"'BONJOUR, MONSIEUR BONZIG'"
a question of Barty's—"non, I have not yet seen the sea ..; it will come in time. But at least I am no longer a damned usher (un sacré pion d'études); I am an artist—un peintre de marines—at last! It is a happy existence. I fear my talent is not very imposing, but my perseverance is exceptional, and I am only forty‑five. Anyhow, I am able to support myself—not in splendor, certainly; but my wants are few and my health is perfect. I will put you up to many things, my dear boy.... We will storm the citadel of fame together...."
Bonzig had a garret somewhere, and painted in the studio of a friend, not far from Barty's lodging. This friend, one Lirieux, was a very clever young man—a genius, according to Bonzig. He drew illustrations on wood with surprising quickness and facility and verve, and painted little oil‑pictures of sporting life—a garde champêtre in a wood with his dog, or with his dog on a dusty road, or crossing a stream, or getting over a stile, and so forth. The dog was never left out; and these things he would sell for twenty, thirty, even fifty francs. He painted very quick and very well. He was also a capital good fellow, industrious and cultivated and refined, and full of self‑respect.
Next to his studio he had a small bedroom which he shared with a younger brother, who had just got a small government appointment that kept him at work all day, in some ministère. In this studio Bonzig painted his marines—still helping himself fromLa France Maritime, as he used to do at Brossard's.
He was good at masts and cordage against an evening sky—"l'heure où le jaune de Naples rentre dans la nature," as he called it. He was also excellent at foam, and far‑off breakers, and sea‑gulls, but very bad at the human figure—sailors and fishermen and their wives.Sometimes Lirieux would put one in for him with a few dabs.
As soon as Bonzig had finished a picture, which didn't take very long, he carried it round, still wet, to the small dealers, bearing it very carefully aloft, so as not to smudge it. Sometimes (if there were a sailor by Lirieux) he would get five or even ten francs for it; and then it was "Mon Aldegonde" with him all the rest of the day; for success always took the form, in his case, of nasally humming that amorous refrain.
But it very often happened that he was dumb, poor fellow—no supper, no song!
Lirieux conceived such a liking for Barty that he insisted on taking him into his studio as a pupil‑assistant, and setting him to draw things under his own eye; and Barty would fill Bonzig's French sea pieces with Whitby fishermen, and Bonzig got to sing "Mon Aldegonde" much oftener than before.
And chumming with these two delightful men, Barty grew to know a clean, quiet happiness which more than made up for lost past splendors and dissipations and gay dishonor. He wasn't even funny; they wouldn't have understood it. Well‑bred Frenchmen don't understand English fun—not even in the quartier latin, as a general rule. Not that it's too subtle for them;that'snot why!
Thus pleasantly August wore itself away, Bonzig and Barty nearly always dining together for about a franc apiece, including the waiter, and not badly. Bonzig knew all the cheap eating‑houses in Paris, and what each was specially renowned for—"bonne friture," "fricassée de lapin," "pommes sautées," "soupe aux choux," etc., etc.
Then, after dinner, a long walk and talk andcigarettes—or they would look in at a café chantant, a bal de barrière, the gallery of a cheap theatre—then a bock outside a café—et bonsoir la compagnie!
On September the 1st, Lirieux and his brother went to see their people in the south, leaving the studio to Bonzig and Barty, who made the most of it, though greatly missing the genial young painter, both as a companion and a master and guide.
One beautiful morning Bonzig called for Barty at his crémerie, and proposed they should go by train to some village near Paris and spend a happy day in the country, lunching on bread and wine and sugar at some little roadside inn. Bonzig made a great deal of this lunch. It had evidently preoccupied him.
Barty was only too delighted. They went on the impériale of the Versailles train and got out at Ville d'Avray, and found the kind of little pothouse they wanted. And Barty had to admit that no better lunch for the price could be than "small blue wine" sweetened with sugar, and a hunch of bread sopped in it.
Then they had a long walk in pretty woods and meadows, sketching by the way, chatting to laborers and soldiers and farm‑people, smoking endless cigarettes of caporal; and finally they got back to Paris the way they came—so hungry that Barty proposed they should treat themselves for once to a "prix‑fixe" dinner at Carmagnol's, in the Passage Choiseul, where they gave you hors‑d'œuvres, potage, three courses and dessert and a bottle of wine, for two francs fifty—and everything scrupulously clean.
So to the Passage Choiseul they went; but just on the threshold of the famous restaurant (which filled the entire arcade with its appetizing exhalations) Bonzig suddenly remembered, to his great regret, that close by therelived a young married couple of the name of Lousteau, who were great friends of his, and who expected him to dine with them at least once a week.
"I haven't been near them for a fortnight, mon cher, and it is just their dinner hour. I am afraid I must really just run in and eat anaile de pouletand apêche au vinwith them, and give them of my news, or they will be mortally offended. I'll be back with you just when you are 'entre la poire et le fromage'—so, sans adieu!" and he bolted.
Barty went in and selected his menu; and waiting for his hors‑d'œuvre, he just peeped out of the door and looked up and down the arcade, which was always festive and lively at that hour.
To his great surprise he saw Bonzig leisurely flâning about with his cigarette in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his long spectacled nose in the air—gazing at the shop windows. Suddenly the good man dived into a baker's shop, and came out again in half a minute with a large brown roll, and began to munch it—still gazing at the shop windows, and apparently quite content.
Barty rushed after and caught hold of him, and breathlessly heaped bitter reproaches on him for his base and unfriendly want of confidence—snatched his roll and threw it away, dragged him by main force into Carmagnol's, and made him order the dinner he preferred and sit opposite.
"Ma foi, mon cher!" said Bonzig—"I own to you that I am almost at the end of my resources for the moment—and also that the prospect of a good dinner in your amiable company is the reverse of disagreeable to me. I thank you in advance, with all my heart!"
"My dear M'sieur Bonzig," says Barty, "you will wound me deeply if you don't look on me like a brother,as I do you; I can't tell you how deeply youhavewounded me already! Give me your word of honor that you will share ma mangeaille with me till I haven't a sou left!"
And so they made it up, and had a capital dinner and a capital evening, and Barty insisted that in future they should always mess together at his expense till better days—and they did.
But Barty found that his own money was just giving out, and wrote to his bankers in London for more. Somehow it didn't arrive for nearly a week; and they knew at last what it was to dine for five sous each (2‑1/2d.)—with loss of appetite just before the meal instead of after.
Of course Barty might very well have pawned his watch or his scarf‑pin; but whatever trinkets he possessed had been given him by his beloved Lady Archibald—everything pawnable he had in the world, even his guitar! And he could not bear the idea of taking them to the "Mont de Piété."
So he was well pleased one Sunday morning when his remittance arrived, and he went in search of his friend, that they might compensate themselves for a week's abstinence by a famous déjeuner. But Bonzig was not to be found; and Barty spent that day alone, and gorged in solitude and guzzled in silence—moult tristement, à l'anglaise.
He was aroused from his first sleep that night by the irruption of Bonzig in a tremendous state of excitement. It seems that a certain Baron (whose name I've forgotten), and whose little son the ex‑usher had once coached in early Latin and Greek, had written, begging him to call and see him at his château near Melun; that Bonzig had walked there that very day—thirty miles; and found the Baron was leaving next morning for a villa he possessed near Étretat, and wished him to join himthere the day after, and stay with him for a couple of months—to coach his son in more classics for a couple of hours in the forenoon.
Bonzig was to dispose of the rest of his time as he liked, except that he was commissioned to paint six "marines" for the baronial dining‑room; and the Baron had most considerately given him four hundred francs in advance!
"So, then, to‑morrow afternoon at six, my dear Josselin, you dine withme, for once—not in the Passage Choiseul this time, good as it is there! But at Babet's, en plein Palais Royal! un jour de séparation, vous comprenez! the dinner will be good, I promise you: a calf's head à la vinaigrette—they are famous for that, at Babet's—and for their Pauillac and their St.‑Estèphe; at least, I'm told so! nous en ferons l'expérience.... And now I bid you good‑night, as I have to be up before the day—so many things to buy and settle and arrange—first of all to procure myself a 'maillot' and a 'peignoir,' and shoes for the beach! I know where to get these things much cheaper than at the seaside. Oh! la mer, la mer! Enfin je vais piquer ma tête [take my header] là dedans—et pas plus tard qu'après‑demain soir.... À demain, très‑cher camarade—six heures—chez Babet!"
And, delirious with joyful anticipations, the good Bonzig ran away—all but "piquant sa tête" down the narrow staircase, and whistling "Mon Aldegonde" at the very top of his whistle; and even outside he shouted:
"Ouïle—mé—sekile rô,sekile rô,sekile rô ...Ouïle—mé—sekile rôTat brinn my laddé ôme!"
"Ouïle—mé—sekile rô,sekile rô,sekile rô ...Ouïle—mé—sekile rôTat brinn my laddé ôme!"
He had to be silenced by a sergent de ville.
And next day they dined at Babet's, and Bonzig was so happy he had to beg pardon for his want of feeling at seeming so exuberant "un jour de séparation! mais venez aussi, Josselin—nous piquerons nos têtes ensemble, et nagerons de conserve...."
But Barty could not afford this little outing, and he was very sad—with a sadness that not all the Pauillac and St.‑Estèphe in M. Babet's cellars could have dispelled.
He made his friend a present of a beautiful pair of razors—English razors, which he no longer needed, since he no longer meant to shave—"en signe de mon deuil!" as he said. They had been the gift of Lord Archibald in happier days. Alas! he had forgotten to give his uncle Archie the traditional halfpenny, but he took good care to extract a sou from le Grand Bonzig!
So ended this little episode in Barty's life. He never saw Bonzig again, nor heard from him, andofhim only once more. That sou was wasted.
It was at Blankenberghe, on the coast of Belgium, that he at last had news of him—a year later—at the café on the plage, and in such an odd and unexpected manner that I can't help telling how it happened.
One afternoon a corner of the big coffee‑room was being arranged for private theatricals, in which Barty was to perform the part of a waiter. He had just borrowed the real waiter's jacket and apron, and was dusting the little tables for the amusement of Mlle. Solange, the dame de comptoir, and of the waiter, Prosper, who had on Barty's own shooting‑jacket.
Suddenly an old gentleman came in and beckoned to Barty and ordered a demi‑tasse and petit‑verre. There were no other customers at that hour.
"'DEMI-TASSE—VOILÀ, M'SIEUR'"
Mlle. Solange was horrified; but Barty insisted on waiting on the old gentleman in person, and helped him to his coffee and pousse‑café with all the humorous grace I can so well imagine, and handed him theIndépendance Belge, and went back to superintend the arrangements for the coming play.
Presently the old gentleman looked up from his paper and became interested, and soon he grew uneasy, and finally he rose and went up to Barty and bowed, and said (in French, of course):
"Monsieur, I have made a very stupid mistake. I am near‑sighted, and that must be my apology. Besides, you have revenged yourself 'avec tant d'esprit,' that you will not bear merancune! May I ask you to accept my card, with my sincere excuses?..."
And lo! it was Bonzig's famous Baron! Barty immediately inquired after his lost friend.
"Bonzig? Ah, monsieur—what a terrible tragedy! Poor Bonzig, the best of men—he came to me at Étretat. I invited him there from sheer friendship! He was drowned the very evening he arrived.
"He went and bathed after sunset—on his own responsibility and without mentioning it to any one. How it happened I don't know—nobody knows. He was a good swimmer, I believe, but very blind without his glasses. He undressed behind a rock on the shore, which is against the regulations. His body was not found till two days after, three leagues down the coast.
"He had an aged mother, who came to Étretat. It was harrowing! They were people who had seen better days," etc., etc., etc.
And so no more of le Grand Bonzig.
Nor did Barty ever again meet Lirieux, in whoseexistence a change had also been wrought by fortune; but whether for good or evil I can't say. He was taken to Italy and Greece by a wealthy relative. What happened to him there—whether he ever came back, or succeeded or failed—Barty never heard! He dropped out of Barty's life as completely as if he had been drowned like his old friend.
These episodes, like many others past and to come in this biography, had no particular influence on Barty Josselin's career, and no reference to them is to be found in anything he has ever written. My only reason for telling them is that I found them so interesting when he toldme, and so characteristic of himself. He was "bon raconteur." I'm afraid I'm not, and that I've lugged these good people in by the hair of the head; but I'm doing my best. "La plus belle fille au monde ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a!"
I look to my editor to edit me—and to my illustrator to pull me through.
That autumn (1856) my father went to France for six weeks, on business. My sister Ida went with the Gibsons to Ramsgate, and I remained in London with my mother. I did my best to replace my father in Barge Yard, and when he came back he was so pleased with me (and I think with himself also) that he gave me twenty pounds, and said, "Go to Paris for a week, Bob, and see Barty, and give him this, with my love."
And "this" was another twenty‑pound note. He had never given me such a sum in my life—not a quarter of it; and "this" was the first time he had ever tipped Barty.
Things were beginning at last to go well with him. He had arranged to sell the vintages of Bordeaux andChampagne, as well as those of Burgundy; and was dreaming of those of Germany and Portugal and Spain. Fortune was beginning to smile on Barge Yard, and ours was to become the largest wine business in the world—comme tout un chacun sait.
I started for Paris that very night, and knocked at Barty's bedroom door by six next morning; it was hardly daylight—a morning to be remembered; and what a breakfasting at Babet's, after a rather cold swim in the Passy school of natation, and a walk all round the outside of the school that was once ours!
Barty looked very well, but very thin, and his small sprouting beard and mustache had quite altered the character of his face. I shall distress my lady readers if I tell them the alteration was not an improvement; so I won't.
What a happy week that was to me I leave to the reader's imagination. We took a large double‑bedded room at the Hôtel de Lille et d'Albion in case we might want to smoke and talk all night; we did, I think, and had our coffee brought up to us in the morning.
I will not attempt to describe the sensations of a young man going back to his beloved Paris "after five years." Tout ça, c'est de l'histoire ancienne. And Barty and Paris together—that is not for such a pen as mine.
I showed him a new photograph of Leah Gibson—a very large one and an excellent. He gazed at it a long time with his magnifying‑glass and without, all his keen perceptions on the alert; and I watched his face narrowly.
"My eyes! Sheisa beautiful young woman, and no mistake!" he said, with a sigh. "You mustn't let her slip through your fingers, Bob!"
"How about that toss?" said I, and laughed.
"Oh, I resignmyclaim; she's not for the likes o' me. You're going to be a great capitalist—a citizen of credit and renown. I'm Mr. Nobody, of nowhere. Go in and win, my boy; you have my best wishes. If I can scrape together enough money to buy myself a white waistcoat and a decent coat, I'll be your best man; or some left‑off things of yours might do—we're about of a size, aren't we? You've become très bel homme, Bob, plutôt bel homme que joli garçon, hein? That's what women are fond of; English women especially. I'm nowhere now, without my uniform and the rest. Is it still Skinner who builds for you? Good old Skinner! Mes compliments!"
This simple little speech took a hidden weight off my mind and left me very happy. I confided frankly to the good Barty that no Sally in any alley had ever been more warmly adored by any industrious young London apprentice than was Leah Gibson by me!
"Ça y est, alors! Je te félicite d'avance, et je garde mes larmes pour quand tu seras parti. Allons dîner chez Babet: j'ai soif de boire à ton bonheur!"
Before I left we met an English artist he had known at the British Museum—an excellent fellow, one Walters, who took him under his wing, and was the means of his entering the atelier Troplong in the Rue des Belges as an art student. And thus Barty began his art studies in a proper and legitimate way. It was characteristic of him that this should never have occurred to him before.
So when I parted with the dear fellow things were looking a little brighter for him too.
All through the winter he worked very hard—the first to come, the last to go; and enjoyed his studio life thoroughly.
Such readers as I am likely to have will not require tobe told what the interior of a French atelier of the kind is like, nor its domestic economy; nor will I attempt to describe all the fun and the frolic, although I heard it all from Barty in after‑years, and very good it was. I almost felt I'd studied there myself! He was a prime favorite—"le Beau Josselin," as he was called.
He made very rapid progress, and had already begun to work in colors by the spring. He made many friends, but led a quiet, industrious life, unrelieved (as far as I know) by any of those light episodes one associates with student life in Paris. His principal amusements through the long winter evenings were the café and the brasserie, mild écarté, a game at billiards or dominoes, and long talks about art and literature with the usual unkempt young geniuses of the place and time—French, English, American.
Then he suddenly took it into his head to go to Antwerp; I don't know who influenced him in this direction, but I arranged to meet him there at the end of April—and we spent a delightful week together, staying at the "Grand Laboureur" in the Place de Meer. The town was still surrounded by the old walls and the moat, and of a picturesqueness that seemed as if it would never pall.
Twice or three times that week British tourists and travellers landed at the quai by the Place Verte fromThe Baron Osy—and this landing was Barty's delight.
The sight of fair, fresh English girls, with huge crinolines, and their hair done up in chenille nets, made him long for England again, and the sound of their voices went nigh to weakening his resolve. But he stood firm to the last, and saw me off byThe Baron. I felt a strange "serrement de cœur" as I left him standing there, so firm, as if he had been put "au piquet" byM. Dumollard! and so thin and tall and slender—and his boyish face so grave. Good heavens! how much alone he seemed, who was so little built to live alone!
It is really not too much to say that I would have given up to him everything I possessed in the world—every blessed thing! except Leah—and Leah was not mine to give!
Now and again Barty's face would take on a look so ineffably, pathetically, angelically simple and childlike that it moved one to the very depths, and made one feel like father and mother to him in one! It was the true revelation of his innermost soul, which in many ways remained that of a child even in his middle age and till he died. All his life he never quite put away childish things!
I really believe that in bygone ages he would have moved the world with that look, and been another Peter the Hermit!
He became a pupil at the academy under De Keyser and Van Lerius, and worked harder than ever.
He took a room nearly all window on a second floor in the Marché aux Œufs, just under the shadow of the gigantic spire which rings a fragment of melody every seven minutes and a half—and the whole tune at midnight, fortissimo.
He laid in a stock of cigars at less than a centime apiece, and dried them in the sun; they left as he smoked them a firm white ash two inches long; and he grew so fond of them that he cared to smoke nothing else.
He rose before the dawn, and went for a swim more than a mile away—got to the academy at six—worked till eight—breakfasted on a little roll called a pistolet, and a cup of coffee; then the academy again from nine till twelve—when dinner, the cheapest he had ever known,but not the worst. Then work again all the afternoon, copying old masters at the Gallery. Then a cheap supper, a long walk along the quais or ramparts or outside—a game of dominoes, and a glass or two of "Malines" or "Louvain"—then bed, without invading hordes; the Flemish are as clean as the Dutch; and there he would soon smoke and read himself to sleep in spite of chimes—which lull you, when once you get "achimatized," as he called it, meaning of course to be funny: a villanous kind of fun—caught, I fear, in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury. It used to rain puns in the City—especially in the Stock Exchange, which is close to Barge Yard.
It was a happy life, and he grew to like it better than any life he had led yet; besides, he improved rapidly, as his facility was great—for painting as for everything he tried his hand at.
He also had a very agreeable social existence.
One morning at the academy, two or three days after his arrival, he was accosted by a fellow‑student—one Tescheles—who introduced himself as an old pupil of Troplong's in the Rue des Belges. They had a long chat in French about the old Paris studio. Among other things, Tescheles asked if there were still any English there.
"Oui"—says Barty—"un nommé Valtères"....
Barty pronounced this name as if it were French; and noticed that Tescheles smiled, exclaiming:
"Parbleu, ce bon Valtères—je l'connais bien!"
Next day Tescheles came up to an English student called Fox and said:
"Well, old stick‑in‑the‑mud, how areyougetting on?"
"Why, you don't mean to sayyou'rean Englishman?" says Barty to Tescheles.
PETER THE HERMIT AU PIQUET
"Good heavens! you don't mean to sayyouare! fancy your calling poor old WaltersVàltères!"
And after that they became very intimate, and that was a good thing for Barty.
The polyglot Tescheles was of a famous musical family, of mixed German and Russian origin, naturalized in England and domiciled in France—a true cosmopolite and a wonderful linguist, besides being also a cultivated musician and excellent painter; and all the musicians, famous or otherwise, that passed through Antwerp made his rooms a favorite resort and house of call. And Barty was introduced into a world as delightful to him as it was new—and to music that ravished his soul with a novel enchantment: Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Schumann—and he found that Schubert had written a few other songs besides the famous "Serenade"!
One evening he was even asked if he could make music himself, and actually volunteered to sing—and sang that famous ballad of Balfe's which seems destined to become immortal in this country—"When other lips" ...alias, "Then you'll remember me!"
Strange to say, it was absolutely new to this high musical circle, but they went quite mad over it; and the beautiful melody got naturalized from that moment in Belgium and beyond, and Barty was proclaimed the primo tenore of Antwerp—although he was only a barytone!
A fortnight after this Barty heard "When other lips" played by the "Guides" band in the park at Brussels. Its first appearance out of England—and all through him.
Then he belonged to the Antwerp "Cercle Artistique," where he made many friends and was very popular, as I can well imagine.
Thus he was happier than he had ever been in his life; but for one thing that plagued him now and again: his oft‑recurring desire to be conscious once more of the north, which he had not felt for four or five years.
The want of this sensation at certain periods—especially at night—would send a chill thrill of desolation through him like a wave; a wild panic, a quick agony, as though the true meaning of absolute loneliness were suddenly realized by a lightning flash of insight, and it were to last for ever and ever.
This would pass away in a second or two, but left a haunting recollection behind for many hours. And then all was again sunshine, and the world was made of many friends—and solitude was impossible evermore.
One memorable morning this happiness received a check and a great horror befell him. It was towards the end of summer—just before the vacation.
With a dozen others, he was painting the head of an old man from the life, when he became quite suddenly conscious of something strange in his sight. First he shut his left eye and saw with his right quite perfectly; then he shut the right, and lo! whatever he looked at with the left dwindled to a vanishing point and became invisible. No rubbing or bathing of his eye would alter the terrible fact, and he knew what great fear really means, for the first time.
Much kind concern was expressed, and Van Lerius told him to go at once to a Monsieur Noiret, a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, who had attendedhimfor the eyes, and had the reputation of being the first oculist in Belgium.
Barty wrote immediately and an appointment was made, and in three days he saw the great man, half professor, half priest, who took him into a dark chamberlighted by a lamp, and dilated his pupil with atropine, and looked into his eye with the newly discovered "ophthalmoscope."
Professor Noiret told him it was merely a congestion of the retina—for which no cause could be assigned; and that he would be cured in less than a month. That he was to have a seton let into the back of his neck, dry‑cup himself on the chest and thighs night and morning, and take a preparation of mercury three times a day. Also that he must go to the seaside immediately—and he recommended Ostend.
Barty told him that he was an impecunious art student, and that Ostend was a very expensive place.
Noiret considerately recommended Blankenberghe, which was cheap; asked for and took his full fee, and said, with a courtly priestly bow:
"If you are not cured, come back in a month.Au revoir!"
So poor Barty had the seton put in by a kind of barber‑surgeon, and was told how to dress it night and morning; got his medicines and his dry‑cupping apparatus, and went off to Blankenberghe quite hopeful.
And there things happened to him which I really think are worth telling; in the first place, because, even if they did not concern Barty Josselin, they should be amusing for their own sake—that is, if I could only tell them as he told me afterwards; and I will do my best!
And then he was nearing the end of the time when he was to remain as other mortals are. His new life was soon to open, the great change to which we owe the Barty Josselin who had changed the world forus!"
Besides, this is a biography—not a novel—not literature! So what does it matter how it's written, so long as it's all true!
"Ô céleste haine,Comment t'assouvir?Ô souffrance humaine,Qui te peut guérir?Si lourde est ma peineJ'en voudrais mourir—Tel est mon désir!"Navré de comprendre,Las de compatir,Pour ne plus entendre,Ni voir, ni sentir,Je suis prêt à renderMon dernier soupir—Et c'est mon désir!"Ne plus rien connaître,Ni me souvenir—Ne jamais renaître,Ni me rendormir—Ne plus jamais être,Mais en bien finir—Voilà mon désir!"—Anon.
"Ô céleste haine,Comment t'assouvir?Ô souffrance humaine,Qui te peut guérir?Si lourde est ma peineJ'en voudrais mourir—Tel est mon désir!"Navré de comprendre,Las de compatir,Pour ne plus entendre,Ni voir, ni sentir,Je suis prêt à renderMon dernier soupir—Et c'est mon désir!"Ne plus rien connaître,Ni me souvenir—Ne jamais renaître,Ni me rendormir—Ne plus jamais être,Mais en bien finir—Voilà mon désir!"—Anon.
Barty went third class to Bruges, and saw all over it, and slept at the "Fleur de Blé," and heard new chimes, and remembered his Longfellow.
Next morning, a very fine one, as he was hopefully smoking his centime cigar with immense relish near the little three‑horsed wagonette that was to bear him toBlankenberghe, he saw that he was to have three fellow‑passengers, with a considerable amount of very interesting luggage, and rejoiced.
First, a tall man about thirty, in a very smart white summer suit, surmounted by a jaunty little straw hat with a yellow ribbon. He was strikingly handsome, and wore immense black whiskers but no mustache, and had a most magnificent double row of white, pearly teeth, which he showed very much when he smiled, and he smiled very often. He was evidently a personage of importance and very well off, for he gave himself great airs and ordered people about and chaffed them, and it made them laugh instead of making them angry; and he was obeyed with wonderful alacrity. He spoke French fluently, but with a marked Italian accent.
Next, a very blond lady of about the same age, not beautiful, but rather overdressed, and whose accent, when she spoke French, was very German, and who looked as if she might be easily moved to wrath. Now and then she spoke to the gentleman in a very audible Italian aside, and Barty was able to gather that her Italian was about as rudimentary as his own.
Last and least, a pale, plain, pathetic little girl of six or eight, with a nose rather swollen, and a black plait down her back, and large black eyes, something like Leah Gibson's; and she never took these eyes off Barty's face.
Their luggage consisted of two big trunks, a guitar and violin (in their cases), and music‑books bound together by a rope.
"Vous allez à Blankenberghe, mossié?" said the Italian, with a winning smile.
Barty answered in the affirmative, and the Italian smiled ecstatic delight.
"Jé souis bienn content—nous férons route ensiemblé...." I will translate: "I call myself Carlo Veronese—first barytone of the theatre of La Scala, Milan. The signora is my second wife; she is prima donna assoluta of the grand opera, Naples. The little ragazza is my daughter by my first wife. She is the greatest violinist of her age now living—un' prodige, mossié—un' fenomeno!"
Barty, charmed with his new acquaintance, gave the signore his card, and Carlo Veronese invited him graciously to take a seat in the wagonette, as if it were his own private carriage. Barty, who was the most easily impressed person that ever lived, accepted with as much sincere gratitude as if he hadn't already paid for his place, and they started on their sunny drive of eight miles along the dusty straight Belgian chaussée, bordered with poplars on either side, and paved with flagstones all the way to Blankenberghe.
Signor Veronese informed Barty that on their holiday travels they always managed to combine profit with pleasure, and that he proposed giving a grand concert at the Café on the Plage, or the Kursaal, next day; that he was going to sing Figaro's great song in theBarbiere, and the signora would give "Roberto, toua qué z'aime" in French (or, rather, "Ropert, doi que ch'aime," asshecalled it, correcting his accent), and the fenomeno, whose name was Marianina, would play an arrangement of the "Carnival of Venice" by Paganini.
"Ma vous aussi, vous êtes mousicien—jé vois ça par la votre figoure!"
Barty modestly disclaimed all pretensions, and said he was only an art student—a painter.
"All the arts are brothers," said the signore, and the little signorina stole her hand into Barty's and left it there.
"Listen," said the signore; "why not arrange to live together, you and we? I hate throwing away money on mere pomposity and grandiosity and show. We always take a little furnished apartment, elle et moi. Then I go and buy provisions, bon marché—and she cooks them—and we have our meals better than at the hotel and at half the price! Join us, unless you like to throw your money by the window!"
The Signorina Marianina's little brown hand gave Barty's a little warm squeeze, and Barty was only too delighted to accept an arrangement that promised to be so agreeable and so practically wise.
They arrived at Blankenberghe, and, leaving their luggage at the wagonette station, went in search of lodgings. These were soon found in a large attic at the top of a house, over a bakery. One little mansarde, with a truckle‑bed and wash‑hand stand, did for the family of Veronese; another, smaller still, for Barty.
Other mansardes also opened on to the large attic, or grenier, where there were sacks of grain and of flour, and a sweet smell of cleanliness. Barty wondered that such economical arrangements could suit his new friends, but was well pleased; a weight was taken off his mind. He feared a style of living he could not have afforded to share, and here were all difficulties smoothed away without any trouble whatever.
They got in their luggage, and Barty went with the signore in search of bread and meat and wine and ground coffee. When they got back, a little stove was ready lighted in the Veronese garret; they cooked the food in a frying‑pan, opening the window wide and closing the door, as the signore thought it useless to inform the world by the sense of smell that they did their cookingen famille; and Barty enjoyed the meal immensely,and almost forgot his trouble, but for the pain of his seton.
After lunch the signore produced his placards, already printed by hand, and made some paste in an iron pot, and the signora made coffee. And Veronese tuned his guitar and said:
"Jé vais vous canter couelquécose—una piccola cosa da niente!—vous comprenez l'Italien?"
"Oh yes," said Barty: he had picked up a deal of Italian and many pretty Italian canzonets from his friend old Pergolese, who kept the Italian eating‑house in Rupert Street. "Sing me a stornella—je les adore."
And he set himself to listen, with his heart in his mouth from sheer pleasurable anticipation.
The signore sang a pretty little song, by Gordigiani, called "Il vero amore." Barty knew it well.
"E lo mio amor è andato a soggiornareA Lucca bella—e diventar signore...."
"E lo mio amor è andato a soggiornareA Lucca bella—e diventar signore...."
Alas for lost illusions! The signore's voice was a coarse, unsympathetic, strident buffo bass, not always quite in the middle of the note; nor, in spite of his native liveliness of accent and expression, did he make the song interesting or pretty in the least.
Poor Barty had fallen from the skies; but he did his best not to show his disenchantment, and this, from a kind and amiable way he always had and a constant wish to please, was not difficult.
Then the signora sang "Ô mon Fernand!" from theFavorita, in French, but with a hideous German accent and a screech as of some Teutonic peacock, and without a single sympathetic note; though otherwise well in tune, and with a certain professional knowledge of what she was about.
And then poor Marianina was made to stand up on six music‑books, opposite a small music‑easel, and play her "Carnival of Venice" on the violin. Every time she made a false note in the difficult variations, her father, with his long, thick, hairy middle finger, gave her a fierce fillip on the nose, and she had to swallow her tears and play on. Barty was almost wild with angry pity, but dissembled, for fear of making her worse enemies in her father and stepmother.
Not that the poor little thing played badly; indeed, she played surprisingly well for her age, and Barty was sincere in his warm commendation of her talent.
"Et vous ne cantez pas du tout—du tout?" said Veronese.
"Oh, si, quelquefois!"
"Cantez couelquécoze—zé vous accompagnerai sous la guitare!—n'ayez pas paoure—nous sommes indoulgents, elle et moi—"
"Oh—je m'accompagnerai bien moi‑même comme je pourrai—" said Barty, and took the guitar, and sang a little French Tyrolienne called "Fleur des Alpes," which he could always sing quite beautifully; and the effect was droll indeed.
Marianina wept; the signore went down on his knees in a theatrical manner to him, and called him "maestro" and other big Italian names; the Frau signora, with tears in her eyes, asked permission to kiss his hand, which his modesty refused—he kissed hers instead.
"He was a great genius, a bird of God, who had amused himself by making fools of poor, innocent, humble, wandering minstrels. Oh, would he not be generous as he was great and be one of them for a few days, and take half the profits—more—whatever he liked?" etc.
And indeed they immediately saw the business side of
"THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE"
the question, and were, to do them justice, immensely liberal in their conditions of partnership—and also most distressingly persistent, with adulations that got more and more fulsome the more he held back.
There was a long discussion. Barty had to be quite brutal at the end—told them he was not a musician, but a painter, and that nothing on earth should induce him to join them in their concert.
And finally, much crestfallen and somewhat huffed, the pair went out to post their placards all over the town, and Barty went for a bath and a long walk—suddenly feeling sad again and horribly one‑eyed and maimed, and more wofully northless and homeless and friendless than ever.
Blankenberghe was already very full, and when he got back he saw the famous placards everywhere. And found his friends cooking their dinner, and was pressed to join them; and did so—producing a magnificent pasty and some hot‑house grapes and two bottles of wine as a peace‑offering—and was forgiven.
And after dinner they all sat on grain‑sacks together in the large granary, and made music—with lady's‑maids and valets and servants of the house for a most genial and appreciative audience—and had a very pleasant evening; and Barty came to the conclusion that he had mistaken his trade—that he sang devilish well, in fact; and so he did.
Whatever his technical shortcomings might be, he could make any tune sound pretty when he sang it. He had the native gift of ease, pathos, rhythm, humor, and charm—and a delightful sympathetic twang in his voice. His mother must have sung something like that; and all Paris went mad about her. No technical teaching in the world can ever match a genuine inheritance; and that's a fact.
Next morning they all bathed together, and Barty unheroically and quite obscurely saved a life.
The signore and his fat white signora went dancing out into the sunny waves and right away seawards.
Then came Barty with an all‑round shirt‑collar round his neck and a white tie on, to conceal his seton, and a pair of blue spectacles for the glare. And behind him Marianina, hopping on and following as best she might. He turned round to encourage her, and she had suddenly disappeared; half uneasy, he went back a step or two, and saw her little pale‑brown face gasping just beneath the surface—she had just got out of her depth.
He snatched her out, and she clung to him like a small monkey and cried dreadfully, and was sick all over him and herself. He managed to get her back on shore and washed and dried and consoled her before her people came back—and had the tact not to mention this adventure, guessing what fillips she would catch on her poor little pink nose for her stupidity. She looked her gratitude for this reticence of his in the most touching way, with her big black eyes—and had a cunning smile of delight at their common tacit understanding. Her rescuer from a watery grave did not apply for the "médaille de sauvetage"!
Barty took an immense walk that day to avoid the common repast; he was getting very tired of the two senior Veroneses.
The concert in the evening was a tremendous success. The blatant signore sang his Figaro song very well indeed—it suited him better than little feminine love‑ditties. The signora was loud and passionate and dramatic in "Roberto"; and Belgians make more allowance for a German accent in French than Parisians; besides, it was notquitetheir own language that was beingmurdered before them. Itmaybe, some day! I sincerely hope so. Je leur veux du bien.
Poor little Marianina stood on her six music‑books and played with immense care and earnestness, just like a frightened but well‑trained poodle walking on its hind‑legs—one eye on her music and the tail of the other on her father, who accompanied her with his guitar. She got an encore, to Barty's great relief; and to hers too, no doubt—if she hadn't, fillips on the nose for supper that night! Then there were more solos and duets, with obbligatos for the violin.
Next day Veronese and his wife were in high feather at the Kursaal, where they had sung the night before.
A very distinguished military foreigner, in attendance on some august personage from Spain or Portugal (and later from Ostend), warmly and publicly complimented the signore on "his admirable rendering of 'Largo al factotum'—which, as his dear old friend Rossini had once told him (the General), he (Rossini) had always modestly looked upon as the one thing he had ever written with which he wasalmostpleased!"
Marianina also received warm commendation from this agreeable old soldier, while quite a fashionable crowd was listening; and Veronese arranged for another concert that evening, and placarded the town accordingly.
Barty managed to escape any more meals in the Casa Veronese, but took Marianina for one or two pleasant walks, and told her stories and sang to her in the grenier, while she improvised for him clever little obbligatos on her fiddle.
He found a cheap eating‑house and picked up a companion or two to chat with. He also killed time with his seton-dressing and self dry‑cupping—and hiredFrench novels and read them as much as he dared with his remaining eye, about which he was morbidly nervous; he always fancied it would get its retina congested like the other, in which no improvement manifested itself whatever—and this depressed him very much. He was a most impatient patient.
To return. The second concert was as conspicuous a failure as the first had been a success: the attendance was small and less distinguished, and there was no enthusiasm. The Frau signora slipped a note and lost her temper in the middle of "Roberto," and sang out of tune and with careless, open contempt of her audience, and this the audience seemed to understand and openly resent. Poor Marianina was frightened, and played very wrong notes under the furious gaze of her papa, and finally broke down and cried, and there were some hisses for him, as well as kind and encouraging applause for the child. Then up jumps Barty and gets on the platform and takes the signore's guitar and twangs it, and smiles all round benignly—immense applause!
Then he pats Marianina's thin pale cheek and wipes her eyes and gives her a kiss. Frantic applause! Then "Fleur des Alpes!"
Ovation! encore! bis! ter!
And for a third encore he sings a very pretty little Flemish ballad about the rose without a thorn—"Het Roosje uit de Dorne." It is the only Flemish song he knows, and I hope I have spelt it right! And the audience goes quite crazy with enthusiasm, and everybody goes home happy, even the Veroneses—and Marianina does not get filliped that night.
After this the Veroneses tried humbler spheres for the display of their talents, and in less than a week exhausted every pothouse and beer‑tavern and lowdrinking‑shop in Blankenberghe! and at last they took to performing for casual coppers in the open street, and went very rapidly down hill. The signore lost his jauntiness and grew sordid and soiled and shabby and humble; the signora looked like a sulky, dirty, draggle‑tailed fury, ready to break out into violence on the slightest provocation; poor Marianina got paler and thinner, and Barty was very unhappy about her. The only things left rosy about her were her bruised nose, and her fingers, that always seemed stiff with cold; indeed, they were blue rather than rosy—and anything but clean.
One evening he bought her a little warm gray cloak that took his fancy; when he went home after dinner to give it her he found the three birds of song had taken flight—sans tambour ni trompette, and leaving no message for him. The baker‑landlord had turned them adrift—sent them about their business, sacrificing some of his rent to get rid of them; not a heavy loss, I fancy.
Barty went after them all over the little town, but did not find them; he heard they were last seen marching off with guitar and fiddle in a southerly direction along the coast, and found that their luggage was to be sent to Ostend.
He felt very sorry for Marianina and missed her—and gave the cloak to some poor child in the town, and was very lonely.
One morning as he loafed about dejectedly with his hands in his pockets, he found his way to the little Hôtel de Ville, whence issued sounds of music. He went in. It was like a kind of reading‑room and concert‑room combined; there was a piano there, and a young lady practising, with her mother knitting by her side; and two or three other people, friends of theirs, lounging about and looking at the papers.
The mamma was a very handsome person of aristocratic appearance. The pretty daughter was practising the soprano part in a duet by Campana, which Barty knew well; it was "Una sera d' amore." The tenor had apparently not kept his appointment, and madame expressed some irritation at this; first to a friend, in French, but with a slight English accent—then in English to her daughter; and Barty grew interested.
After a little while, catching the mamma's eye (which was not difficult, as she very frankly and persistently gazed at him, and with a singularly tender and wistful expression of face), he got up and asked in English if he could be of any use—seeing that he knew the music well and had often sung it. The lady was delighted, and Barty and mademoiselle sang the duet in capital style to the mamma's accompaniment: "guarda che bianca luna," etc.
"What a lovely voice you've got! May I ask your name?" says the mamma.
"Josselin."
"English, of course?"
"Upon my word I hardly know whether I'm English or French!" said Barty, and he and the lady fell into conversation.
It turned out that she was Irish, and married to a Belgian soldier, le Général Comte de Clèves (who was a tremendous swell, it seems—but just then in Brussels).
Barty told Madame de Clèves the story of his eye—he was always very communicative about his eye; and she suddenly buried her face in her hands and wept; and mademoiselle told him in a whisper that her eldest brother had gone blind and died three or four years ago, and that he was extraordinarily like Barty both in face and figure.
Presently another son of Madame de Clèves came in—an officer of dragoons in undress uniform, a splendid youth. He was the missing tenor, and made his excuses for being late, and sang very well indeed.
And Barty became the intimate friend of these good people, who made Blankenberghe a different place to him—and conceived for him a violent liking, and introduced him to all their smart Belgian friends; they were quite a set—bathing together, making music and dancing, taking excursions, and so forth. And before a fortnight was over Barty had become the most popular young man in the town, the gayest of the gay, the young guardsman once more, throwing dull care to the winds; and in spite of his impecuniosity (of which he made no secret whatever) theboute‑en‑trainof the company. And this led to many droll adventures—of which I will tell one as a sample.
A certain Belgian viscount, who had a very pretty French wife, took a dislike to Barty. He had the reputation of being a tremendous fire‑eater. His wife, a light‑hearted little flirt (but with not much harm in her), took a great fancy to him, on the contrary.
One day she asked him for a wax impression of the seal‑ring he wore on his finger, and the following morning he sealed an empty envelope and stamped it with his ring, and handed it to her on the Plage. She snatched it with a quick gesture and slipped it into her pocket with quite a guilty little coquettish look of mutual understanding.
Monsieur Jean (as the viscount was called) noticed this, and jostled rudely against Josselin, who jostled back again and laughed.
Then the whole party walked off to the "tir," or shooting‑gallery on the Plage; some wager was on, I believe,and when they got there they all began to shoot—at different distances, ladies and gentlemen; all but Barty; it was a kind of handicap.
Monsieur Jean, after a fierce and significant look at Barty, slowly raised his pistol, took a deliberate aim at the small target, and fired—hitting it just half an inch over the bull's‑eye; a capital shot. Barty couldn't have done better himself. Then taking another loaded pistol, he presented it to my friend by the butt and said, with a solemn bow:
"À vous, monsieur de la garde."
"Messieurs de la garde doivent toujours tirer les premiers!" said Barty, laughing; and carelessly let off his pistol in the direction of the target without even taking aim. A little bell rang, and there was a shout of applause; and Barty was conscious that by an extraordinary fluke he had hit the bull's‑eye in the middle, and saw the situation at once.
Suddenly looking very grave and very sad, he threw the pistol away, and said:
"Je ne tire plus—j'ai trop peur d'avoir la main malheureuse un jour!" and smiled benignly at M. Jean.
A moment's silence fell on the party and M. Jean turned very pale.
Barty went up to Madame Jean:
"Will you forgive me for giving you with my seal an empty envelope? I couldn't think of anything pretty enough to write you—so I gave it up. Tear it and forgive me. I'll do better next time!"
The lady blushed and pulled the letter out of her pocket and held it up to the light, and it was, as Barty said, merely an empty envelope and a red seal. She then held it out to her husband and exclaimed:
"Le cachet de Monsieur Josselin, que je lui avais demandé...!"
So bloodshed was perhaps avoided, and Monsieur Jean took care not to jostle Josselin any more. Indeed, they became great friends.
For next day Barty strolled into the Salle d'Armes, Rue des Dunes—and there he found Monsieur Jean fencing with young de Clèves, the dragoon. Both were good fencers, but Barty was the finest fencer I ever met in my life, and always kept it up; and remembering his adventure of the previous day, it amused him to affect a careless nonchalance about such trivial things—"des enfantillages!"
"Youtake a turn with Jean, Josselin!" said the dragoon.
"Oh! I'm out of practice—and I've only got one eye...."
"Je vous en prie, monsieur de la garde!" said the viscount.
"Cette fois, alors, nous allons tirerensemble!" says Barty, and languidly dons the mask with an affected air, and makes a fuss about the glove not suiting him; and then, in spite of his defective sight, which seems to make no difference, he lightly and gracefully gives M. Jean such a dressing as that gentleman had never got in his life—not even from his maître d'armes: and afterwards to young de Clèves the same. Well I knew his way of doing this kind of thing!
So Barty and M. and Madame Jean became quite intimate—and with his usual indiscretion Barty told them how he fluked that bull's‑eye, and they were charmed!
"Vous êtes impayable, savez‑vous, mon cher!" says M. Jean—"vous avez tous les talents, et un million dans le gosier par‑dessus le marché! Si jamais je puis vous être de service, savez‑vous, comptez sur moi pour la vie ..." said the impulsive viscount when they bade each other good‑bye at the end.