I
This all happened on the banks of the Seine, above St. Cloud—above Suresne, in fact, or rather its bridge—the new one that has pieced out the old one with the quaint stone arches that we love.
A silver-gray haze, a pure French gray, hung over the river, softening the sky-line of the near-by hills, and making ghosts of a row of gendarme poplars guarding the opposite bank.
On my side of the stream wandered a path close to the water's edge—so close that I could fill my water-cups without leaving my sketching-stool. Over this path, striped with shadows, big trees towered, their gnarled branches interlaced above my head. On my right, rising out of a green sward cleared of all underbrush, towered other trees, their black trunks sharp-cut against the haze. In the distance, side by side with the path, wound the river, still asleep, save where it flashed into waves of silver laughter at the touch of some frolicsome puff of wind. Elsewhere, although the sun was now hours high, it dozed away, nestling under the overhanging branches making their morning toilet in its depths. But for these long, straight flashes of silver light glinting between the tree-trunks, one could not tell where the haze ended and the river began.
As I worked on, my white umbrella tilted at the exact angle so that my palette, hand, and canvas would be hidden from the inquisitive sun, a group of figures emerged from a clump of low trees, and made their way across the green sward—the man in an ivory-black coat, evidently a priest, even at that distance; the woman in a burnt-umber dress with a dot of Chinese white for a head—probably a cap; and the third, a girl of six or eight in a brown madder dress and yellow-ochre hat.
An out-door painter, while at work, tumbles everything that crosses his path or comes within range of his vision into the crucible of his palette. The most majestic of mountains and the softest of summer clouds are to him but flat washes of cobalt, and the loveliest of dimples on the fairest of cheeks but a shadow-tone, and a high light made real by pats of indigo and vermilion.
So in the three figures went among my trees, the priest in the background against a mass of yellow light—black against yellow is always a safe contrast; the burnt-umber woman breaking the straight line of a trunk, and the child—red on green—intensifying a slash of zinober that illumined my own grassy sward.
Then my interest in the group ceased. The priest, no doubt, was taking his sister, or his aunt, or his mother, with their own or somebody else's little girl, out for an airing, and they had come at the precise moment when I had begun to long for just such a collection of people; and now they could take themselves off and out of my perspective, particularly the reddish-brown girl who kept on dancing in the sunniest places, running ahead of the priest and the woman, lighting up and accentuating half a dozen other corners of the wood interior before me in as many minutes, and making me regret before the paint was half dry on her own little figure that I had not waited for a better composition.
Then she caught sight of my umbrella.
She came straight toward me with that slowing of pace as she approached the nearer, her curiosity getting the better of her timidity—quite as a fawn or a little calf would have done, attracted by some bit of color or movement which was new to it. The brown madder dress I now saw was dotted with little spots of red, like sprays of berries; the yellow-ochre hat was wound with a blue ribbon, and tied with a bow on one side. I could see, too, that she wore slippers, and that her hair was platted in two pig-tails, and hung down her back, the ends fastened with a ribbon that matched the one on her hat.
She stood quite still, her face perfectly impassive, her little hands clasped together, the brim of her hat shading her eyes, which looked straight at my canvas.
I gave no sign of her presence. It is dangerous to break down the reserve of silence, which is often the only barrier between an out-door painter and the crowds that surround him. Persisted in, it not only compels their respect, even to the lowering of their voices and the tip-toeing in and out of the circle about you, but shortens the time of their visits, a consummation devoutly to be wished. So I worked on in silence, never turning toward this embodiment of one of Boutet do Monvel's drawings, whose absorbed face I could see out of one corner of my eye.
Then a ripple of laughter broke the stillness, and a little finger was thrust out, stopping within a hair's-breadth of the dot of Chinese white, still wet, which topped my burnt-umber figure.
"Très drôle, Monsieur!"
The voice was sweeter than the laugh. One of those flute-like, bird-throated voices that children often have who live in the open all their lives, chasing butterflies or gathering wild flowers.
Then came a halloo from the greensward. The priest was coming toward us, calling out, as he walked:
"Susette! Susette!"
He, too, underwent a change. The long, ivory-black cassock, so unmistakable in the atmospheric perspective, became an ordinary frock-coat; the white band of a collar developed into the regulation secular pattern, and the silk hat, although of last year's shape, conformed less closely in its lines to one belonging exclusively to the clergy. The face, though, as I could see in my hurried glance, and even at that distance, was the smooth, clean-shaven face of a priest—the face of a man of fifty, I should think, who had spent all his life in the service of others.
Again came the voice, this time quite near.
"Susette! Susette!"
The child, without turning her head, waved her hand in reply, looked earnestly into my face, and with a quick bending of one knee in courtesy, and a "Merci, M'sieu; merci," ran with all her speed toward the priest, who stretched wide his arms, half-lifting her from the ground in the embrace. Then a smile broke over his face, so joyous, so full of love and tenderness, so much the unconscious index of the heart that prompted it, that I laid down my palette to watch them.
I have known many priests in my time, and I have never ceased to marvel at the beauty of the tie which binds them to the little ones of their flocks. I have never been in a land where priests and children were not companions. These long-frocked guardians sit beside their playgrounds, with noses in their breviaries, or they head processions of boys and girls on the way to chapel, or they follow, two by two, behind a long string of blue-checked aprons and severe felt hats, the uniform of the motherless; or they teach the little vagrants by the hour—often it is the only schooling that these children get.
But I never remember one of them carrying such a waif about in his arms, nor one irradiated by such a flash of heavenly joy when some child, in a mad frolic, saw fit to scrape her muddy shoes down the front of his clean, black cassock.
The beatific smile itself was not altogether new to me. Anyone else can see it who wanders into the Gallery of the Prado. It irradiates the face of an old saint by Ribera—a study for one of his large canvases, and is hung above the line. I used to stand before it for hours, studying the technique. The high lights on the face are cracked in places, and the shadows are blackened by time, but the expression is that of one who looks straight up into heaven. And there is another—a Correggio, in the Hermitage, a St. Simon or St. Timothy, or some other old fellow—whose eyes run tears of joy, and whose upturned face reflects the light of the sun. Yet there was something in the face of the priest before me that neither of the others had—a peculiar human quality, which shone out of his eyes, as he stood bareheaded in the sunshine, the little girl in his arms. If the child had been his daughter—his very own and all he had, and if he had caught her safe from some danger that threatened her life, it could not have expressed more clearly the joyousness of gratitude or the bliss inspired by the sense of possessing something so priceless that every other emotion was absorbed.
It was all over in a moment. He did not continue to beam irradiating beatitudes, as the old Ribera and the older Correggio have done for hundreds of years. He simply touched his hat to me, tucked the child's hand into his own, and led her off to her mother.
I kept at my work. For me the incident, delightful as it was, was closed. All I remembered, as I squeezed the contents of another tube on to my palette, was the smile on the face of the priest.
The weather now began to take part in the general agitation. The lazy haze, roused by the joyous sun, had gathered its skirts together and had slipped over the hills. The sun in its turn had been effaced by a big cloud with scalloped edges which had overspread the distant line of the river, blotting out the flashes of silver laughter, and so frightening the little waves that they scurried off to the banks, some even trying to climb up the stone coping out of the way of the rising wind. A cool gust of air, out on a lark, now swept down the path, and, with lance in rest, toppled over my white umbrella. Big drops of rain fell about me, spitting the dust like spent balls. Growls of thunder were heard overhead. One of those rollicking, two-faced thunder-squalls, with the sun on one side and the blackness of the night on the other, was approaching.
The priest had seen it, for he had the child pickaback and was running across the sward. The woman had seen it, too, for she was already collecting her baskets, preparing to follow, and I was not far behind. Before she had reached the edge of the woods I had overtaken her, my traps under my arm, my white umbrella over my head.
"The Châlet Cycle is the nearest," she volunteered, grasping the situation, and pointing to a path opening to the right as she spoke.
"Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, hurriedly.
"No, Monsieur—Susette has gone home. It is only a little way."
I plunged on through the wet grass, my eyes on the opening through the trees, the rain pouring from my umbrella. Before I had reached the end of the path the rain ceased and the sun broke through, flooding the wet leaves with dazzling light.
These two, the clouds and the sun, were evidently bent on mischief, frightening little waves and painters and bright-eyed children and good priests who loved them!
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS
II
Do you happen to know the Châlet Cycle?
If you are a staid old painter who takes life as he finds it, and who loves to watch the procession from the sidewalk without any desire to carry one of the banners or to blow one of the horns—one of your three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to-bed-at-ten-o'clock kind of a man, then make a note of the Cycle. The melons are excellent; the omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and both ends of the sling in your hand, and if this is your first real outing since your college days, it would be just as well for you to pass it by and take your coffee and rolls at the little restaurant over the bridge, or the one farther down the street.
Believe me, a most seductive place is this Châlet Cycle, with its tables set out under the trees!
A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles ontête-à-têtetables, and close-drawn curtains about the kiosks. A place, by day, where you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, with seats for two, and these half-hidden by Japanese screens, so high that even the waiters cannot look over. A place with a great music-stand smothered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, out of sight of anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and blind waiters. A place with a big open gateway where everybody can enter and—ah! there is where the danger lies—a little by-path all hedged about with lilac bushes, where anybody can escape to the woods by the river—an ever-present refuge in time of trouble and in constant use—more's the pity—for it is theunexpectedthat always happens at the Châlet Cycle.
The prettiest girls in Paris, in bewitching bicycle costumes, linger about the music-stand, losing themselves in the arbors and shrubberies. The kiosks are almost all occupied: charming little Chinese pagodas these—eight-sided, with lattice screens on all sides—screens so tightly woven that no curious idler can see in, and yet so loosely put together that each hidden inmate can see out. Even the trees overhead have a hand in the villany, spreading their leaves thickly, so that the sun itself has a hard time to find out what is going on beneath their branches. All this you become aware of as you enter the big, wide gate.
Of course, being quite alone, with only my battered old umbrella for company, I did not want a whole kiosk to myself, or even half of a giant umbrella. Any quiet corner would do for me, I told the Maître d'Hôtel, who relieved me of my sketch-trap—anywhere out of the rain when it should again break loose, which it was evidently about to do, judging from the appearance of the clouds—anywhere, in fact, where I could eat a filet smothered in mushrooms, and drink a pint ofvin ordinairein peace.
"No, I expected no one." This in answer to a peculiar lifting of the eyebrows and slight wave of his hand as he drew out a chair in an unoccupied kiosk commanding a view of the grounds. Then, in rather a positive tone, I added:
"Send me a waiter to take my order—orders forone, remember." I wanted to put a stop to his insinuations at once. Nothing is so annoying when one's hair is growing gray as being misunderstood—especially by a waiter.
Affairs overhead now took a serious turn. The clouds evidently disapproving of the hilarious goings-on of the sun—poking its head out just as the cloud was raining its prettiest—had, in retaliation, stopped up all the holes the sun could peer through, and had started in to rain harder than ever. The waiters caught the angry frown on the cloud's face, and took it at its spoken word—it had begun to thunder again—and began piling up the chairs to protect their seats, covering up the serving-tables, and getting every perishable article under shelter. The huge mushroom-umbrellas were collapsed and rushed into the kiosks—some of them into the one where I sat, it being the largest; small tables were turned upside down, and tilted against the tree-trunks, and the storm-curtains of all the little kiosks let down and buttoned tight to the frames. Waiters ran hither and thither, with napkins and aprons over their heads, carrying fresh courses for the several tables or escaping with their empty dishes.
In the midst of this mêlée a cab dashed up to the next kiosk to mine, the wheels cutting into the soft gravel; the curtains were quickly drawn wide by a half-drowned waiter, and a young man with jet-black hair and an Oriental type of face slipped in between them.
Another carriage now dashed up, following the grooves of the first wheels—not a cab this time, but a perfectly appointed coupé, with two men in livery on the box, and the front windows banked with white chrysanthemums. I could not see her face from where I sat—she was too quick for that—but I saw the point of a tiny shoe as it rested for an instant on the carriage-step and a whirl of lace about a silk stocking. I caught also the movement of four hands—two outstretched from the curtains of the kiosk and two from the door of the coupé.
shoe.jpg (72K)
Of course, if I had been a very inquisitive and very censorious old painter, with a tendency to poke my nose into and criticise other people's business, I would at once have put two and two together and asked myself innumerable questions. Why, for instance, the charming couple did not arrive at the same moment, and in the same cab? or why they came all the way out to Suresne in the rain, when there were so many cosey little tables at Laurent's or at the Voisin, on the Rue Cambon, or in the Café Anglais on the Boulevard. Whether, too, either one were married, and if so which one, and if so again, what the other fellow and the other woman would do if he or she found it all out; and whether, after all, it was worth the candle when it did all come out, which it was bound to do some day sooner or later. Or I could have indulged in the customary homilies, and decried the tendencies of the times, and said to myself how the world was going to the dogs because of such goings-on; quite forgetting the days when I, too, had the world in a sling, and was whirling it around my head with all the impetuosity and abandon of youth.
But I did none of these things—that is, nothing Paul Pryish or presuming. I merely beckoned to the Maître d'Hôtel, as he stood poised on the edge of the couple's kiosk, with the order for their breakfast in his hands, and, when he had reached my half-way station on his way across the garden to the kitchen, stopped him with a question. Not with my lips—that is quite unnecessary with an old-time Maître d'Hôtel—but with my two eyebrows, one thumb, and a part of one shoulder.
"The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur—" he answered, instantly.
"And the lady?"
"Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud of the Variété. She comes quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season."
He evidently took me for an oldhabitué. There are some compensations, after all, in the life of a staid old painter.
With these solid facts in my possession I breathed a little easier. Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud, from the little I had seen of her, was quite capable of managing her own affairs without my own or anybody else's advice, even if I had been disposed to give it. She no doubt loved the lambent-eyed gentleman to distraction; the kiosk was their only refuge, and the whole affair was being so discreetly managed that neither the lambent-eyed gentleman nor his houri would be obliged to escape by means of the lilac-bordered path in the rear on this or any other morning.
And if they should, what did it matter to me? The little row in the cloud overhead would soon end in further torrents of tears, as all such rows do; the sun would have its way after all and dry every one of them up; the hungry part of me would have its filet and pint of St. Julien, and the painter part of me would go back to the little path by the river and finish its sketch.
Again I tried to signal the Maître d'Hôtel as he dashed past on his way to the kiosk. This time he was under one of the huge umbrellas which an "omnibus" was holding over him, Rajah-fashion. He had a plump melon, half-smothered in ice, in his hands, to protect it from the downpour, the rain making gargoyles of the points of the ribs of the umbrella. Evidently the breakfast was too important and the expected fee too large to intrust it to an underling. He must serve it himself.
Up to this Moment no portion of my order had materialized. No cover for one, nor filet, norvin ordinaire, nor waiter had appeared. The painter was growing impatient. The man inside was becoming hungry.
I waited until he emerged with an empty dish, watched him grasp the giant umbrella, teeter on the edge of the kiosk for a moment, and plunge through the gravel, now rivers of water, toward my kiosk, the "omnibus" following as best he could.
"A thousand pardons, Monsieur—" he cried from beneath his shelter, as he read my face. "It will not be long now. It is coming—here, you can see for yourself—" and he pointed across the garden, and tramped on, the water spattering his ankles.
I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge umbrellas, the ones used over thetête-à-têtetables beneath the trees, slowly wending its way toward where I sat, with all the measured movement and dignity of a file of Eastern potentates out for an airing.
Under each umbrella were two waiters, one carrying the umbrella and the other a portion of my breakfast. The potentate under the first umbrella, who carried the wine, proved to be a waiter-in-chief; the others bearing the filet, plates, dishes, and glasses were ordinary "omnibuses," pressed into service as palanquin-bearers by reason of the storm.
The waiter-in-chief, with the bottle, dodged from under his bungalow, leaving it outside and still open, like a stranded circus-tent, stepped into my kiosk, mopped the rain from his coat-sleeves and hands with a napkin, and, bowing solemnly, pointed to the label on the bottle. This meeting my approval, he relieved the rear-guard of the dishes, arranged the table, drew the cork of the St. Julien, filled my glass, dismissed the assistants and took his place behind my chair.
The closeness of the quarters, the protection it afforded from the raging elements, the perils my companion had gone through to serve me, made possible a common level on which we could stand. We discussed the storm, the prospect of its clearing, the number of unfortunates in the adjacent Bois who were soaked to the skin, especially the poor little bicycle-girls in their cotton bloomers, now collapsed and bedraggled. We talked of the great six-day cross-country bicycle-race, and how the winner, tired out, had wabbled over the Bridge that same morning, with the whole pack behind him, having won by less than five minutes. We talked of the people who came and went, and who they were, and how often they dined, and what they spent, and ate and drank, and of the rich American who had given the waiter a gold Louis for a silver franc, and who was too proud to take it back when his attention was called to the mistake (which my companion could not but admit was quite foolish of him); and, finally, of the dark-skinned Oriental with the lambent eyes, and the adorable Ernestine with the pointed shoes and open-work silk stockings and fluffy skirts, who occupied the kiosk within ten feet of where I sat and he stood.
During the conversation I was busy with my knife and fork, my eyes at intervals taking in the scene before me; the comings and goings of the huge umbrellas—one, two, or three, as the serving of the dishes demanded, the rain streaming from their sides; now the fish, now the salad, now a second bottle of wine in a cooler, and now the last course of all on an empty plate, which my companion said was the bill, and which he characterized as the most important part of the procession, except thepour boire. Each time the procession came to a full stop outside the kiosk until the sentinel waiter relieved them of their burdens. My sympathies constantly went out to this man. There was no room for him inside, and certainly no wish for his company, and so he must, perforce, balance himself under his umbrella, first on one leg and then on the other, in his effort to escape the spatter which now reached his knees, quite as would a wet chicken seeking shelter under a cart-body.
I say my companion and I "talked" of these several sights and incidents as I ate my luncheon. And yet, really, up to this time I had not once looked into his face, quite a necessary thing in conducting a conversation of any duration. But then one rarely does in talking to a waiter when he is serving you. My remarks had generally been addressed to the dish in front of me, or to the door opposite, through which I looked, and his rejoinders to the back of my shirt-collar. If he had sat opposite, or had moved into the perspective, I might once in a while have caught a glimpse, over my glass or spoon, of his smileless, mask-like face, a thing impossible, of course, with him constantly behind my chair.
When, however, in the course of his monotone, he mentioned the name of Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud and that of the distinguished kinsman of His Serene Highness, the Grand Pan-Jam of the Orient, I turned my head in his direction.
"You know the Mademoiselle, then?"
My waiter shrugged his shoulders, his face still impenetrable.
"Monsieur, I know everybody in Paris. Why not? Twenty-three years a waiter. Twenty years at the Café de la Paix in Paris, and three years here. Do you wonder?"
There are in my experience but four kinds of waiters the world over. First, the thin, nervous waiter, with a set smile, who is always brushing away imaginary crumbs, adjusting the glasses—an inch this way, an inch that way, and then back again to their first position, talking all the time, whether spoken to or not, and losing interest the moment you pay him his fee. Then the stolid, half-asleep waiter, fat and perpetually moist, who considers his duties over when he has placed your order on the cloth and moved the wine within reach of your hand. Next the apprentice waiter, promoted from assistant cook or scullion-boy, who carries on a conversation in signs behind your back with the waiter opposite him, smothering his laughter at intervals in the same napkin with which he wipes your plate, and who, when he changes a course, slants the dishes up his sleeve, keeping the top one in place with his chin, replacing the plates again with a wavy motion, as if they were so many quoits, each one circling into its place—a trick of which he is immensely proud.
And last—and this is by no means a large class—the grave, dignified, self-possessed, well-mannered waiter; smooth-shaven, spotlessly clean, noiseless, smug and attentive. He generally walks with a slight limp, an infirmity due to his sedentary habits and his long acquaintance with his several employers' decanters. He is never under fifty, is round of form, short in the legs, broad of shoulder, and wears his gray hair cut close. He has had a long and varied experience; he has been buttons, valet, second man, first man, lord high butler, and then down the scale again to plain waiter. This has not been his fault but his misfortune—the settling of an estate, it may be, or the death of a master. He has, with unerring judgment, summed you up in his mind before you have taken your seat, and has gauged your intelligence and breeding with the first dish you ordered. Intimate knowledge of the world and of men and of women—especially the last—has developed in him a distrust of all things human. He alone has seen the pressure of the jewelled hands as they lay on the cloth or under it, the lawful partner opposite. He alone has caught the last whispered word as the opera-cloak fell about her shoulders, and knows just where they dined the next day, and who paid for it and why. Being looked upon as part of the appointments of the place, like the chandeliers or the mirrors or the electric bell that answers when spoken to but never talks back, he has, unconsciously to those he serves, become the custodian of their closest secrets. These he keeps to himself. Were he to open his mouth he could not only break up a score or more of highly respectable families, but might possibly upset a ministry.
My waiter belonged to this last group.
I saw it in every deferential gesture of his body, and every modulated tone of his voice. Whether his moral nature had become warped and cracked and twisted out of all shape by constant daily and nightly contact—especially the last—with the sort of life he had led, or whether some of the old-time refinement of his better days still clung to him, was a question I could not decide from the exhibits before me—certainly not from the calm eyes which never wavered, nor the set mouth which never for a moment relaxed, the only important features in the face so far as character-reading is concerned.
I determined to draw him out; not that he interested me in any way, but simply because such studies are instructive. Then, again, his account of his experiences might be still more instructive. When should I have a better opportunity? Here was a man steeped in the life of Paris up to his very eyelids, one thoroughly conversant with the peccadilloes of innumerableviveurs—peccadilloes interesting even to staid old painters, simply as object-lessons, especially those committed by the other gay Lothario: the fellow, for instance, who did not know she was dangerous until his letter of credit collapsed; or the peccadilloes of the beautiful moth who believed the candle lighting her path to be an incandescent bulb of joy, until her scorched wings hung about her bare shoulders: That kind of peccadillo.
So I pushed back my chair, opened my cigar-case, and proceeded to adjust the end of my mental probe. There was really nothing better to do, even if I had no such surgical operation in view. It was still raining, and neither I nor the waiter could leave our Chinese-junk of an island until the downpour ceased or we were rescued by a lifeboat or an umbrella.
"And this nephew of the Sultan," I began again between puffs, addressing my remark to the match in my companion's hand, which was now burning itself out at the extreme end of my cigar. "Is he a new admirer?"
"Quite new—only ten days or so, I think."
"And the one before—the old one—what does he think?" I asked this question with one of those cold, hollow, heartless laughs, such as croupiers are supposed to indulge in when they toss a five-franc piece back to a poor devil who has just lost his last hundred Napoleons at baccarat—I have never seen this done and have never heard the laugh, but that is the way the storybooks put it—particularly the blood-curdling part of the laugh.
"You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Monsieur?"
I had, of course, never heard of Pierre Channet, the painter, in my life, but I nodded as knowingly as if I had been on the most intimate relations with him for years. Then, again, this was my only way of getting down to his personal level, the only way I could draw him out and get at his real character. By taking his side of the question, he would unbosom himself the more freely, and, perhaps, incidentally, some of the peccadilloes—some of the most wicked.
"He willnot think, Monsieur. They pulled him out of the river last month."
"Drowned?"
His answer gave me a little start, but I did not betray myself.
"So they said. The water trickled along his nose for two days as he lay on the slab, before they found out who he was."
"In the morgue?" I inquired in a tone of surprise. I spoke as if this part of the story had not reached me.
"In the morgue, Monsieur."
The repeated words came as cold and merciless as the drops of water that fell on poor Channet as he lay under the gas-jets.
"Drowned himself for love of Mademoiselle Béraud, you say?"
"Quite true, Monsieur. He is not the only one. I know four."
"And she began to love another in a week?" My indignation nearly got the better of me this time, but I do not think he noticed it.
"Why not, Monsieur? One must live."
As he spoke he moved an ash-tray deliberately within reach of my hand, and poured the balance of the St. Julien into my glass without a quiver.
I smoked on in silence. Every spark of human feeling had evidently been stifled in him. The Juggernaut of Paris, in rolling over him, had broken every generous impulse, flattening him into a pulp of brutal selfishness. That is why his face was so smooth and cold, his eyes so dull and his voice so monotonous. I understood it all now. I changed the subject. I did not know where it would lead if I kept on. Drowned lovers were not what I was looking for.
"You say you have only been two years in Suresne?" I resumed, carelessly, flicking the ashes from my cigar.
"But two years, Monsieur."
"Why did you leave Paris?"
"Ah, when one is over fifty it is quite done. Is it not so, Monsieur?"—this made with a little deferential wave of his hand. I noted the tribute to the staid painter, and nodded approvingly. He was evidently climbing up to my level. Perhaps this plank, slender as it was, might take him out of the slough and land him on higher and better ground.
"Yes, you are right. And so you came to Suresne to be quiet."
"Not altogether, Monsieur. I came to be near—Well! we are never too old for that—Is it not so?" He said it quite simply, quite as a matter of course, the tones of his voice as monotonous as any he had yet used—just as he had spoken of poor Channet in the morgue with the water trickling over his dead face.
"Oh, then, even at fifty you have a sweetheart!" I blurted out with a sudden twist of my probe. I felt now that I might as well follow the iniquity to the end.
"It is true, Monsieur."
"Is she pretty?" As long as I was dissecting I might at least discover the root of the disease. This remark, however, was not addressed to his face, but to a crumb of ashes on the cloth, which I was trying to remove with the point of a knife. He might not have answered, or liked it, had I fired the question at him point-blank.
"Very pretty—" still the same monotone.
"And you love her!" It was up to the hilt now.
"She is the only thing I have left to love, Monsieur," he answered, calmly.
Then, bending over me, he added:
"Monsieur, I do not think I am mistaken. Were you not painting along the river this morning?"
"Yes."
"And a little child stood beside you while you worked?" Something in his voice as he spoke made me raise my head. To my intense amazement the listless eyes were alight with a tenderness that seemed to permeate his whole being, and a smile of infinite sweetness was playing about his mouth—the smile of the old saint—the Ribera of the Prado!
"Yes, of course; the one playing with the priest," I answered, quickly. "But—"
"No; that was me, Monsieur. I have often been taken for a priest, especially when I am off duty. It is the smooth face that misled you—" and he passed his hand over his cheeks and chin.
"You the priest!" This came as a distinct surprise. "Ah, yes, I do see the resemblance now. And so your sweetheart is the woman in the white cap." At last I had reached his tender spot.
"No, you are wrong again, Monsieur. The woman in the white cap is my sister. My sweetheart is the little girl—my granddaughter, Susette."
I raised my own white umbrella over my head, picked up my sketch-trap, and took the path back to the river. The rain had ceased, the sun was shining—brilliant, radiant sunshine; all the leaves studded with diamonds; all the grasses strung with opals, every stone beneath my feet a gem.
I didn't know when I left what became of Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud, with her last lover under the sod, and the new one shut up in the kiosk, and I didn't care. I saw only a little girl—a little girl in a brown-madder dress and yellow-ochre hat; with big, blue eyes, a tiny pug-nose, a wee, kissable mouth, and two long pig-tails down her back. Looking down into her bonny face from its place, high up on the walls of the Prado, was an old cracked saint, his human eyes aglow with a light that came straight from heaven.
It was in the Doctor's own office that he told me this story. He has told me a dozen more, all pulled from the rag-bag of his experience, like strands of worsted from an old-fashioned reticule. Some were bright-colored, some were gray and dull—some black; most of them, in fact, sombre in tone, for the Doctor has spent much of his life climbing up the rickety stairs of gloomy tenements. Now and then there comes out a thread of gold which he weaves into the mesh of his talk—some gleam of pathos or heroism or unselfishness, lightening the whole fabric. This kind of story he loves best to tell.
The Doctor is not one of your new-fashioned doctors quartered in a brownstone house off the Avenue, with a butler opening the door; a pair of bob-tailed grays; a coupé with a note-book tucked away in its pocket bearing the names of various millionnaires; an office panelled in oak; a waiting-room lined with patients reading last month's magazines until he should send for them. He has no such abode nor belongings. He lives all alone by himself in an old-fashioned house on Bedford Place—oh, Such a queer, hunched-up old house and such a quaint old neighborhood poked away behind Jefferson Market—and he opens the door himself and sees everybody who comes—there are not a great many of them nowadays, more's the pity.
There are only a few such houses left up the queer old-fashioned street where he lives. The others were pulled down long ago, or pushed out to the line of the sidewalk and three or four stories piled on top of them. Some of these modern ones have big, carved marble porticos, made of painted zinc and fastened to the new brickwork. Inside these portals are a row of bronze bells and a line of speaking tubes with cards below bearing the names of those who dwell above.
The Doctor's house is not like one of these. It would have been had it not belonged to his old mother, who died long ago and who begged him never to sell it while he lived. He was thirty years younger then, but he is still there and so is the old house. It looks a little ashamed of its shabbiness when you come upon it suddenly hiding behind its pushing neighbors. First comes an iron fence with a gate never shut, and then a flagged path dividing a grass-plot, and then an old-fashioned wooden stoop with two steps, guarded by a wooden railing (many a day since these were painted); and over these railings and up the supports which carry the roof of the portico straggles a honeysuckle that does its best to hide the shabbiness of the shingles and the old waterspout and sagging gutter, and fails miserably when it gets to the farther cornice, which has rotted away, showing under its dismal paint the black and brown rust of decaying wood.
Then way in under the portico comes the door with the name-plate, and next to it, level with the floor of the piazza or portico—either you please, for it is a combination of both—are two long French windows, always open in summer evenings and a-light on winter nights with the reflection of the Doctor's soft-coal fire, telling of the warmth and cheer within.
For it is a cheery place. It doesn't look like a doctor's office. There are dingy haircloth sofas, it is true, and a row of shelves with bottles, and funny-looking boxes on the mantel—one an electric battery—and rows and rows of books on the walls. But there are no dreadful instruments about. If there are, you don't see them.
The big chair he sits in would swallow up a smaller man. It is covered with Turkey red and has a roll cushion for his head. There are two of these chairs—one for you, or me; this last has big arms that come out and catch you under the elbows, a mighty help to a man when he has just learned that his liver or lungs or heart or some other part of him has gone wrong and needs overhauling.
Then there is a canary that sings all the time, and a small dog—oh, such a low-down, ill-bred, tousled dog; kind of a dog that might have been raised around a lumber-yard—was, probably—one ear gone, half of his tail missing; and there are some pots of flowers, and on the wall near the window where everybody can see is a case of butterflies impaled on pins and covered by a glass. No, you wouldn't think the Doctor's office a grewsome place, and you certainly wouldn't think the Doctor was a grewsome person—not when you come to know him.
If you met him out on Sunday afternoon in his black clothes, white neck-cloth, and well-brushed hat, his gray hair straggling over his coat-collar, pounding his cane on the pavement as he walked, you would say he had a Sunday-school class somewhere. If you should come upon him suddenly, seated before his fire, his gold spectacles clinging to his finely chiselled nose, his thoughtful face bending over his book, you would conclude that you had interrupted some savant, and bow yourself out.
But you must ring his bell at night—say two o'clock A.M.; catch his cheery voice calling through the tube from his bedroom in the rear—"Yes; coming right away—be there soon as I get my clothes on"—feel the strength and sympathy and readiness to help in the man, and try to keep step with him as he hurries on, and then watch him when he enters the sick-room, diffusing hope and cheer and confidence, and listen to the soft, soothing tones of his voice, before you really get at the inside lining of "Doc" Shipman.
All this brings me to the story. Of course, I could have told you the bare facts without giving you an idea of the man and his surroundings, but that wouldn't be fair to you, for you would have missed knowing the Doctor, and I the opportunity of introducing him to you.
We were sitting in the old-fashioned office, then, one snowy night in January, the Doctor leaning back in his chair, his meerschaum pipe in his mouth—the one with the gold cap that a long-ago patient gave him—when he straightened his back and tugged at his fob, bringing to the surface a small gold watch—one I had not seen before.
"Where's the silver one?" I asked, referring to an old silver-backed watch I had seen him wear.
The Doctor looked up and smiled.
"That's in the drawer. I don't wear it any more—not since I got this one back."
"What happened? Was it broken?"
"No, stolen."
"When?"
"Oh, some time ago. Help yourself to a cigar and I'll tell you about it.
"One night last summer I came in late, took off my coat and vest, hung them on a chair by the window and went to bed, leaving the sashes ajar, for it was terribly hot and I wanted a draught of air through from my bedroom."
(I must tell my reader here that the Doctor is a born story-teller and something of an actor as well. He seldom explains his characters or situations as he goes on by putting in "I said" and "he said" and similar expressions. You know by the tones of his voice who is speaking, and his gestures supply the rest.)
"I always carried this watch in my vest-pocket. I carry it now inside my waistband so they will have to pull me to pieces to get it.
"Well, about three o'clock in the morning—I had just heard the old clock in the tower strike, and was dozing off to sleep again—a footstep awoke me to consciousness. I looked through these doors"—here the Doctor was pointing to the folding doors of the office where we sat—"and through my bedroom saw the dim outline of a man moving about this room. He had my vest and trousers over his arm. I sprang up, but he was too quick for me, and before I could reach him he had slipped through the windows out on to the porch, down the yard, through the gate, and was gone.
"With him went my mother's watch, which was in the upper vest-pocket, and some fifty dollars in money. I didn't mind the money, but I did the watch. It was my mother's, a present from my father when they were first married, and had the initials 'E.M.S. from J.H.S.' engraved on the under side of the case. When she died I pasted the dear old lady's photograph inside the upper lid. I know almost everybody around here, and they all know me; they come in here with broken heads for me to sew up, and stab wounds, and such-like misfortunes, and when they heard what had happened to me they all did what they could.
"The Captain of the precinct came around, and everybody was very sorry, and they hunted the pawnshops, and I offered a reward—in fact, did all the foolish things you do when you have lost something you think a heap of. But no trace of the watch could be found, and so I gave it up and tried to forget it and couldn't. That's why I bought that cheap silver one. My only clew to the thief was the glimpse I had of a scar on his cheek and a slight dragging of his foot as he stepped about my room.
"One night last autumn there came a ring at the bell, and I let in a man with a slouch hat pulled over his eyes and the collar of his coat turned up. He was soaking wet, the water oozing from his shoes and slopping the oilcloth in the hall where he stood. I had never seen him before.
"'Doc,' he said, 'I want you.' They all call me 'Doc' around here—especially this kind of a man—and I saw right away where he belonged.
"'What for?'
"'My pal's sick.'
"'What's the matter with him?'
"'Well, he's sick—took bad. He'll die if he don't git help.'
"'Where is he?'
"'Down in Washington Street.'
"'Queer,' I said to myself, 'his wanting me to go two miles from here, when there are plenty of doctors nearer by,' and so I said to him:
"'You can get a doctor nearer than me. I'm waiting for a woman case and may be sent for any minute. Try the Dispensary on Canal Street; they've always a doctor there.'
"'No—we don't want no Dispensary sharp. We want you. Pal's sent me for you—he knows you, but you mightn't remember him.'
"'I'll go.' These are the people I can never refuse. They are on the hunted side of life and don't have many friends. I slipped on my rubbers and coat, picked up my umbrella and my bag with my instruments in it; hung a card in the window so the hall-light would strike it, marked 'Back in an hour'—in case the woman sent for me; locked my door and started after him.
"It was an awful night. The streets were running rivers, the wind rattling the shutters and flattening the umbrellas of everybody who tried to carry one—one of those storms that drives straight at the front of the house, drenching it from chimney to sidewalk. We waited under the gas-lamp, boarded a Sixth Avenue car, and got out at a signal from my companion. During the trip he sat in the far corner of the car, his hat slouched over his eyes, his coat-collar covering his ears. He evidently did not want to be recognized.
"If you know the neighborhood about Washington Street you know it's the last resort of the hunted. When they want to hide, they burrow under one of these rookeries. That's where the police look for them, only they've got so many holes they can't stop them all. Captain Packett of the Ninth Precinct told me the other day that he'd rather hunt a rattlesnake in a tiger's cage than go open-handed into some of the rookeries around Washington Street. I am never afraid in these places; a doctor's like a Sister of Charity or a hospital nurse—they're safe anywhere. I don't believe that other fellow would have stolen my watch if he had known I was a doctor.
"When we left the car at Canal Street, my companion whispered to me to follow him, no matter where he went. We kept along close to the houses, past the dives—the streets, even here, were almost deserted; then I saw him drop down a cellarway. I followed, through long passages, up a creaking pair of stairs, along a deserted corridor—only one gas-jet burning—up a second flight of stairs and into an empty room, the door of which he opened with a key which he held in his hand. He waited until I passed in, locked the door behind us, felt his way to a window, the glow of some lights in the tenements opposite giving the only light in the room, and raised the sash. Then down a fire-escape, across a wooden bridge, which was evidently used to connect the two buildings; through an open door, and up another stairs. At the end of this last corridor my companion pushed open a door.
"'Here's the "Doc,"' I heard him say.
"I looked into a room about as big as this we sit in. It was filled with men, most of them on the floor with their backs to the wall. There was a cot in one corner, and a pine table on which stood a cheap kerosene lamp, and one or two chairs. The only other furniture were a flour-barrel and a dry-goods box. On top of the barrel was a tin coffeepot, a china cup, and half a loaf of bread. Against the window—there was but one—was tacked a ragged calico quilt, shutting out air and light. Flat on the floor, where the light of the lamp fell on his face, lay a man dressed only in his trousers and undershirt. The shirt was clotted with blood; so were the mattress under him and the floor.
"'Shot?' I asked of the man nearest me.
"'Yes.'
"I knelt down on the floor beside him and opened his shirt. The wound was just above the heart; the bullet had struck a rib, missed the lungs, and gone out at the back. Dangerows, but not necessarily fatal.
"The man turned his head and opened his eyes. He was a stockily built fellow of thirty with a clean-shaven face.
"'Is that you, "Doc"?'
"'Yes, where does it hurt?'
"'"Doc" Shipman—who used to be at Bellevue five or six years ago?'
"'Yes—now tell me where the pain is.'
"'Let me look at you. Yes—that's him. That's the "Doc," boys. Where does it hurt?—Oh, all around here—back worst'—and he passed his hand over his side.
"I looked him over again, put in a few stitches, and fixed him up for the night. When I had finished he said:
"'Come closer, "Doc"; am I going to die?'
"'No, not this time; you'll pull through. Close shave, but you'll weather it. But you want some air. Here, you fellows'—and I motioned to two men leaning against the quilt tacked over the window—'rip that off and open that window. He's got to breathe—too many of you in here, anyway,'
"One of the men moved the lidless dry-goods box against the wall, picked up the kerosene lamp and placed it inside, smothering its light; the other tore the lower end of the quilt from the sash, letting in the fresh, wet night-air.
"I turned to the wounded man again.
"'You say you've seen me before?'
"'Yes, once. You sewed this up'—and he held up his arm showing a healed scar. 'You've forgot it, but I haven't.'
"'Where?'
"'Bellevue. They took me in there. You treated me white. That's why my pal hunted you up. Say, Bill'—and he called to my companion with the slouch hat—'pay the "Doc."'
"Half a dozen men dove instantly into their pockets, but my companion already had his roll of bills in his hand. He bent over so that the glow of the half-smothered lamp could fall upon his hand, unrolled a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me.
"I passed it back to him. 'I don't want this. Five dollars is my fee. If you haven't anything smaller, wait till I come to-morrow, then you can give me a ten. I'm ready to go now; lead the way out.'
"Next morning I went to see him again. Bill, by arrangement, met me at the corner of the street and took me to the wounded man's room, in and out, by the same route we had taken the night before. I found he had passed a good night, had no fever, and was all right. I left some medicine and directions, got my ten dollars, and never went again.
"Last month, some two days before Christmas, I was sitting here reading—it was after twelve o'clock—when I heard a tap on the window-pane. I pushed aside the shade and looked out a thick-set man motioned me to open the door. When he got inside the hall he said:
"'Ain't forgot me again, have you, "Doc"!'
"'No, you're the man I fixed up in Washington Street last fall.'
"'Yea, that's right, "Doc"; that's me. Can I come in? I got something for you.'
"I brought him in and he sat down on that sofa. Then he pulled out a package from his inside pocket.
"'"Doc,"' he began, 'I was thinking to-night of what you done for me and how you did it, and how decent you've been about it always, and I thought maybe you wouldn't feel offended if I brought you this bunch of scarfpins to take your pick from'—and he unwrapped the bundle. 'There's a pearl one—that might please you—and here's another that sparkles—take your pick, "Doc." It would please me a heap if you would'—and he handed me half a dozen scarfpins stuck in a flannel rag—some of them of great value.
"I didn't know what to say at first. I couldn't get mad. I saw he was in dead earnest, and I saw, too, that it was pure gratitude on his part that prompted him to do it. That's a kind of human feeling you don't want to crush out in a man. When he's got that, no matter what else he lacks, you've got something to build on. I pulled out the pearl pin from the others. I wanted to get time to make up my mind as to what I really ought to do.
"'Very nice pin,' I said.
"'Yes, I thought so. I got it on a Sixth Avenue car. Maybe you'll like the gold one better; take your pick, it's all the same to me. That one you've got in your hand is a good one.' I was slowly looking them over, making up my mind how I would refuse them and not hurt his feelings.
"'How did you get this one?' I asked, holding up the pearl pin.
"'I picked it up outside Cooper Union.'
"'On the sidewalk?'
"'No, from a feller's scarf. I held the cab door for him.' He spoke exactly as if he had been a collector who had been roaming the world for curios. 'Take 'em both, "Doc"—or all of 'em—I mean it.'
"I laid the bundle on the table and said: 'Well, that's very kind of you and I don't want you to think I don't appreciate it—but you see I don't wear scarfpins, and if I did I don't think I ought to take these. You see we have two different professions—you've got yours and I've got mine. I saw off men's legs, or I help them through a spell of sickness. They pay me for it in money. You've got another way of making your living. Your patients are whoever you happen to meet. I mightn't like your way of doing, and you mightn't like mine. That's a matter of opinion, or, perhaps, of education. You've got your risks to run, and I've got mine. If I cut too deep and kill a man they can shut me up—just as they can if you get into trouble. But I don't think we ought to mix up the proceeds. You wouldn't want me to give you this five-dollar Bill—and I held up a note a patient had just paid me—'and therefore I don't see how I ought to take one of your pins. I may not have made it plain to you—but it strikes me that way.'
"'Then you ain't mad 'cause I brought 'em?'—and he looked at me searchingly from under his dark eyebrows, his lips firmly set.
"'No, I'm very grateful to you for wanting to give them to me—only I don't see my way clear to take them.'
"He settled back on the sofa and began twirling his hat with his hand. Then he rose from his seat, a shade of disappointment on his face, and said, slowly:
"'Well, "Doc," ain't there something else I can do for you? Man like you must havesomethingyou want—something you can't get without somebody's help. Think now—you mightn't see me again.'
"Instantly I thought of my mother's watch.
"'Yes, there is. Somebody came along one night when I was asleep and borrowed my vest hanging over that chair by the window, and my trousers, and my mother's watch was in the vest pocket. If you could help me get that back you would do me a real service—one I wouldn't forget.'
"'What kind of a watch?'
"I described it closely, its inscription, the portrait of my mother in the case, and showed him a copy of her photograph—like the one here. Then I gave him as close a description of the man as I could.
"When I had described the scar on his face he looked at me in surprise. When I added that he had a slight limp, he said, quickly:
"'Short man—with close-cropped hair—and a swipe across his chin. Lost a toe, and stumbles when he walks. I'll see what I can do. He ain't one of our men. He comes from Chicago. He never stays more'n a day or two in any town. Don't none of 'em know him round here. Leave it to me; may take some time—see you in a day or two'—and he went out.
"I didn't see him for a month—not until two nights ago. He didn't ring the bell this time. He came in through the window. I thought the catch was down, but it wasn't. Funny how quick these fellows can see a thing. As soon as he shut the glass sash behind him he drew the curtains close; then he turned down the gas. All this, mind you, before he had opened his mouth. Then he said:
"'Anybody here but you?'
"'No.'
"'Sure?'
"'Yee, very sure.'
"He spoke in a husky, rasping voice, like a man who had caught his breath again after a long run.
"He turned his back to the window, slipped his hand in his hip-pocket and pulled out my mother's watch.
"'Is that it, "Doc"?'
"The light was pretty low, but I'd have known it in the dark.
"'Yes, of course it is—' and I opened the lid in search of the old lady's photo. 'Where did you get it?'
"'Look again. There ain't no likeness.'
"'No, but here are the marks where they scraped it off'—and I held it close to his eyes. 'Where did you get it?'
"'Don't ask no questions, "Doc." I had some trouble gittin' next the goods, and maybe it ain't over yet. I'll know in the morning. If anybody asks you anything about it, you ain't lost no watch—see? Last time you seen me I was goin' West, see—don't forget that. That's all, "Doc." If you're pleased, I'm satisfied.'
"He held out his hand to say good-by, but I wouldn't take it. His appearance, the tone of his voice, and his hunted look made me a little nervous.
"'Sit down. You'll let me pay you for it, won't you? Wait until I go back in my bedroom for some money.'
"'No, "Doc," you can't pay me a cent. I'm sorry they got the mother's picture, but I couldn't catch up with the goods before. That would have been the best part of it for me. Mothers is scarce now—kind you and me had—dead or alive. You won't mind if I turn out the gas while I slip out, do you, and you won't mind either if I ask you to sit still here. Somebody might see you—' and he shook my hand and started for the window. As his hand neared the latch I could see in the dim light that his movements were unsteady. Once he stumbled and clutched at the bookcase for support——
"'Hold on,' I said—and I walked rapidly toward him—'don't go yet—you are not well.'
"He leaned against the bookcase and put his hand to his side.
"I was alongside of him now, my arm under his, guiding him into a chair.
"'Are you faint?'
"'Yes—got a drop of anything, "Doc"? That's all I want. It ain't nothing.'
"I opened my closet, took out a bottle of brandy and poured some into a measuring-glass. He drank it, leaned his head for an instant against my arm and, with the help of my hand slipped under his armpit, again struggled to his feet.
"When I withdrew my hand it was covered with blood. It was too dark to see the color, but I knew from the sticky feeling of it just what it was.
"'My God! man,' I cried; 'you are hurt, your shirt's all bloody. Come back here until I can see what's the matter.'
"'No, "Doc"—no!I tell you. It's stopped bleeding now. It would be tough for you if they pinched me here. Keep away, I tell you—I ain't got a minute to lose. I didn't want to hurt him even after he gave me this one in my back, but his girl was wearing it and there warn't no other way. Git behind them curtains, "Doc." So! Good-by.'
"And he was gone."