"—as live roses the fairest—The space of a day."
"—as live roses the fairest—The space of a day."
A month after, Monsieur Monetti was invited by his nephew to assist at the first representation of "The Avenger." Thanks to the talent of Mademoiselle Sidonia, the piece had a run of seventeen nights, and brought in forty francs to its author.
Some time later—it was in the warm season—Rodolphe lodged in the Avenue St. Cloud, third tree as you go out of the Bois de Boulogne, on the fifth branch.
Towards the end of December the messengers of Bidault's agency were entrusted with the distribution of about a hundred copies of a letter of invitation, of which we certify that the following to be a true and genuine copy:—
——-M.M. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company on Saturday next, Christmas Eve. Fun!P.S. Life is short!PROGRAM OF THE ENTERTAINMENTPART I7 o'clock—Opening of the saloons. Brisk and witty conversation.8.—Appearance of the talented authors of "The Mountain in Labor," comedy refused at the Odeon Theater.8:30.—M. Alexander Schaunard, the eminent virtuoso, will play his imitative symphony, "The Influence of Blue in Art," on the piano.9.—First reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy."9:30.—Philosophical and metaphysical argument between M. Colline, hyperphysical philosopher, and M. Schaunard. To avoid any collision between the two antagonists, they will both be securely fastened.10.—M. Tristan, master of literature, will narrate his early loves, accompanied on the piano by M. Alexander Schaunard.10:30.—Second reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy."11.—Narration of a cassowary hunt by a foreign prince.PART IIMidnight.—M. Marcel, historical painter, will execute with his eyes bandaged an impromptu sketch in chalk of the meeting of Voltaire and Napolean in the Elyssian Fields. M. Rodolphe will also improvise a parallel between the author of Zaire, and the victor of Austerlitz.12:30.—M. Gustave Colline, in a decent undress, will give an imitation of the athletic games of the 4th Olympiad.1.—Third reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy," and subscription on behalf of tragic authors who will one day find themselves out of employment.2.—Commencement of games and organization of quadrilles to last until morning.6.—Sunrise and final chorus.During the whole of entertainment ventilators will be in action.N.B. Anyone attempting to read or recite poetry will be summarily ejected and handed over to the police. The guests are equally requested not to help themselves to the candle ends.
——-
M.M. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company on Saturday next, Christmas Eve. Fun!
P.S. Life is short!
PROGRAM OF THE ENTERTAINMENT
PART I
7 o'clock—Opening of the saloons. Brisk and witty conversation.
8.—Appearance of the talented authors of "The Mountain in Labor," comedy refused at the Odeon Theater.
8:30.—M. Alexander Schaunard, the eminent virtuoso, will play his imitative symphony, "The Influence of Blue in Art," on the piano.
9.—First reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy."
9:30.—Philosophical and metaphysical argument between M. Colline, hyperphysical philosopher, and M. Schaunard. To avoid any collision between the two antagonists, they will both be securely fastened.
10.—M. Tristan, master of literature, will narrate his early loves, accompanied on the piano by M. Alexander Schaunard.
10:30.—Second reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy."
11.—Narration of a cassowary hunt by a foreign prince.
PART II
Midnight.—M. Marcel, historical painter, will execute with his eyes bandaged an impromptu sketch in chalk of the meeting of Voltaire and Napolean in the Elyssian Fields. M. Rodolphe will also improvise a parallel between the author of Zaire, and the victor of Austerlitz.
12:30.—M. Gustave Colline, in a decent undress, will give an imitation of the athletic games of the 4th Olympiad.
1.—Third reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy," and subscription on behalf of tragic authors who will one day find themselves out of employment.
2.—Commencement of games and organization of quadrilles to last until morning.
6.—Sunrise and final chorus.
During the whole of entertainment ventilators will be in action.
N.B. Anyone attempting to read or recite poetry will be summarily ejected and handed over to the police. The guests are equally requested not to help themselves to the candle ends.
Two days later, copies of this invitation were circulating among the lower depths of art and literature, and created a profound sensation.
There were, however, amongst the invited guests, some who cast doubt upon the splendor of the promises made by the two friends.
"I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a little filtered water in eclectic pottery."
"This time," said another, "it is really serious. Marcel has shown me the program of the fete, and the effect will be magical."
"Will there be any ladies?"
"Yes. Phemie Teinturiere has asked to be queen of the fete and Schaunard is to bring some ladies of position."
This is in brief the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their promise to extend over fifty-two weeks, so that they had come to pass of not being able to take a step without encountering some ironical remark from one of their friends, amongst whom there were some indiscreet enough to put forward energetic demand for its fulfillment. The matter beginning to assume the character of a plague, the two friends resolved to put an end to it by liquidating the undertaking into which they had entered. It was thus that they sent out the invitation given above.
"Now," said Rodolphe, "there is no drawing back. We have burnt our ships, and we have before us just a week to find the hundred francs that are indispensable to do the thing properly."
"Since we must have them, we shall," replied Marcel.
And with the insolent confidence which they had in luck, the two friends went to sleep, convinced that their hundred francs were already on the way, the way of impossibility.
However, as on the day before that appointed for the party, nothing as of yet had turned up, Rodolphe thought perhaps, be safer to give luck a helping hand, unless he were to be discredited forever, when the time came to light up. To facilitate matters the two friends progressively modified the sumptuosity of the program they had imposed upon themselves.
And proceeding from modification to modification, after having seriously reduced the item "cakes," and carefully revised and pruned down the item "liquors," the total cost was reduced to fifteen francs.
The problem was simplified, but not yet solved.
"Come, come," said Rodolphe, "we must now have recourse to strong measures, we cannot cry off this time."
"No, that is impossible," replied Marcel.
"How long is it since I have heard the story of the Battle of Studzianka?"
"About two months."
"Two months, good, that is a decent interval; my uncle will have no ground for grumbling. I will go tomorrow and hear his account of that engagement, that will be five francs for certain."
"I," said Marcel, "will go and sell a deserted manor house to old Medicis. That will make another five francs. If I have time enough to put in three towers and a mill, it will perhaps run to ten francs, and our budget will be complete."
And the two friends fell asleep dreaming that the Princess Belgiojoso begged them to change their reception day, in order not to rob her of her customary guests.
Awake at dawn, Marcel took a canvas and rapidly set to work to build up a deserted manor house, an article which he was in the habit of supplying to a broker of the Place de Carrousel. On his side, Rodolphe went to pay a visit to his Uncle Monetti, who shone in the story of the Retreat from Moscow, and to whom Rodolphe accorded five or six times in course of the year, when matters were really serious, the satisfaction of narrating his campaigns, in return for a small loan which the veteran stove maker did not refuse too obstinately when due enthusiasm was displayed in listening to his narrations.
About two o'clock, Marcel with hanging head and a canvas under his arm, met on the Place de Carrousel Rodolphe, who was returning from his uncle's, and whose bearing also presaged ill news.
"Well," asked Marcel, "did you succeed?"
"No, my uncle has gone to Versailles. And you?"
"That beast of a Medicis does not want any more ruined manor houses. He wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers."
"Our reputations are ruined forever if we do not give this party," murmured Rodolphe. "What will my friend, the influential critic, think if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing."
And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness.
At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four.
"We have only three hours before us," said Rodolphe despondingly.
"But," said Marcel, going up to his friend, "are you quite sure, certain sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?"
"Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?"
"If we looked under the furniture, in the stuffing of the arm chairs? They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the days of Robespierre. Who can tell? Perhaps our arm chair belonged to an emigrant nobleman, and besides, it is so hard that the idea has often occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?"
"This is mere comedy," replied Rodolphe, in a tone in which severity was mingled with indulgence.
Suddenly Marcel, who had gone on rummaging in every corner of the studio, uttered a loud cry of triumph.
"We are saved!" he exclaimed. "I was sure that there was money here. Behold!" and he showed Rodolphe a coin as large as a crown piece, and half eaten away by rust and verdigris.
It was a Carlovingian coin of some artistic value. The legend, happily intact, showed the date of Charlemagne's reign.
"That, that's worth thirty sous," said Rodolphe, with a contemptuous glance at his friend's find.
"Thirty sous well employed will go a great way," replied Marcel. "With twelve hundred men Bonaparte made ten thousand Austrians lay down their arms. Skill can replace numbers. I will go and swap the Carlovingian crown at Daddy Medicis'. Is there not anything else saleable here? Suppose I take the plaster cast of the tibia of Jaconowski, the Russian drum major."
"Take the tibia. But it is a nuisance, there will not be a single ornament left here."
During Marcel's absence, Rodolphe, his mind made up that that party should be given in any case, went in search of his friend Colline, the hyperphysical philosopher, who lived hard by.
"I have come," said he, "to ask you to do me a favor. As host I must positively have a black swallow-tail, and I have not got one; lend me yours."
"But," said Colline hesitating, "as a guest I shall want my black swallow-tail too."
"I will allow you to come in a frock coat."
"That won't do. You know very well I have never had a frock coat."
"Well, then, it can be settled in another way. If needs be, you need not come to my party, and can lend me your swallow-tail."
"That would be unpleasant. I am on the program, and must not be lacking."
"There are plenty of other things that will be lacking," said Rodolphe. "Lend me your black swallow-tail, and if you will come, come as you like; in your shirt sleeves, you will pass for a faithful servant."
"Oh no!" said Colline, blushing. "I will wear my great coat. But all the same, it is very unpleasant." And as he saw Rodolphe had already seized on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, "Stop a bit. There are some odds and ends in the pockets."
Colline's swallow-tail deserves a word or two. In the first place it was of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as "my black swallow-tail." And as he was the only one of the band owning a dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when speaking of the philosopher's official garment, "Colline's black swallow-tail." In addition to this, this famous garment had a special cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very short waist, had two pockets, positive gulfs, in which Colline was accustomed to store some thirty of the volumes which he eternally carried about with him. This caused his friends to remark that during the time that the public libraries were closed, savants and literary men could go and refer to the skirts of Colline's swallow-tail—a library always open.
That day, extraordinary to relate, Colline's swallow-tail only contained a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise on the hyperphysical faculties in three volumes, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg and Pope's "Essay on Man." When he had cleared his bookcase-garment, he allowed Rodolphe to clothe himself in it.
"Hallo!" said the latter, "the left pocket still feels very heavy; you have left something in it."
"Ah!" exclaimed Colline, "that is so. I forgot to empty the foreign languages pocket."
And he took out from this two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and a stock breeder's manual in Chinese, his favorite reading.
When Rodolphe returned home he found Marcel playing pitch-and-toss with three five franc pieces. At first Rodolphe refused his friend's proferred hand—he thought some crime had been committed.
"Let us make haste, let us make haste," said Marcel, "we have the fifteen francs required. This is how it happened. I met an antiquary at Medicis'. When he saw the coin he was almost taken ill; it was the only one wanting in his cabinet. He had sent everywhere to get this vacancy filled up, and had lost all hope. Thus, when he had thoroughly examined my Carlovingian crown piece, he did not hesitate for a moment to offer me five francs for it. Medicis nudged me with his elbow; a look from him completed the business. He meant, 'share the profits of the sale, and I will bid against him.' We ran it up to thirty francs. I gave the Jew fifteen, and here are the rest. Now our guests may come; we are in a position to dazzle them. Hallo! You have got a swallow-tail!"
"Yes," said Rodolphe, "Colline's swallow-tail." And as he was feeling for his handkerchief, Rodolphe pulled out a small volume in a Tartar dialect, overlooked in the foreign literature pocket.
The two friends at once proceeded to make their preparations. The studio was set in order, a fire kindled in the stove, the stretcher of a picture, garnished with composite candles, suspended from the ceiling as a chandelier, and a writing table placed in the middle of the studio to serve as a rostrum for the orators. The solitary armchair, which was to be reserved for the influential critic, was placed in front of it, and upon a table were arranged all the books, romances, poems, pamphlets, &c., the authors of which were to honor the company with their presence.
In order to avoid any collision between members of the different schools of literature, the studio had been, moreover, divided into four compartments, at the entrance to each of which could be read, on four hurriedly manufactured placards, the inscriptions—"Poets," "Prose Writers," "Classic School," and "Romantic School."
The ladies were to occupy a space reserved in the middle of the studio.
"Humph! Chairs are lacking," said Rodolphe.
"Oh!" remarked Marcel, "there are several on the landing, fastened along the wall. Suppose we were to gather them."
"Certainly, let us gather them by all means," said Rodolphe, starting off to seize on the chairs, which belonged to some neighbor.
Six o'clock struck: the two friends went off to a hasty dinner, and returned to light up the saloons. They were themselves dazzled by the result. At seven o'clock Schaunard arrived, accompanied by three ladies, who had forgotten their diamonds and their bonnets. One of them wore a red shawl with black spots. Schaunard pointed out this lady particularly to Rodolphe.
"She is a woman accustomed to the best society," said he, "an Englishwoman whom the fall of the Stuarts has driven into exile, she lives in a modest way by giving lessons in English. Her father was Lord Chancellor under Cromwell, she told me, so we must be polite with her. Don't be too familiar."
Numerous footsteps were heard on the stairs. It was the guests arriving. They seemed astonished to see a fire burning in the stove.
Rodolphe's swallow-tail went to greet the ladies, and kissed their hands with a grace worthy of the Regency. When there was a score of persons present, Schaunard asked whether it was not time for a round of drinks.
"Presently," said Marcel. "We are waiting for the arrival of the influential critic to set fire to the punch."
At eight o'clock the whole of the guests had arrived, and the execution of the program commenced. Each item was alternated with a round of drink of some kind, no one ever knew what.
Towards ten o'clock the white waistcoat of the influential critic made its appearance. He only stayed an hour, and was very sober in the consumption of refreshments.
At midnight, as there was no more wood, and it was very cold, the guests who were seated drew lots as to who should cast his chair into the fire.
By one o'clock every one was standing.
Amiable gaiety did not cease to reign amongst the guests. There were no accidents to be regretted, with the exception of a rent in the foreign languages pocket of Colline's swallow-tail and a smack in the face given by Schaunard to the daughter of Cromwell's Lord Chancellor.
This memorable evening was for a week the staple subject of gossip in the district, and Phemie Teinturiere, who had been the queen of the fete, was accustomed to remark, when talking it over with her friends,—
"It was awfully fine. There were composite candles, my dear."
Mademoiselle Musette was a pretty girl of twenty who shortly after her arrival in Paris had become what many pretty girls become when they have a neat figure, plenty of coquesttishness, a dash of ambition and hardly any education. After having for a long time shone as the star of the supper parties of the Latin Quarter, at which she used to sing in a voice, still very fresh if not very true, a number of country ditties, which earned her the nickname under which she has since been immortalized by one of our neatest rhymsters, Mademoiselle Musette suddenly left the Rue de la Harpe to go and dwell upon the Cytherean heights of the Breda district.
She speedily became one of the foremost of the aristocracy of pleasure and slowly made her way towards that celebrity which consists in being mentioned in the columns devoted to Parisian gossip, or lithographed at the printsellers.
However Mademoiselle Musette was an exception to the women amongst whom she lived. Of a nature instinctively elegant and poetical, like all women who are really such, she loved luxury and the many enjoyments which it procures; her coquetry warmly coveted all that was handsome and distinguished; a daughter of the people, she would not have been in any way out of her element amidst the most regal sumptuosity. But Mademoiselle Musette, who was young and pretty, had never consented to be the mistress of any man who was not like herself young and handsome. She had been known bravely to refuse the magnificient offers of an old man so rich that he was styled the Peru of the Chaussee d'Antin, and who had offered a golden ladder to the gratification of her fancies. Intelligent and witty, she had also a repugnance for fools and simpletons, whatever might be their age, their title and their name.
Musette, therefore, was an honest and pretty girl, who in love adopted half of Champfort's famous amphoris, "Love is the interchange of two caprices." Thus her connection had never been preceded by one of those shameful bargains which dishonor modern gallantry. As she herself said, Musette played fair and insisted that she should receive full change for her sincerity.
But if her fancies were lively and spontaneous, they were never durable enough to reach the height of a passion. And the excessive mobility of her caprices, the little care she took to look at the purse and the boots of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, it would need the pen of Alfred de Musset to fitly narrate your careless and vagabond course amidst the flowery paths of youth; and he would certainly have celebrated you, if like me, he had heard you sing in your pretty false notes, this couplet from one of your favorite ditties:
"It was a day in SpringWhen love I strove to singUnto a nut brown maid.O'er face as fair as dawnCast a bewitching shade,"
"It was a day in SpringWhen love I strove to singUnto a nut brown maid.O'er face as fair as dawnCast a bewitching shade,"
The story we are about to tell is one of the most charming in the life of this charming adventuress who wore so many green gowns.
At a time when she was the mistress of a young Counsellor of State, who had gallantly placed in her hands the key of his ancestral coffers, Mademoiselle Musette was in the habit of receiving once a week in her pretty drawing room in the Rue de la Bruyere. These evenings resembled most Parisian evenings, with the difference that people amused themselves. When there was not enough room they sat on one another's knees, and it often happened that the same glass served for two. Rodolphe, who was a friend of Musette and never anything more than a friend, without either of them knowing why—Rodolphe asked leave to bring his friend, the painter Marcel.
"A young fellow of talent," he added, "for whom the future is embroidering his Academician's coat."
"Bring him," said Musette.
The evening they were to go together to Musette's Rodolphe called on Marcel to fetch him. The artist was at his toilet.
"What!" said Rodolphe, "you are going into society in a colored shirt?"
"Does that shock custom?" observed Marcel quietly.
"Shock custom, it stuns it."
"The deuce," said Marcel, looking at his shirt, which displayed a pattern of boars pursued by dogs, on a blue ground. "I have not another here. Oh! Bah! So much the worse, I will put on a collar, and as 'Methuselah' buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my lines."
"What!" said Rodolphe uneasy, "you are going to wear 'Methuselah'?"
"Alas!" replied Marcel, "I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory black."
"Methuselah" was merely Marcel's dress coat. He called it so because it was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. "Methuselah" was cut in the fashion of four years' before and was, besides of a hideous green, but Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight.
In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society.
M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on reaching Mademoiselle Musette's.
This is the reason for their astonishment: Mademoiselle Musette who for some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State, had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had been seized and carried down into the courtyard in order to be taken away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and did not put off her party. She had the courtyard arranged as a drawing room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual, dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination.
This jest had immense success, never had Musette's evenings displayed such go and gaiety; they were still dancing and singing when the porters came to take away furniture and carpets and the company was obliged to withdraw.
Musette bowed her guests out, singing:
"They will laugh long and loud, tralala,At my Thursday night's crowdThey will laugh long and loud, tralala."
"They will laugh long and loud, tralala,At my Thursday night's crowdThey will laugh long and loud, tralala."
Marcel and Rodolphe alone remained with Musette, who ascended to her room where there was nothing left but the bed.
"Ah, but my adventure is no longer such a lively one after all," said Musette. "I shall have to take up my quarters out of doors."
"Oh madame!" said Marcel, "if I had the gifts of Plutus I should like to offer you a temple finer than that of Solomon, but—"
"You are not Plutus. All the same I thank you for your good intentions. Ah!" she added, glancing around the room, "I was getting bored here, and then the furniture was old. I had had it nearly six months. But that is not all, after the dance one should sup."
"Let us sup-pose," said Marcel, who had an itch of punning, above all in the morning, when he was terrible.
As Rodolphe had gained some money at the lansquenet played during the evening, he carried off Musette and Marcel to a restaurant which was just opening.
After breakfast, the three, who had no inclination for sleep, spoke of finishing the day in the country, and as they found themselves close to the railway station they got into the first train that started, which landed them at Saint Germain.
During the whole of the night of the party and all of the rest of the day Marcel, who was gunpowder which a single glance sufficed to kindle, had been violently smitten by Mademoiselle Musette and paid her "highly-colored court," as he put it to Rodolphe. He even went so far as to propose to the pretty girl to buy her furniture handsomer than the last with the result of the sale of his famous picture, "The Passage of the Red Sea." Hence the artist saw with pain the moment arrive when it became necessary to part from Musette, who whilst allowing him to kiss her hands, neck and sundry other accessories, gently repulsed him every time that he tried to violently burgle her heart.
On reaching Paris, Rodolphe left his friend with the girl, who asked the artist to see her to her door.
"Will you allow me to call on you?" asked Marcel, "I will paint your portrait."
"My dear fellow," replied she, "I cannot give you my address, since tomorrow I may no longer have one, but I will call and see you, and I will mend your coat, which has a hole so big that one could shoot the moon through it."
"I will await your coming like that of the messiah," said Marcel.
"Not quite so long," said Musette, laughing.
"What a charming girl," said Marcel to himself, as he slowly walked away. "She is the Goddess of Mirth. I will make two holes in my coat."
He had not gone twenty paces before he felt himself tapped on the shoulder. It was Mademoiselle Musette.
"My dear Monsieur Marcel," said she, "are you a true knight?"
"I am. 'Rubens and my lady,' that is my motto."
"Well then, hearken to my woes and pity take, most noble sir," returned Musette, who was slightly tinged with literature, although she murdered grammar in fine style, "the landlord has taken away the key of my room and it is eleven o'clock at night. Do you understand?"
"I understand," said Marcel, offering Musette his arm. He took her to his studio on the Quai aux Fleurs.
Musette was hardly able to keep awake, but she still had strength enough to say to Marcel, taking him by the hand, "You remember what you have promised?"
"Oh Musette! charming creature!" said the artist in a somewhat moved tone, "you are here beneath a hospitable roof, sleep in peace. Good night, I am off."
"Why so?" said Musette, her eyes half closed. "I am not afraid, I can assure you. In the first place, there are two rooms. I will sleep on your sofa."
"My sofa is too hard to sleep on, it is stuffed with carded pebbles. I will give you hospitality here, and ask it for myself from a friend who lives on the same landing. It will be more prudent," said he. "I usually keep my word, but I am twenty-two and you are eighteen, Musette,—and I am off. Good night."
The next morning at eight o'clock Marcel entered her room with a pot of flowers that he had gone and bought in the market. He found Musette, who had thrown herself fully dressed on the bed, and was still sleeping. At the noise made by him she woke, and held out her hand.
"What a good fellow," said she.
"Good fellow," repeated Marcel, "is not that a term of ridicule?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Musette, "why should you say that to me? It is not nice. Instead of saying spiteful things offer me that pretty pot of flowers."
"It is, indeed, for you that I have brought them up," said Marcel. "Take it, and in return for my hospitality sing me one of your songs, the echo of my garret may perhaps retain something of your voice, and I shall still hear you after you have departed."
"Oh! so you want to show me the door?" said Musette. "Listen, Marcel, I do not beat about the bush to say what my thoughts are. You like me and I like you. It is not love, but it is perhaps its seed. Well, I am not going away, I am going to stop here, and I shall stay here as long as the flowers you have just given me remain unfaded."
"Ah!" exclaimed Marcel, "they will fade in a couple of days. If I had known I would have bought immortelles."
For a fortnight Musette and Marcel lived together, and led, although often without money, the most charming life in the world. Musette felt for the artist an affection which had nothing in common with her preceding passions, and Marcel began to fear that he was seriously in love with his mistress. Ignorant that she herself was very much afraid of being equally smitten, he glanced every morning at the condition of the flowers, the death of which was to bring about the severance of their connection, and found it very difficult to account for their continued freshness. But he soon had a key to the mystery. One night, waking up, he no longer found Musette beside him. He rose, hastened into the next room, and perceived his mistress, who profited nightly by his slumbers to water the flowers and hinder them from perishing.
It was the nineteenth of March, 184—. Should Rodolphe reach the age of Methuselah, he will never forget the date; for it was on that day, at three in the afternoon, that our friend issued from a banker's where he had just received five hundred francs in current and sounding specie.
The first use Rodolphe made of this slice of Peru which had fallen into his pocket was not to pay his debts, inasmuch as he had sworn to himself to practice economy and go to no extra expense. He had a fixed idea on this subject, and declared that before thinking of superfluities, one ought to provide for necessaries. Therefore it was that he paid none of his creditors, and bought a Turkish pipe which he had long coveted.
Armed with this purchase, he directed his steps towards the lodging of his friend Marcel, who had for some time given him shelter. As he entered Marcel's studio, Rodolphe's pockets rang like a village-steeple on a grand holiday. On hearing this unusual sound, Marcel supposed it was one of his neighbors, a great speculator, counting his profits on 'Change, and muttered, "There's that impertinent fellow next door beginning his music again! If this is to go on, I shall give notice to the landlord. It's impossible to work with such a noise. It tempts one to quit one's condition of poor artist and turn robber, forty times over."
So, never suspecting that it was his friend Rodolphe changed into a Croesus, Marcel again set to work on his "Passage of the Red Sea," which had been on his easel nearly three years.
Rodolphe, who had not yet spoken, meditating an experiment which he was about to make on his friend, said to himself, "We shall laugh in a minute. Won't it be fun?" and he let fall a five-franc piece on the floor.
Marcel raised his eyes and looked at Rodolphe, who was as grave as an article in the "Revue des deux Mondes." Then he picked up the piece of money with a well-satisfied air, and made a courteous salute to it; for, vagabond artist as he was, he understood the usages of society, and was very civil to strangers. Knowing, moreover, that Rodolphe had gone out to look for money, Marcel, seeing that his friend had succeeded in his operations, contented himself with admiring the result, without inquiring by what means it had been obtained. Accordingly, he went to work again without speaking, and finished drowning an Egyptian in the waves of the Red Sea. As he was terminating this homicide, Rodolphe let fall another piece, laughing in his sleeve at the face the painter was going to make.
At the sonorous sound of the metal, Marcel bounded up as if he had received an electric shock, and cried, "What! Number two!"
A third piece rolled on the floor, then another, then one more; finally a whole quadrille of five-franc pieces were dancing in the room.
Marcel began to show evident signs of mental alienation; and Rodolphe laughed like the pit of a Parisian theatre at the first representation of a very tragical tragedy. Suddenly, and without any warning, he plunged both hands into his pockets, and the money rushed out in a supernatural steeple-chase. It was an inundation of Pactolus; it was Jupiter entering Danae's chamber.
Marcel remained silent, motionless, with a fixed stare; his astonishment was gradually operating upon him a transformation similar to that which the untimely curiosity of Lott's wife brought upon her: by the time that Rodolphe had thrown his last hundred francs on the floor, the painter was petrified all down one side of his body.
Rodolphe laughed and laughed. Compared with his stormy mirth, the thunder of an orchestra of sax-horns would have been no more than the crying of a child at the breast.
Stunned, strangled, stupefied by his emotions, Marcel thought himself in a dream. To drive away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that, though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in a tragedy, he ejaculated:
"Can I believe my eyes?" and then seizing Rodolphe's hand, he added, "Explain to me this mystery."
"Did I explain it 'twould be one no more."
"Come, now!"
"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow," said Rodolphe, picking up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking to himself, "Now then, my dreams will be realized!"
"There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there," thought Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the table. "I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red Sea.'"
All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist:
"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in laboriously acquiring a serious position—such as a virtuous man should occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties—."
"And the horse, the noblest of animals," interrupted Marcel.
"Bah! where did you get that sermon? Been through a course of good sense, no doubt."
"Interrupt me not," replied Rodolphe, "and truce to your railleries. They will be blunted against the buckler of invulnerable resolution in which I am from this moment clad."
"That will do for prologue. Now the conclusion."
"This is my design. No longer embarrassed about the material wants of life, I am going seriously to work. First of all, I renounce my vagabond existence: I shall dress like other people, set up a black coat, and go to evening parties. If you are willing to follow in my footsteps, we will continue to live together but you must adopt my program. The strictest economy will preside over our life. By proper management we have before us three months' work without any preoccupation. But we must be economical."
"My dear fellow," said Marcel, "economy is a science only practicable for rich people. You and I, therefore, are ignorant of its first elements. However, by making an outlay of six francs we can have the works of Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Say, a very distinguished economist, who will perhaps teach us how to practice the art. Hallo! You have a Turkish pipe there!"
"Yes, I bought it for twenty-five francs."
"How is that! You talk of economy, and give twenty-five francs for a pipe!"
"And this is an economy. I used to break a two-sous pipe every day, and at the end of the year that came to a great deal more."
"True, I should never have thought of that."
They heard a neighboring clock strike six.
"Let us have dinner at once," said Rodolphe. "I mean to begin from tonight. Talking of dinner, it occurs to me that we lose much valuable time every day in cooking ours; now time is money, so we must economize it. From this day we will dine out."
"Yes," said Marcel, "there is a capital restaurant twenty steps off. It's rather dear, but not far to go, so we shall gain in time what we lose in money."
"We will go there today," said Rodolphe, "but tomorrow or next day we will adopt a still more economical plan. Instead of going to the restaurant, we will hire a cook."
"No, no," put in Marcel, "we will hire a servant to be cook and everything. Just see the immense advantages which will result from it. First of all, our rooms will be always in order; he will clean our boots, go on errands, wash my brushes; I will even try and give him a taste of the fine arts, and make him grind colors. In this way, we shall save at least six hours a day."
Five minutes after, the two friends were installed in one of the little rooms of the restaurant, and continuing their schemes of economy.
"We must get an intelligent lad," said Rodolphe, "if he has a sprinkling of spelling, I will teach him to write articles, and make an editor of him."
"That will be his resource for his old age," said Marcel, adding up the bill. "Well, this is dear, rather! Fifteen francs! We used both to dine for a franc and a half."
"Yes," replied Rodolphe, "but then we dined so badly that we were obliged to sup at night. So, on the whole, it is an economy."
"You always have the best of the argument," muttered the convinced artist. "Shall we work tonight?"
"No, indeed! I shall go to see my uncle. He is a good fellow, and will give me good advice when I tell him my new position. And you, Marcel?"
"I shall go to Medicis to ask him if he has any restorations of pictures to give me. By the way, give me five francs."
"For what?"
"To cross the Pont des Arts."
"Two sous to cross a bridge when you can go over another for nothing! That is a useless expense; and, though an inconsiderable one, is a violation of our rule."
"I am wrong, to be sure," said Marcel. "I will take a cab and go by the Pont Neuf."
So the two friends quitted each other in opposite directions, but somehow the different roads brought them to the same place, and they didn't go home till morning.
Two days after, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. Dressed like two bridegrooms of the best society, they were so elegant, and neat, and shining, that they hardly recognized each other when they met in the street. Still their system of economy was in full blast, though it was not without much difficulty that their "organization of labor" had been realized. They had taken a servant; a big fellow thirty-four years old, of Swiss descent, and about as clever as an average donkey.
But Baptiste was not born to be a servant; he had a soul above his business; and if one of his masters gave him a parcel to carry, he blushed with indignation, and sent it by porter. However, he had some merits; for instance, he could hash hare well and his first profession having been that of distiller, he passed much of his time—or his masters', rather—in trying to invent a new kind of liniment; he also succeeded in the preparation of lamp-black. But where he was unrivalled was in smoking Marcel's cigars and lighting them with Rodolphe's manuscripts.
One day Marcel wanted to put Baptiste into costume, and make him sit for Pharaoh in his "Passage of the Red Sea." To this proposition Baptiste replied by a flat refusal, and demanded his wages.
"Very well," said Marcel, "I will settle with you tonight."
When Rodolphe returned, his friends declared that they must send away Baptiste. "He is of no use to us at all."
"No, indeed—only an ornament, and not much of that."
"Awfully stupid."
"And equally lazy."
"We must turn him off."
"Let us!"
"Still, he has some good points. He hashes hare very well."
"And the lamp-black! He is a very Raphael for that."
"Yes, but that's all he is good for. We lose time arguing with him."
"He keeps us from working."
"He is the cause of my 'Passage' not being finished in time for the Exhibition. He wouldn't sit for Pharaoh."
"Thanks to him, I couldn't finish my article in time. He wouldn't go to the public library and hunt up the notes I wanted."
"He is ruining us."
"Decidedly we can't keep him."
"Send him away then! But we must pay him."
"That we'll do. Give me the money, and I will settle accounts with him."
"Money! But it is not I who keeps the purse, but you."
"Not at all! It is you who are charged with the financial department."
"But I assure you," said Marcel, "I have no money."
"Can there be no more? It is impossible! We can't have spent five hundred francs in eight days, especially living with the most rigid economy as we have done, and confining ourselves to absolute necessaries: [absolute superfluities, he should have said]. We must look over our accounts; and we shall find where the mistake is."
"Yes, but we shan't find where the money is. However, let us see the account-book, at any rate."
And this is the way they kept their accounts which had been begun under the auspices of Saint Economy:
"March 19. Received 500 francs. Paid, a Turkish pipe, 25 fr.; dinner, 15 fr.; sundries, 40 fr."
"What are those sundries?" asked Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading.
"You know very well," replied the other, "that night when we didn't go home till morning. We saved fuel and candles by that."
"Well, afterwards?"
"March 20. Breakfast, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.; dinner, 2 fr.; an opera glass, 2 fr. 50 c.—that goes to your account. What did you want a glass for? You see perfectly well."
"You know I had to give an account of the Exhibition in the 'Scarf of Iris.' It is impossible to criticize paintings without a glass. The expense is quite legitimate. Well?—"
"A bamboo cane—"
"Ah, that goes to your account," said Rodolphe. "You didn't want a cane."
"That was all we spent the 20th," was Marcel's only answer. "The 21st we breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out."
"We ought not to have spent much that day."
"Not much, in fact—hardly thirty francs."
"But what for?"
"I don't know; it's marked sundries."
"Vague and treacherous heading!"
"'21st. (The day that Baptiste came.)5 francs to him on account of his wages. 50 centimes to the organ man.'"
"23rd. Nothing set down. 24th, ditto. Two good days!"
"'25th. Baptiste, on account, 3 fr.It seems to me we give him money very often," said Marcel, by way of reflection.
"There will be less owing to him," said Rodolphe. "Go on!"
"'26th. Sundries, useful in an artistic point of view, 36 fr.'"
"What did we buy that was useful? I don't recollect. What can it have been?"
"You don't remember! The day we went to the top of Notre Dame for a bird's-eye view of Paris."
"But it costs only eight sous to go up the tower."
"Yes, but then we went to dine at Saint Germain after we came down."
"Clear as mud!"
"27th. Nothing to set down."
"Good! There's economy for you."
"'28th. Baptiste, on account, 6 fr.'"
"Now this time I am sure we owe Baptiste nothing more. Perhaps he is even in our debt. We must see."
"29th. Nothing set down, except the beginning of an article on 'Social Morals.'"
"30th. Ah! We had company at dinner—heavy expenses the 30th, 55 fr. 31st.—that's today—we have spent nothing yet. You see," continued Marcel, "the account has been kept very carefully, and the total does not reach five hundred francs."
"Then there ought to be money in the drawer."
"We can see," said Marcel, opening it.
"Anything there?"
"Yes, a spider."