a colleague."
"Overjoyed!" responded Goujaud, with a violent sneeze.
"Goujaud was with me," said Tricotrin.
"Monsieur Pitou, the composer."
"I ab hodoured. I trust badabe is dot dervous of gerbs? There is nothing to fear," said Pitou.
"So was Pitou!" added Tricotrin.
"Monsieur Sanquereau, the sculptor; monsieur Lajeunie, the novelist," continued the host. But before he could present the rest of the company, Brochat was respectfully intimating to the widow that her position in the Weeping Alone apartment was now untenable. He was immediately commanded to lay another cover.
"Madame and comrades," declaimed Tricotrin, unrolling a voluminous manuscript, as they took their seats around the pot-au-feu, "I have composed for this piteous occasion a brief poem!"
"I must beseech your pardon," stammered Flamant, rising in deep confusion; "I have nine apologies to tender. Gentlemen, this touching wreath for the tomb of my career finds the tomb unready. These affecting garments which you have hired at, I fear, ruinous expense, should be exchanged for bunting; that immortal poem with which our friend would favour us has been suddenly deprived of all its point."
"Explain! explain!" volleyed from nine throats.
"I shall still read it," insisted Tricotrin, "it is good."
"The lady—nay, the goddess—whom you behold, has showered commissions, and for one year more I shall still be in your midst. Brothers in art, brothers in heart, I ask you to charge your glasses, and let your voices ring. The toast is, 'Madame Aurore and her gift of the New Year!'"
"Madame Aurore and her gift of the New Year!" shrieked the nine young men, springing to their feet.
"In a year much may happen," said the lady tremulously.
And when they had all sat down again, Flamant was thrilled to find her hand in his beneath the table.