CHAPTER LXXVII
Wherein Foul Things are Plotted with some Glamour of Romance
Itwas in this mental ferment that, one day, idly seating himself at the table where Betty had wrought, and brooding there, Noll put out his hand to one of the small brass knobs of the writing-table, and opened a little drawer. It was fragrant with the atmosphere of freshness and life and sweetness which was a part of her winsome being. It brought the witchery of her brown hair to him, her dainty ways, the beautiful firm gentle hands, the white skin that flushed so easily, the eager loyal lips, the courageous will, the happy eyes, the cheerfulness and gaiety of her glad young womanhood.
In the opened drawer lay what looked like the final proofs of the chapter of a book—or had she torn the pages from some magazine?
He read the Fragment from The Masterfolk: which ran:
“Rid thyself of the pessimistic error that confuses Life with Lust. The duel between the lust of the emotions and the contemplation of Reason is but in the seeming, as the right hand is against the left. The emotions and the reason but hedge in the highway of thy wayfaring to guide the instincts of life along the way to the highest fulfilment. Joy urges life forward to the achieving; pain turns aside from danger; and the reason is the eye of the emotions. Bereft of reason, the emotions are blind; and the blind in soul are not of the Masterfolk.
Good and evil are not at duel; these twain are not rigid and separate realities taking sides in a quarrel of the universe; good is the way by which life travels to the achieving of the highest experience; evil is that way by which life falls away from the achieving.
There is no other good nor evil....”
When Noll laid down the Fragment of The Masterfolk, the evening was well spent.
He went to the window and gazed down through the damp night upon the smoke and flare of Paris that steamed in the reek. His mind turned to the busy world at his feet....
As he pulled on his coat, he noticed that there were two volumes in the pockets. He laughed. They were the wisdom of Schopenhauer—ofthe refuge from life in art and of the refuge from life in asceticism.
He left them there.
“Tush!” said he—“as if life were given to be evaded!”
He put on his cloak and hat, and walked down into the streets.
As he turned into the great boulevards, the people were swarming out of the theatres, their eyes still smiling at the comedies. There was the shuffle of feet, and hum of conversation, and laughter that punctuated genial waggeries. Bright cafés were crowded inside and out with the ranks and array of chattering people.
He went under an awning and seated himself in a back row; the waiter at his call brought him a foaming tankard of beer. And he sat and sipped and brooded there alone in the midst of the buzzing of the pleasure-hive.
Paris flashed and flamed in the night—that brightly lighted Paris of many lamps that lies between the crazy heights of Montmartre to the north and the students’ quarter beyond the river to the south—the great central world of Paris, that is the ordinary workaday pleasure-seeking-at-the-end-o’-the-day’s-work world that knows little and cares less for the fantastic aspirations and the mockeries of the hill of martyrs, or the artistic aims of the left bank. Here stepped the good citizen of the gayest when not saddest people of the world, in the streets that are his public drawing-room, smiling at life, strutting with wife or mistress his evening stroll, before getting off to his virtuous or unvirtuous bed, living his life by habit and rote, taking it as it comes, turning reflective eyes upon it never. In the highways the great painted omnibuses rumbled past, taking up swarms of home-going folk from their sauntering evening pleasures of the town. The white-hatted and black-hatted hackney coachmen cracked loud whips and urged their nags to the winning of their last fares for the night. Here strolled the sturdy everyday folk, respectable and commonplace and prolific and jovial, who went to their churches of a Sunday or did not go, as their forefathers before them, and for much the same reason of confirmed habit, asked no questions, but came into their religion or lack of it, and of their concept of life, by heredity; even as their hair grew, and they waked and sleeped. Here were no brows troubled with nerve-racking introspection. Anxieties were on far other scores. The women, with skirts held up, frankly showed ankles that were not aimlessly stockinged, and dressed their shapely bodies frankly trusting the men liked it so; here the men turned and as frankly admired them.... Here the world passed and repassed, gaily and genially human. Most had never heard of Shakespeare, few had read him; to nearly all, Homer was as dead as higher mathematics; to most, Dante would have been an intolerable bore; to many, Milton a giver of sleep. Nay, Molière was known to these as master of dull French, that had wearied their school-day youth.... Here were soldiers that slammed steel scabbards upon the flags, and police that yawned because the world must be respectable.
A stout burgess, his plump wife upon his arm, came and took seats at the little table beside Noll.
“Jean has the commercial flare,” said he, blowing mightily and mopping a perspiring forehead with florid handkerchief. “He has won marbles on a system.”
There was raising of admiring hands at the child’s promise. Madame sighed—to think the boy springing up.... There was a pause, and memories of the child’s arms about her neck—her eyes filled with tears—and she spoke of the cares so happily borne—the days that were gone came back to her.
“Yvonne had fancied a piece of lace to go with her white gown and veil for her confirmation.” The good dame laughed lightly. “Ah, she herself had worn it—mon Dieu! how many years ago?”
He pinched her ear.
She bore her old age well, he said; still, he himself was absolutely ancient—nearly forty!
And they both laughed.
The good man smoked a cigarette; she flipped through an illustrated paper; they sipped liqueurs; called the waiter at last; paid the reckoning; exchanged a jest or so, and departed, he lifting his hat to the house.
Others came and went.
Noll brooded on.
What had been all the frantic ecstasy of art for art’s sake to the world at large? An absolute nothing. And what was this ascetic hatred of life?
The aim of life is not to live in poet’s rhyme—nor does our neighbour pass feverish nights fearful of losing immortality. The poet may be shaken with such fears for his verse; the ambitious may see in dreams their names writ in flashing jewels on the face of time, glittering like stars beyond their daily lusting; but the man of the street scratches his poll to no such questionings. He has to live. He asks, and he has the right to ask, that he may live his life in hope and happiness and all becoming jollity. There will be rough stones enough beneath his feet, walk he ever so nicely. Why be jealous of worldly fame? The names and fames of the ancient masters of the world, king and conqueror, are vanished—their very gods have taken wing. There are some chipped relics—the rest is in the spindrift of time....
What was all this abstract pity of the world? what did it affect? What was it but the conceit of sheer egoism?
In the darkness beyond the flare of the café, on the benches that skirted the roadway, sat several shabby fellows—frayed, down-at-heels, haggard. Their pale faces stared out of the darkness at the festive loungers along the café’s front. Out of the gloom their hungry eyes sullenly followed the shifting figures that passed to and fro across the golden flare of the brightly lighted place. The younger ones scowled, brooding pensively—one now and then muttering a rough jest to the others. But they were mostly silent. The elder, dirtier, and more ragged, with hands deep-thrustinto pockets of filthy trousers, shrugged stooped shoulders, and watched the shifting comedy that passed unwittingly before their eyes. A tattered fellow from amongst them would rise and pick up a cigarette-end that fell upon the pavement from light discarding fingers.
The ranks of chairs along the café’s front began to empty.
Noll roused, called to the waiter, paid him, and strolled into the night....
The waiters came out and cleared away the tables and chairs and put up the shutters.
The lights went out.
The faces that had stared out of the night sank on to drowsy chests, and the wastrels of the boulevards fell asleep on their hard benches.
One fellow amongst them arose, yawned, and drowsily shuffled down the road to a bench that was not so crowded; he lay down upon it, and fell asleep.
He had scarcely fallen into a drowse when a dim slouching figure came out of the black drizzle that was setting in, and, hesitating near him, peered into his face—put out his hand and touched the sleeping man upon the shoulder:
“Comrade,” said he, “it’s going to be a wet night. This is wretched shelter for a master mind.”
The other roused, uttered an oath, laughed grimly:
“What is it?” he asked.
“Gavroche,” said the stooping man in a hoarse whisper—“the mists are rising from the river.” He looked up and down the road cautiously: “There’s a drunken carter has lost his way and is wandering on the quays. Perhaps he would have fallen into the river anyway.”
Gavroche roused and sat up:
“Ay,” said he, “he has been paid his wage or would not be drunk.... And he is near the river.... What a death, my comrade, to go out of the world with a full skin!... Some rogues have all the luck.... Come.”