[1]The Covent Gardens of Paris.
[1]
The Covent Gardens of Paris.
The sun was shining brightly when he awoke, and all the little midinettes were in full song.
Wynne sat up in bed and ate a piece of his bread and drank a glass of water. Asked why he did so, he cheerfully replied,
“Moi, je suis ruiné.”
Whereupon the maidens laughed very heartily and said he was a droll.
Wynne had become quite used to the little audience across the way and scarcely took them into consideration. Women, as such, made little or no impression upon him. He liked them well enough, but never cared to better his knowledge or acquaintance with any with whom he had come into contact. Physically they made not the slightest appeal to him—his senses were inert toward the impulse of sex, and he was given to criticize contemptuously those of his companions who staked their emotions in the ways of passion.
“Do not imagine I suffer from moral convictions,” he would say; “but, according to my views, you attach an importance to these matters out of all relation to their value.”
The sentence had inflamed to a very high degree the student to whom it was addressed.
“Fool! Fish!” he had shouted, by way of argument; and again, “Fish! Fish!”
To a running fire of semi-serious sympathy Wynne dressed himself and went out. In a sense he was a little distressed to sacrifice his accustomed cup of early morning chocolate—but this, he argued, was a matter of small concern. A plethora of victuals stagnates the mind, and on this day he had every reason to desire a clear head.
In the Elysée Gardens he found a bench and contracted his brow in meditation. What, he ruminated, were the essentials required to gain a livelihood? Obviously there was a place for every one in this world, or mankind would not survive the ordeal of birth. There was a place for people of every kind of intelligence—a glance at the passers-by proved it, and proved that even the stupid may sometimes prosper. This being so, it was obvious that the wise must prosper even more greatly.
“What have I got to sell?” he asked himself. “What have I got that these other people desire? What can I do that other people can’t do?”
But though he racked his brain he could find no answer to the questions.
After a while he rose and started to walk. He walked fast, as if to escape from his own thoughts, and Fear, so it seemed, walked by his side.
“Nothing,” said Fear—“you have nothing to sell. Nobody wants you—nobody will care if you starve.”
“Go away,” said Wynne. “I tell you I am wanted. I say I shan’t starve.”
“Little idiot! What have you learnt to do but sneer at the real worker? There is no market price for sneers. Sneerers starve—starve! Who are you to laugh at the honest people of the world?”
“I didn’t laugh. I only pitied.”
“How dared you pity—you, who have achieved nothing? Even that small errand boy yonder is a worthier citizen than you—he at least earns his ten francs a week. What have you earned? Only the wage-slave deserves to be a freeman. What is the value of all this trash of art and æsthetics? These are only accessories of life—life itself must be learnt before you can deal in these.”
“But I don’t want to be a wage-slave. I want to be a king.”
“Kingdoms are not won by desire. You must be a subject first.”
“I will be a king—a ruler.”
“A beggar in a week. Come off the heights, little idiot; come down into the plains and lay a road.”
Wynne stopped suddenly in the great quadrangle of the Louvre.
“Right,” he said. “I’ll be content with small beginnings, but show me the way to find them.”
And looking across the cobbled yard he saw three people. They were quite ordinary, and obviously English. There was a middle-aged man with a disposition toward side-whiskers. He carried an umbrella, and wore a severe bowler hat. His clothes spoke of prosperity coupled with a due regard for quiet colours. By his side walked a stout lady, in a tailor-made dress of suburban cut. Upon her head reposed an example of Paris millinery, and consciousness of its beauty gave her face an added tendency to perspire. It was a new hat, and did not seem to have sympathetic relations with her boots. People who go abroad for the first time are apt to overestimate the probable amount of wear their shoe-leather is likely to incur, and guard against walking barefoot by donning boots whose sturdiness would defeat the depredations of a Matterhorn climb.
By the lady’s side was a youth—a very unprepossessing youth too. His face was blotchy, almost as blotchy as his tie. His waistcoat was double-breasted and of a violent grey. He carried a vulgar little cane in his yellow-gloved hand.
That the trio were strangers to the city was indisputably betrayed by the consciousness of their manner and the elaborate precautions they were at to look at everything. The elder man drew attention to a sewer grating in the middle of the quadrangle, and pointed with his umbrella at the pigeons.
Presently they came to a halt, and produced a Baedeker, which provided them with small enlightenment.
“You are supposed to know French,” Wynne heard the elder man say, “then why not ask some one how we get into the place.”
“I can’t,” replied the son.
“Well, all I can say is it seems a very funny thing.”
While conversing they failed to observe the approach of an official guide, who, complete with ingratiating smile and a parchment of credentials, offered to pilot them round the galleries.
At this they at once took flight, with much head-shaking and confusion, and had the misfortune to run into the arms of two more of the fraternity. These two importuned them afresh.
“Certainly not,” said the paterfamilias, as though he had been asked to participate in some very disgraceful orgy.
An Englishman always runs away from a guide, although sooner or later he becomes a victim.
Being aware of this fact, one, more assiduous than the rest, followed them closely with invitations and beseechings, and headed them toward the spot where Wynne was standing. It was clear that the unhappy people were greatly unnerved, and equally clear that in a moment they would cease to retreat, and surrender.
Perceiving this, Wynne was conceived of an idea, and as they came abreast he brought to bear upon the guide with a quick barrage of Paris invective. In effect his words were: “These people are my friends—get out,” although he coloured up the phrase with some generosity. The victory was instantaneous, and a moment later he had raised his hat and was saying:
“I don’t think you will be bothered any more.”
“Very kind of you—very kind,” said the father, mopping his brow. “Great nuisance, these people.” And the lady favoured Wynne with a grateful smile.
“You were about to visit the galleries?”
“Well, we thought we’d take a look round, you know. The thing to do!”
“Oh, quite. Are you familiar with the Louvre?”
“Er, no—no. Can’t say we are—no.”
“H’m. I was wondering if I should offer to conduct you.”
“Hey? Well. Ho! I see! Not a bad idea! What do you say, Ada?”
“It would be very nice.”
“You do this job, then?”
“Occasionally. Not regularly.”
“Well, I don’t mind. Got to see the things, I s’pose.”
“It is customary, isn’t it?” smiled Wynne.
“Hum. How long will it take to do the place?”
“Five years—perhaps a little less.”
The joke was not well received, so Wynne modified it.
“I could show you the more vital points of interest in a couple of hours.”
“Two hours, eh? And you’d want how much an hour?”
Wynne considered. “Should we say five francs?” he suggested.
“Jolly sight too much, I call it,” observed the blotchy youth, whose name was Vincent. “Get a seat at a café chantong for that.”
“Well, what do you say?” said the father.
“I am silent, like the ‘G’ inchantong,” replied Wynne. He had begun to feel the spice of adventure in bartering, and would not give ground.
“We mustn’t forget we are on a holiday,” the mother reminded them.
“Let it go,” said the father; “and I only hope it will be worth it.”
“I can promise you it will be more than worth it,” said Wynne, and led the way to the entrance.
As they mounted the stairs, blotchy Vincent plucked at his sleeve and asked,sotto voce:
“I say, do you know Paris well?”
“Intimately. Why?”
“I only wondered.”
He nodded toward his parents and shook his head mysteriously.
Wynne was not entirely easy with his conscience at having accepted the post of guide, and determined to justify himself by a great liberality of artistic expression. He therefore began to talk with exceeding rapidity the moment they entered the first gallery.
“This collection is more or less mediocre, although one or two examples are worthy of attention. This Cupid and Psyche, for instance, may at first strike you as insipid, but it presents interesting features. You observe how there is a far greater similarity between the sexes than we find in nature. It is almost as though, by combining the two, the artist sought to arrive at the ideal human form.”
“Dare say he did,” admitted the father, rather uncomfortably, while the mother looked with eyes that saw nothing. Blotchy Vincent, on the other hand, pricked up his ears at the word “sex.”
“One might sum up this school by saying they were inspired by an hermaphroditic tendency.”
“M’yes. Well, I don’t think we need inquire into that. It’s—hardly—er—”
“The same spirit is prevalent in modern French sculpture.”
“I think we will have a look at something else.”
“That’s a nice picture,” said Mrs. Johns—for Johns was the name of the family. “Very nice, I call that—quiet!”
She directed their attention toward a large canvas depicting a lady sitting upon a couch with her legs resting straightly on its flat surface.
“Ah, thatisa nice picture,” agreed Mr. Johns.
Vincent, however, lingered before Cupid and Psyche. It did not compare with sundry picture postcards he had seen, but it held greater attractions than the portrait of Madame Récamier.
“I consider the colour is disappointing,” observed Wynne—“disappointing and improbable. When one comes to consider that Madame Récamier held in her day the most popular Salon in Paris, and reflects that to do so she must inevitably have been demimondaine of the demimondaine, one is justified in expecting an added brilliance to the cheeks and an added scarlet to the lips.”
Hereupon Mr. Johns favoured Wynne with a warning look, which he was pleased to ignore.
“This particular canvas is illustrative of what somebody—I think Samuel Butler—said, that a portrait is never so much of the sitter as of the artist. Shall we take some of the older masters next?”
He led the way to an inner gallery, the Johns family trooping behind him. As they passed through the arched doorway Mr. and Mrs. Johns exchanged glances as though to say:
“I think we have made a great mistake introducing this young man into our God-fearing midst!”
Before the canvases of the Old Masters Wynne expanded his views with great liberality. Correggio and Botticelli were favoured with a kindly mention, Rembrandt was patted on the back, and Raphael severely criticized. An ill-advised appreciation of a canvas by Jordeans brought upon Mr. Johns a vigorous attack:
“Oh, believe me, very second-rate indeed. A mere copyist of Rubens, who, himself, in no way justified the position of being a target at which a self-respecting artist should aim. Here is a Titian now—”
“Oh, really!” said Mrs. Johns. “I’ve often heard of Titian red. Do you see, father, that’s a Titian.”
“Oh yes,” said Mr. Johns, consulting his catalogue. “So it is. Seems good!”
“Very wonderful how the colours last so long. Isn’t it pretty, Vincent?”
“I don’t know,” said Vincent, who was very bored. “Dare say it’s all right.”
“I wonder,” remarked Wynne, “if you can detect the fault in that picture.”
Mr. and Mrs. Johns half closed their eyes, by which means they fondly believed faults were more easily detected. After much consideration they produced the joint statement that it looked “a little funny—I don’t know!”
“The fault lies in the fact that there are no faults—which, to my way of thinking, is very heinous.”
“That sounds nonsense to me,” said Mr. Johns, who was getting heartily sick of the whole exposition.
“Not at all. There must be impurity to emphasize purity. Where would the Church be were it not for sinners? What would be the worth of virtue if there were no vice? Therefore I contend that nothing is so imperfect as perfection.”
Carried away by his own arguments, Wynne hurried his charges along to Leonardo’s “Baptist.”
Here he drew breath and started to speak afresh.
“An amazingly happy performance—instinct with life, saturated with humour. You notice the same classic tendency towards sexlessness? In my opinion this is all a painting should be. There is something astonishingly compelling in every line of the form and features.”
“She is certainly very pleasant-looking,” said Mrs. Johns. “Who was the young lady?”
“John the Baptist, madam.”
At this Mr. Johns very properly interposed with:
“I don’t tolerate jokes about the Bible, young man.”
Even Vincent looked as though he expected Wynne to be struck down by some divine and correcting hand. Mrs. Johns was frankly horrified.
“Look at your catalogue,” said Wynne.
This advice Mr. Johns accepted, but even the printed words failed to convince him.
“If that’s John the Baptist,” he remarked, “all I can say is that it’s notmyidea of John the Baptist.”
“What is your idea, sir.”
“An elderly gentleman with a beard.”
“With all respect, I think Leonardo’s is preferable. Youth is more appealing than middle age. These half humorous, wholly inspired features would lose the greater measure of their attraction if the lower part of the face were covered with hair.”
“I don’t agree with you, and I don’t consider the subject at all a proper one,” said Mr. Johns sternly. “As for that picture, I am very sorry I’ve seen it.”
It is probable Wynne would have answered hotly had not Vincent advanced a suggestion:
“Why don’t you and the mater sit down for ten minutes,” he said. “This Mr.—er—can take me round for a bit.”
“I’d like to rest my feet,” admitted Mrs. Johns; “the leather has begun to draw.”
So Wynne and Vincent entered the next gallery together.
“My people are all right, you know,” said Vincent; “but they are a bit off in Paris, you know.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yes.Youknow! Isn’t there anything a bit more lively we can see? I don’t think a lot of these Old Masters—damned if I do.”
Wynne had to bear in mind that he was the servant of these people, and accordingly he replied, civilly enough:
“Perhaps you’d like the more modern school better.”
“I thought French painting was a bit livelier, but it seems about as dud as the Liverpool Art Gallery. Aren’t there any more of those figure pictures?”
“Nudes?”
“That what you call ’em?”
“That is what they are called.”
“Let’s have a look at some, anyway.”
“We’ll go through here, then, and I’ll show you ‘La Source.’ It is considered remarkable flesh painting, although I don’t care for it very particularly.”
As they turned to the modern side, Vincent dropped his voice, and said:
“Pretty hot, Paris, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never been here in the summer,” replied Wynne, an answer which made his companion laugh very heartily.
“You are not giving much away, are you?” he mocked.
“There,” said Wynne; “this is ‘La Source.’ ”
He halted before Ingres’ masterpiece—the slim figure of a naked girl, a tilted pitcher on her shoulder, from which flows a fall of greeny-white water.
“Remarkable, perhaps, but not art.”
“No,” said Vincent, “I don’t like it either, you know. I see what you mean—it isn’t spicy enough, is it?”
“Spicy?”
“Yes—you know. Look here, I was wanting a chance to speak to you alone. I’ve got a bit of money.”
“You are more fortunate than I.”
“I don’t mind you having a bit of it.”
“Oh.”
“The mater and pater get to bed by 10 o’clock, and I could easily slip out after that.”
“It ought not to be difficult.”
“We could meet, I thought, and you could show me round a bit. See what I’m driving at?”
“No. Whatareyou driving at?”
“I want to see a bit of life, and you’re the chap to show it me.”
And suddenly Wynne became very angry, so angry that his face went pink and white in turns.
“What the hell do you mean?” he exploded. “Do you take me for a disorderly house tout?”
“Shut up—don’t shout.”
“You dirty, pimply— Good God!”
“If you call me names you won’t get your money.”
“Money!” cried Wynne. “D’you think I’d take money from any one who begat a thing like you. Clear out, get away, and tell your father, when next he thinks he’d like a son, to blow out his brains instead.”
Thrusting his hands in his empty pockets, and tossing his head from side to side, Wynne stamped furiously from the gallery and down the steps to the courtyard below.
It was two hours before he recovered an even temper, and then he surprised many passers-by by stopping in the middle of the Rue de Rivoli and shouting with laughter.
“One up to my immortal soul,” he cried. “And now for Les Arles!”
For well-nigh eighteen months Wynne Rendall, seeker of eminence, destroyer of symmetry, professor of æsthetic thought, worked with his hands in little byways of the unfriendly city.
He had come to look on Paris as the unfriendly city, for very shabbily she served him after his money gave out. They laughed at his frail stature and careful, elegant speech when he sought work in the Covent Garden of the French capital, and it was a desperately gaunt and hungry boy who at last found employment in a smallpâtisseriesomewhere in the neighbourhood of Boulevard Magenta. Things had gone so ill with him that he was rocking on his heels, staring greedily at the cakes in the pastry-cook’s window like any starving urchin. He did not notice the printed card, “Youth wanted,” which stood among the trays. A stout woman behind the counter saw and beckoned him to enter.
“You look hungry,” she said.
“I am.”
Even short sentences were difficult.
“D’you want work?”
“I want to eat.”
“Eating is for people who work. Would you care for a place here, delivering bread? I need some one.”
“I could not be trusted with a loaf,” he said, and fainted.
The stout lady was comparatively kind. She threw water over his face, and when he came to, gave him coffee, a piece of sausage, and some bread. She allowed him to finish, and then told him very plainly he might express gratitude by accepting the post of errand boy at a small wage.
To Wynne it seemed that any wage was acceptable which could be earned in an atmosphere so rich in odours of cooked corn. He said “Yes” almost before she had framed the offer. Later he repented, for the hours of labour were incessant, the food scarce, and the room in which he slept was dirty, damp, and ill-ventilated. Of his weekly earnings, when he had bought himself cigarettes and paid back a certain proportion for lodging, there remained little or nothing. Books, which had hitherto been the breath of life to him, were of necessity denied. Very occasionally he scraped together a few coppers and bought some dusty, broken-backed volume which he scarcely ever found leisure to read. He was too physically fatigued at night for reading, and during the day was kept continually on the run.
He did not stay with the stout lady for long, but the changes he made were rarely of great advantage. Once he found employment at a small stationer’s, which bade fair to prove pleasanter, but from here he fled precipitately on account of the amorous importunities of the stationer’s younger daughter. She, poor child, had lost the affections of a certain artisan, who lodged in the same house, and sought to regain them by exciting jealousy. In the pursuance of this time-worn device she proposed to sacrifice Wynne, and was prepared to go to no mean lengths in order to give the affair a colourable pretence of reality. Wherefore Wynne ran, not so much from the probable fury of the artisan as from a vague fear which he did not entirely understand.
After this episode he became a waiter—or, to be exact, a wine boy. In this branch of employment he was rather happier, although much of it proved irksome and distasteful. He found that a waiter is allowed, and even encouraged, to possess a personality. In the other callings in which he had worked personality was condemned, but customers welcome an individual note in a waiter. It helps them to identify him among his similarly arrayed companions, and affords them opportunity for a lavish expenditure of wit and sarcasm not always in the best taste.
For the first time Wynne was able to save a little money, which he put by towards paying the price of a passage to England. He had decided to leave Paris as soon as he had accumulated enough to pay the cost of travel. In this matter, however, a certain inconsistency forced him to remain. He would save the best part of the two pounds required, and, a day or so before departure, would yield to an irresistible impulse and spend several francs on the purchase of a book. He did this about a dozen times altogether, and although the habit formed the nucleus of a library, it postponed his departure indefinitely.
At last he had in his possession the required sum, and determined to leave Paris at the close of the week, but certain pneumonic cocci floating in the atmosphere and seeking a human abiding place, had other plans for him, and by the Sunday morning, high-temperatured and semi-conscious, he lay in his bed with a perilously slender hold upon life.
M. le Patron had been aware of Wynne’s intention to depart, and had been wishful of retaining his services. Without Wynne it would be impossible for an honest man to display in his window the legend “English spoken,” an announcement which stimulated trade among foreigners.
Accordingly he put himself to the trouble of engaging a doctor, whose injunctions in regard to the treatment of the invalid he very faithfully followed. It should be stated that he was no less faithful in recording the out-of-pocket expenses incurred, which at the close of a six weeks’ illness were presented to Wynne in the manner of a debt.
“It will now be necessary that you shall remain until this sum is restored to me,” he said. “I am generous not to have increased the liability, for times were many when it seemed that I had incurred upon myself the cost of a burial.”
Wynne reckoned that the least time in which he could reasonably hope to clear the score would be from three to four months, and raised his voice in protest.
“But my career, monsieur—what will become of my career?”
Money is one of the few things a Frenchman takes seriously; in nearly all other matters he is possessed of an enchanting elasticity. Wynne’s lamentations were heard without sympathy.
“The debt must be discharged,” said M. le Patron.
So once more Wynne donned his evening clothes with the break of day, once more a serviette swung from the bend of his arm.
Strange to say menial service did not break his spirit or lessen his conceit. There are certain compensations in the life of a waiter if he be an observant fellow. Many and various are the types in which he comes into contact, and there is no surer way of fathoming the character of man than is afforded by watching him at his meat.
To a certain extent Wynne took a pride in his waiting, and made an especial study of the craft. It amused him to “bank” his corners perilously with a pile of plates on his hand; it amused him to whip off the cover of an omelette and introduce it most exquisitely to its future consumer; it amused him to theorise on a customer’s likely choice of wine, and to suggest the vintage as he handed the card. But most of all it amused him to reflect that he, Wynne Rendall, was a waiter. Not for an instant did it occur to him that, up to this point, his achievements had not merited his occupation of a more illustrious position. In the back of his head was a comfortable assurance that he was a very important and valuable person, and this being so, that it was exceedingly droll for him to minister to the wants of the vulgar-minded.
He acquired the habit of jotting down his daily thoughts on odd scraps of paper as he lay in bed at night, and some of these would have made good reading had they been preserved. Also they would have served to show very clearly the streak of egoism which outcropped his entire personality. Occasionally he flew to verse of a style and metre very much his own.
Here is an example:
“Garçon!”In black and white I serve their bellies’ need,Paid with a frown, a curse, a penny in the franc.Will they thankMe with a smile, when, playing on my reed,I bid them hear, and from my cathedraTheir silly loves and lusts, dull thoughts and empty creed,In black and white I show them as they are?
“Garçon!”In black and white I serve their bellies’ need,Paid with a frown, a curse, a penny in the franc.Will they thankMe with a smile, when, playing on my reed,I bid them hear, and from my cathedraTheir silly loves and lusts, dull thoughts and empty creed,In black and white I show them as they are?
“Garçon!”In black and white I serve their bellies’ need,Paid with a frown, a curse, a penny in the franc.Will they thankMe with a smile, when, playing on my reed,I bid them hear, and from my cathedraTheir silly loves and lusts, dull thoughts and empty creed,In black and white I show them as they are?
“Garçon!”
In black and white I serve their bellies’ need,
Paid with a frown, a curse, a penny in the franc.
Will they thank
Me with a smile, when, playing on my reed,
I bid them hear, and from my cathedra
Their silly loves and lusts, dull thoughts and empty creed,
In black and white I show them as they are?
The verse in itself has few merits, but it afforded him a sense of luxury to produce such lines. He felt as a king might feel who lay hidden in a hovel, conscious of greatness in little places.
To his brother waiters Wynne was ever remote and a shade cynical. He laughed at, but never with them, and affected a tolerant attitude which they found far from endearing. Occasionally one of the sturdier would attempt to bully him, but in this would seldom prosper. A Frenchman, as a rule, bullies with his tongue rather than his hands, and Wynne’s tongue was ever ready with a lightning counterstroke. These passages were in some respects a repetition of the old schoolday affairs, and since he never forgot a lesson he was well armed to defend himself.
And so the weeks dragged into months and the debt gradually diminished.
One bright spring morning, some two years after his arrival in Paris, Wynne received a surprise. A broad-shouldered figure came under the shadow of the awning and seated himself at one of the small round tables.
“It’s Uncle Clem!” gasped Wynne to himself. He straightened his waistcoat and went outside.
“M’sieur!” he said.
“Un bock,” came the reply.
Unrecognized, Wynne retired and returned a moment later with a glass tankard which he set upon the table.
“Beau temps, m’sieur!”
“Ah, oui!”
“Just such another day as the one we spent in Richmond Park together.”
The big Englishman turned his head and raised his eyes sharply.
“Good Gad! It’s the Seeker!” he exclaimed. His hand shot out, enveloped Wynne’s, and wrung it furiously. “Sit down! What the devil are you up to?”
“Waiting,” Wynne smiled; “but I haven’t given up hope.”
“Splendid—and this is fine”—he tweaked the apron. “Serious?”
“Oh, very.”
“A man now, eh?”
“Something of the kind.”
“Fine! though why the hell you couldn’t let us know what had become of you—”
“Touch of pride, Uncle Clem. I neither wanted to please my people nor disappoint you.”
“Ah, now, now, now! None of that—none of it. They wouldn’t gloat and I might have helped.”
Wynne seated himself thoughtfully.
“Yes, I think that’s true; but I wonder if you believe me when I say that never once has it crossed my mind as a way out of the difficulty. When I left home I left finally, not experimentally. If my father were to see me as I am now he would say I had slipped down hill, but I haven’t—I haven’t. Downhill I may have gone with a bit of rush, but I’m gathering impetus all the time, getting up weigh for the climb ahead. You see that, don’t you? This is all to the good, isn’t it?”
There was an honest, genuine sincerity in the way he spoke.
“Every time. All to the good. I should say it is. Hullo! who the devil is this?”
“This” was M. le Patron, highly incensed at the sight of one of his waiters sitting at a table.
“Ça fait rien,” began Uncle Clem. Then to Wynne, “Oh, you tell him it’s all right; tell him I’m your uncle—say you’re coming out for the afternoon. Here’s ten francs. Get your hat, and shove that damned dicky in your pocket. Tell the old fool he’s a good fellah and to go to the devil.”
A certain amount of foregoing advices were translated, and M. le Patron, placated by the ten-franc note, granted Wynne leave of absence and conversed affably with Uncle Clem while Wynne mounted the stairs and changed his coat.
“Come on,” said Uncle Clem. “Let’s get somewhere where we can talk.”
He hailed a fiacre and they drove to the Bois de Boulogne. Here they alighted, and sprawled upon the grass beneath a tree.
“Now let’s have the story from the word Go.”
So Wynne wound himself up and reeled off all his experiences in the unfriendly city. Once or twice during the recital Uncle Clem frowned, and once or twice looked at his nephew in some perplexity, but in the main he nodded encouragement or gave little ejaculations of praise.
“Plucky enough,” he remarked at the close.
“I wonder sometimes. Is it plucky merely to fight for existence?”
“Did you merely fight for existence—was there no impulse behind it all?”
“Yes, the impulse to do and to know has helped me over the stonier parts.”
“The painting was not a success, eh?”
“It isn’t my medium.”
“Have you found out what is?”
The question was hard to answer. It would sound futile to reply, “Writing,” when one had but a few occasional jottings on the back of envelopes to substantiate the claim.
“I haven’t had much time,” said Wynne, ruefully.
“Of course not. After all, the medium doesn’t matter—it’s the motive that counts. Have you determined on your motive?”
“I have learnt enough to show people what they are.”
“Then don’t. That’s a cynic’s task, not an artist’s.”
“Sometimes I think that one is but another name for the other.”
“Not it. An artist shows people what they might be.”
“Yet many have climbed to the peaks” (he was too self-conscious and diffident, with added years, to say the Purple Patch) “by holding up a mirror.”
Uncle Clem shook his head.
“A mirror should only reflect beautiful folk,” he replied. “There are better things than to be a man with a camera.”
“I sometimes wonder if there are.”
“Don’t wonder. Beauty is not to be found by sorting out dustbins. Beauty is in the woods, Wynne. Listen! You can hear the leaves in the tree above us whispering of her, and the little waves in the pool yonder, are leaping up lest they should miss her as she passes by. Can’t you feel the wonder of her everywhere, now in the spring, when she leaps splendid from her winter hiding? D’y’know, when April’s here I throw open my window and look up into the blue and then I see her riding on a cloud. You know the kind of cloud—the great white sort, which brings the summer from the seas. Ha! Yes, and I shout my homage as I brush my hair, and sometimes my poor man Parsons thinks I’m cracked. But what’s the matter if she smiles—for she’s a smiling lady if ever there was one, and her breath is like a breeze which is filtered through a copse of violets.”
“Oh Lord, you are just the same old Uncle Clem as ever,” laughed Wynne.
“Damn your eyes,” came the colloquial rejoinder—“if you’re not patronizing me!”
“Not I. Believe me, I wouldn’t have you different, but perhaps I’ve changed a bit, and these dream pictures aren’t so real as they were.”
“Then make ’em real—they’re worth it.”
Wynne hesitated, then said:
“I’m beginning to see the world as it is, and it doesn’t look like that any longer. I see it as a vast machine built up of cranks and gears, and bolts and cogs—some odd, but mostly even. A thing of wheels and reciprocal activity, for ever revolving and for ever returning to the point from which it started. It’s hard to believe in fairies when one thinks like that.”
“Then don’t think like that, or, if you do, think of the energy that moves the machine—that’s where the mystery and the essence lie. The wheels are nothing—it is the power which drives ’em that counts. Why, heavens above! that should be the task for you, and such as you—to find and refine the essence, to know and increase the power. For God’s sake don’t scorn a thing because it goes round, but give it a push that it may revolve faster. That’s the job! and a fine job too. It’s easy to acquire cheap fame by jeering at a man because he goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning—easy—but no good. Give him something to get up early for and sleep the better for; that’s the way to earn your own repose.”
“And you were the man who first showed me a satyr,” said Wynne.
“And I was the man who told you of the Purple Patch,” came the reply.
“I know, and I shall get there in the end.”
“But not by being of the clever ones. They sit on the lower slopes. They bark—they don’t sing.”
“Up against intellect now?”
“I’m against obvious intellect all the time, because it’s perishable. Look here, I may not make myself clear, but of this I am sure—a great man is not great because he is clever, but he is clever because he is great. The cleverness of the clever is merely an irritant. For a season it may tickle the public palate, but it will never endure.”
“And how does a man become great?”
“By the strength of his ideals. Ideals never perish because they are never wholly realized—besides, they spring from other causes.”
“And what is the fountain of ideals?”
“Feeling—human feeling. Don’t you know that—yet?” He turned a penetrating glance on his nephew. “Never been in love?”
Wynne coloured slightly.
“No,” he replied, “I’ve never been in love.”
“Then be in love.”
“But that’s rather—”
“No it ain’t. You must be in love—it’s God’s great education to mankind. A man knows nothing of himself, or of anything else, unless he is a lover. Happy—wretched—sacred or profane—love is the mighty teacher. What the devil d’you mean by never having been in love?”
Wynne laughed. “Couldn’t I ask the same question of you?” he asked.
“No, you couldn’t, for I always am. Ah, I may not be married—and that is a great blessing for some poor dear unknown—but I’m always in love. Sometimes it’s a girl with whom I have never exchanged a word, sometimes a dead queen or a goddess of ancient times, and sometimes in silly, sordid ways which lonely men will follow. But the spark of love that is, or the spark of a love that was, I keep for ever burning. What sort of life do you imagine mine would be without it?”
“Isn’t there a difference,” said Wynne. “You’re not a striver—you are content—”
“Yes, I’m a loafer—a dilettante—who whistles his song of praise in the country lanes—but—”
“The country lanes are the lover’s lanes; there is no time for love in the great highways. How does the line go? ‘He travels fastest who travels alone.’ ”
Uncle Clem rose and, stretching out a hand, pulled Wynne to his feet.
“He may travel fast,” he said, “but he don’t get so far. Come on! What do you think—lunch chez Fouquet?”
They made a very excellent déjeuner at the pleasant little restaurant under the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe, and when it was over, and Uncle Clem had produced two delicate Havana cheroots, the conversation turned to Wynne’s future.
“You’ve done enough of this waiting business,” he said. “Better come back with me at the end of the week.”
“Sorry,” said Wynne, “but it won’t run to it yet.”
“Well, I’m your uncle—so that’s that, ain’t it?”
“It’s that as far as the relationship goes, but no farther.”
“D’you mean you won’t be helped?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t mean I’m not grateful.”
“But look here—”
“Don’t make me,” pleaded Wynne. “It would be so easy that way.”
“But it’s all nonsense. You’ve proved your mettle—no harm relaxing a trifle.”
“I have proved my mettle to the extent of being a waiter,” said Wynne, “and that isn’t as far as I want my mettle to carry me.”
“You might be here for years.”
“Perhaps. It will be my fault if I am. I have to prove my right to climb. Help would disprove it.”
“ ’Pon my soul I admire your pluck.”
“It’s all you do admire, isn’t it?”
“Ah, get away with you! I talk a lot, that’s all; but I’ve a mighty strong conviction that you’ll do.”
“I’ll doanddo,” said Wynne. “Maybe you won’t approve, but I hope you will.”
“I hope so, and believe so—for the elements are yours—but I shan’t tell you so if I don’t.”
With which somewhat cryptic remark they parted. Wynne had not gone very far down the street, however, before he was overtaken by a somewhat breathless Uncle Clem, who said:
“But, for God’s sake, fall in love if you can.”