CHAPTER LXIX
Which treats of a Farewell Banquet to Departing Youth—whereat Gaston Latour glitters with at Hectic Glitter
Thelight of many candles set in a row along the white napery of the table showed but dimly in the large room, for the walls were hung with the sombre black cloth hangings that are drawn across the doors of churches in honour of the dead. The glint on plate and china and glass was chastened and modified by the solemn blackness of decorating black ribbons—large black bows upon the gilt necks of black bottles of champagne, narrow black bows upon the handles of knives and forks and stems of drinking glasses, and round salt-cellar and mustard-pot and cruet and centre dish. The menus were printed on large black-edged mourning-cards. Flower-bowls had given place to the painted wreaths of wire flowers that are placed in graveyards. The tablecloth was strewn with dead leaves.
The black figures of the waiters, who stood in solemn row to either side of the table, tricked out in the gloomy garb of hearse-lackeys, melted into the darkness behind them except for their pale faces, which caught the up-flung light from the candles that played upon chin and nostril and eye-pits, and sent shadows up their features, pronouncing the frown of expectancy with which they waited for the belated guests.
There was a loud blare; a hunting-horn without began to bray the Dead March inSaul.
“Mon Dieu!” said a waiter.
“Silence!” growled the head waiter.
The door was flung open, and Horace entered in black, wearing black kid gloves, and followed by Gaston Latour, also in mourning and black kid gloves, blowing all the emotion of which he was master into the resounding brass of the great wind instrument that encircled his chest. And as the guests trooped in after them, all in black and wearing black kid gloves, students and their young womenfolk all taking their seats at the table with a titter, Gaston Latour solemnly tramped round the room behind the waiters in slow step, blaring the march of the dead, taking his lips from the brass mouthpiece only to imitate the roll of the kettle-drums andto give the big drum’s solemn announcement of doom with a loud “boom!”
When Horace had seen them all seated, he sat down.
But, in spite of the vigorous lead given by Gaston Latour, the jests did not come tripping to the call; laughter lost something of its hilarity; tongues that were wont to wag with airy wit were barren of banter; voices had a tendency to huskiness; quip and crank gave way to tales of the days that were gone—so they feasted for awhile with something of the fever gone out of their riot, and until the coffee came they sat unwontedly staid and hushed, and in reminiscence and story lived again their insolences and their rebuffs, their darings and their hesitations, their enthusiasms and their hardships, their glorious comradeships, their hero-worship, and their fantastic revelries....
It was near midnight when a skull was passed round filled with little folded papers, and they cast lots for Horace’s corduroy trousers. Gaston won the breeches, and had to deliver the funeral oration.
He stood up, pulled on his black kid gloves, and blew his nose strenuously, taking a long-sustained and melancholy note that sent a titter round the solemn row of waiters:
“Friends of my youth, companions of my unmitigated follies! the ancient figure that sits at the head of this table was once young—the years cannot rob him of that. And it is because he has not been ashamed to share his youngness with the lion and the ass that I rise to-night to bid you drink to the Passing of Youth in the mirth-provoking wines of France. This is the last mad moment of his splendid years; to-night his heroic follies are done; this room, where have been revelry and dance and song and wit and laughter and boon companionship, will know him no more. He is called home—across the sea-sick channel. He goes to shiver forlorn amidst the gloomy fogs of respectability. He will marry a staid wife and beget staid children and dine with lord mayors and wear white waistcoats over a self-conscious stomach. With the corduroy breeches of his studentship he has no more to do. Whither he goes there are no gay cafés—no riotous junketings. He will dance down the streets no more—shout no more—to the stars no more. Whither he goes the people are glum, grey-minded, commonplace—he must not sing, except out of tune, or monotonously, for fear of sin in the music—he must not dance, except with pre-arranged precision and with demure one, two, three to tunes that are piously bereft of all ecstasy. Revelry he will pass by with averted glance and eyes downcast. And yet, as he sits at his plethoric ease before the fire, after a full dinner, prosperous, rotund, bourgeois, he will nod, and nodding sleep—and in the freedom of dreams his ranging memory, rid for awhile of its crude discipline, will flit here, back to the old room, back to the bare walls—he will live again the blithe days of his fantastic youth; he will hear the echo of old laughter as his old jests set the ghosts of his old companions in a roar about the table; at break of day, as the mists rise from the river, he will skip down theBoule Miche, the highway of youth; he will caper through the dawn to blow out the stars above Montparnasse; he will recall with a glow and a bracing of the nerves that he was acquainted with hardship and scarce knew it, for the streets were paved with gladness, and kind eyes made stars in his firmament on the blackest of nights, and he lodged amongst the skies—and in Paris.... Fill your glasses, comrades, and drink.”
They all rose to their feet.
Latour raised his glass:
“Old man!” said he, with meaning accent on the threadbare words; and “Old man!” cried they all, laughing, with a sob in the laugh.
Horace rose, when they sat down, telling them that he could not trust himself to speak otherwise than to say that it warmed his heart as it grieved his heart that he found himself seated amongst his dear companions for the last time in his old room. He raised his glass to Youth, to the comrades of youth, to the students’ quarter, to the university, to the Boule Miche which was the highway of youth, to the great dead, to Paris, to France.
They all stood up and drank the toast in solemn silence; and Horace standing there at the head of his table, they each passed by, handing him a keepsake for remembrance, grasped his hand, and after a husky greeting, strode out of the room.
Babette was the last to go. She went up to Horace, drew down his face between her white hands, and kissed him upon the mouth. He stroked her head; they spake never a word. Her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily followed the others out of the room.
Horace was left alone with the solemn waiters.
He stood for awhile, too much touched to speak.
He roused himself at last with an effort.
“Jean!” he said.
The old head waiter came to him.
Horace held out his hand and grasped the shy hand of the other.
“Jean,” said Horace—“you are an artist.”
The man’s face flushed with pleasure.
Horace took a banknote from his pocket and flung it on the table:
“Divide that amongst the waiters,” he said; “and, Jean, give this to your good wife—it will help little Marie to her dowry.” He handed the man a crisp banknote; and the old fellow’s eyes filled with tears....
As the door closed on Horace, one of them laughed:
“Ah, mon Dieu!” said he drily—“that they should ever grow wise!”
“Silence!” roared the old waiter.
Horace, as he passed through the doorway, was greeted by Gaston Latour:
“You must skip down the highway of youth for the last time,Horace,” said he. “You must once again eat the dawn on the Boule Miche. Forward, comrades!”
They, all hatted and cloaked, flung his cloak over his shoulders, set his black slouch hat upon his head, and together tramped down the stairs and out into the street; and, linking arms, the students and their young women strolled along the roadway and made for the Boule Miche, singing a rousing student song—the dark and deserted street echoing to the racket.
They came out on the Place St. Michel, took hands, and in the dim moonlight they danced in a wide ring before the fountain in the wall where in his niche the bronze saint slays the dragon at the threshold of the student’s world.
Out of breath, they went and leaned over the parapet of the bridge of St. Michel, and then one sighed, and silence fell upon them all.
Out of the flood loomed the great towers of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and low down and beyond twinkled the lights of the Morgue; and, beyond all, the waters of the river swirled into the mists sweeping on to the restless sea—out into the night and the eternal mystery.
Gaston Latour leading, they clambered down to the river’s edge; and they sprinkled Horace with the waters of the Seine, and made him for ever a citizen of Paris.
Up they all clambered again, scaled the parapet, and joining hands, along the Boule Miche they went, singing—now forming a ring to dance round embarrassed policemen, now pounding shutters with their fists, greeting with a cheer the sleepy heads that were thrust out of open windows, blinking anxiously down into the night; and with these and the like tomfooleries, saluting the closed cafés where they had held their many light-hearted revels, they reached the garden of the Luxembourg—stood before the Pantheon—in the paling night they uncovered to the great dead. Thus silent, Horace stood for the last time as a student on the heights of Montparnasse. The immensity of the night was passing in purple majesty into the western heavens; and beyond, where the students’ highway topped the hill, in the smoky twilight glittered the morning star.