"Dieu! qu'il fait bon la regarder,La gracieuse, bonne et belle!Pour les grands biens qui sont en elleChacun est prêt de la louer."
"Dieu! qu'il fait bon la regarder,La gracieuse, bonne et belle!Pour les grands biens qui sont en elleChacun est prêt de la louer."
Nobody knew exactly how Svengali lived, and very few knew where (or why). He occupied a roomy dilapidated garret, au sixième, in the Rue Tire-Liard; with a truckle-bed and a piano-forte for furniture, and very little else.
He was poor; for in spite of his talent he had not yet made his mark in Paris. His manners may have been accountable for this. He would either fawn or bully, and could be grossly impertinent. He had a kind of cynical humor, which was more offensive than amusing, and always laughed at the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. And his laughter was always derisive and full of malice. And his egotism and conceit were not to be borne; and then he was both tawdry and dirty in his person; more greasily, mattedly unkempt than even a really successful pianist has any right to be, even in the best society.
He was not a nice man, and there was no pathos in his poverty—a poverty that was not honorable, and need not have existed at all; for he was constantly receiving supplies from his own people in Austria—his old father and mother, his sisters, his cousins, and hisaunts, hard-working, frugal folk of whom he was the pride and the darling.
He had but one virtue—his love of his art; or, rather, his love of himself as a master of his art—themaster; for he despised, or affected to despise, all other musicians, living or dead—even those whose work he interpreted so divinely, and pitied them for not hearing Svengali give utterance to their music, which of course they could not utter themselves.
"Ils safent tous un peu toucher du biâno, mais pas grand'chose!"
He had been the best pianist of his time at the Conservatory in Leipsic; and, indeed, there was perhaps some excuse for this overweening conceit, since he was able to lend a quite peculiar individual charm of his own to any music he played, except the highest and best of all, in which he conspicuously failed.
He had to draw the line just above Chopin, where he reached his highest level. It will not do to lend your own quite peculiar individual charm to Handel and Bach and Beethoven; and Chopin is not bad as apis-aller.
He had ardently wished to sing, and had studied hard to that end in Germany, in Italy, in France, with the forlorn hope of evolving from some inner recess a voice to sing with. But nature had been singularly harsh to him in this one respect—inexorable. He was absolutely without voice, beyond the harsh, hoarse, weak raven's croak he used to speak with, and no method availed to make one for him. But he grew to understand the human voice as perhaps no one has understood it—before or since.
So in his head he went forever singing, singing, singing, as probably no human nightingale has ever yet been able to sing out loud for the glory and delight of his fellow-mortals; making unheard heavenly melody of the cheapest, trivialest tunes—tunes of the café concert, tunes of the nursery, the shop-parlor, the guard-room, the school-room, the pothouse, the slum. There was nothing so humble, so base even, but that his magic could transform it into the rarest beauty without altering a note. This seems impossible, I know. But if it didn't, where would the magic come in?
Whatever of heart or conscience—pity, love, tenderness, manliness, courage, reverence, charity—endowed him at his birth had been swallowed up by this one faculty, and nothing of them was left for the common uses of life. He poured them all into his little flexible flageolet.
Svengali playing Chopin on the piano-forte, even (or especially) Svengali playing "Ben Bolt" on that penny whistle of his, was as one of the heavenly host.
"AS BAD AS THEY MAKE 'EM""AS BAD AS THEY MAKE 'EM"
Svengali walking up and down the earth seeking whom he might cheat, betray, exploit, borrow money from, make brutal fun of, bully if he dared, cringe to if he must—man, woman, child, or dog—was about as bad as they make 'em.
To earn a few pence when he couldn't borrow themhe played accompaniments at café concerts, and even then he gave offence; for in his contempt for the singer he would play too loud, and embroider his accompaniments with brilliant improvisations of his own, and lift his hands on high and bring them down with a bang in the sentimental parts, and shake his dirty mane and shrug his shoulders, and smile and leer at the audience, and do all he could to attract their attention to himself. He also gave a few music lessons (not at ladies' schools, let us hope), for which he was not well paid, presumably, since he was always without the sou, always borrowing money, that he never paid back, and exhausting the pockets and the patience of one acquaintance after another.
He had but two friends. There was Gecko, who lived in a little garret close by in the Impasse des Ramoneurs, and who was second violin in the orchestra of the Gymnase, and shared his humble earnings with his master, to whom, indeed, he owed his great talent, not yet revealed to the world.
Svengali's other friend and pupil was (or rather had been) the mysterious Honorine, of whose conquest he was much given to boast, hinting that she was "une jeune femme du monde." This was not the case. Mademoiselle Honorine Cahen (better known in the quartier latin as Mimi la Salope) was a dirty, drabby little dolly-mop of a Jewess, a model for the figure—a very humble person indeed, socially.
She was, however, of a very lively disposition, and had a charming voice, and a natural gift of singing so sweetly that you forgot her accent, which was that of the "tout ce qu'il y a de plus canaille."
She used to sit at Carrel's, and during the pose she would sing. When Little Billee first heard her he was so fascinated that "it made him sick to think she sat for the figure"—an effect, by-the-way, that was always produced upon him by all specially attractive figure models of the gentler sex, for he had a reverence for woman. And before everything else, he had for the singing woman an absolute worship. He was especially thrall to the contralto—the deep low voice that breaks and changes in the middle and soars all at once into a magnified angelic boy treble. It pierced through his ears to his heart, and stirred his very vitals.
He had once heard Madame Alboni, and it had been an epoch in his life; he would have been an easy prey to the sirens! Even beauty paled before the lovely female voice singing in the middle of the note—the nightingale killed the bird-of-paradise.
I need hardly say that poor Mimi la Salope had not the voice of Madame Alboni, nor the art; but it was a beautiful voice of its little kind, always in the very middle of the note, and her artless art had its quick seduction.
She sang little songs of Béranger's—"Grand'mère, parlez-nous de lui!" or "T'en souviens-tu? disait un capitaine—" or "Enfants, c'est moi qui suis Lisette!" and such like pretty things, that almost brought the tears to Little Billee's easily moistened eyes.
But soon she would sing little songs that were not by Béranger—little songs with slang words Little Billee hadn't French enough to understand; but from the kind of laughter with which the points were receivedby the "rapins" in Carrel's studio he guessed these little songs were vile, though the touching little voice was as that of the seraphim still; and he knew the pang of disenchantment and vicarious shame.
Svengali had heard her sing at the Brasserie des Porcherons in the Rue du Crapaud-volant, and had volunteered to teach her; and she went to see him in his garret, and he played to her, and leered and ogled, and flashed his bold, black, beady Jew's eyes into hers, and she straightway mentally prostrated herself in reverence and adoration before this dazzling specimen of her race.
So that her sordid, mercenary little gutter-draggled soul was filled with the sight and the sound of him, as of a lordly, godlike, shawm-playing, cymbal-banging hero and prophet of the Lord God of Israel—David and Saul in one!
And then he set himself to teach her—kindly and patiently at first, calling her sweet little pet names—his "Rose of Sharon," his "pearl of Pabylon," his "cazelle-eyed liddle Cherusalem skylark"—and promised her that she should be the queen of the nightingales.
But before he could teach her anything he had to unteach her all she knew; her breathing, the production of her voice, its emission—everything was wrong. She worked indefatigably to please him, and soon succeeded in forgetting all the pretty little sympathetic tricks of voice and phrasing Mother Nature had taught her.
"A VOICE HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND""A VOICE HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND"
But though she had an exquisite ear, she had no real musical intelligence—no intelligence of any kindexcept about sous and centimes; she was as stupid as a little downy owl, and her voice was just a light native warble, a throstle's pipe, all in the head and nose and throat (a voice hedidn'tunderstand, for once), a thing of mere youth and health and bloom and high spirits—like her beauty, such as it was—beauté du diable, beauté damnée.
She did her very best, and practised all she could in this new way, and sang herself hoarse: she scarcely ate or slept for practising. He grew harsh and impatient and coldly severe, and of coarse she loved him all the more; and the more she loved him the more nervous she got and the worse she sang. Her voice cracked; her ear became demoralized; her attempts to vocalize grew almost as comical as Trilby's. So that he lost his temper completely, and called her terrible names, and pinched and punched her with his big bony hands till she wept worse than Niobe, and borrowed money of her—five-franc pieces, even francs and demifrancs—which he never paid her back; and browbeat and bullied and ballyragged her till she went quite mad for love of him, and would have jumped out of his sixth-floor window to give him a moment's pleasure!
He did not ask her to do this—it never occurred to him, and would have given him no pleasure to speak of. But one fine Sabbath morning (a Saturday, of course) he took her by the shoulders and chucked her, neck and crop, out of his garret, with the threat that if she ever dared to show her face there again he would denounce her to the police—an awful threat to the likes of poor Mimi la Salope!
"For where did all those five-franc pieces come from—hein?—with which she had tried to pay for all the singing-lessons that had been thrown away upon her? Not from merely sitting to painters—hein?"
Thus the little gazelle-eyed Jerusalem skylark went back to her native streets again—a mere mud-lark of the Paris slums—her wings clipped, her spirit quenched and broken, and with no more singing left in her than a common or garden sparrow—not so much!
And so, no more of "la betite Honorine!"
The morning after this adventure Svengali woke up in his garret with a tremendous longing to spend a happy day; for it was a Sunday, and a very fine one.
He made a long arm and reached his waistcoat and trousers off the floor, and emptied the contents of their pockets on to his tattered blanket; no silver, no gold, only a few sous and two-sou pieces, just enough to pay for a meagrepremier déjeuner!
He had cleared out Gecko the day before, and spent the proceeds (ten francs, at least) in one night's riotous living—pleasures in which Gecko had had no share; and he could think of no one to borrow money from but Little Billee, Taffy, and the Laird, whom he had neglected and left untapped for days.
So he slipped into his clothes, and looked at himself in what remained of a little zinc mirror, and found that his forehead left little to be desired, but that his eyes and temples were decidedly grimy. Wherefore, he poured a little water out of a little jug into a littlebasin, and, twisting the corner of his pocket-handkerchief round his dirty forefinger, he delicately dipped it, and removed the offending stains. His fingers, he thought, would do very well for another day or two as they were; he ran them through his matted black mane, pushed it behind his ears, and gave it the twist he liked (and that was so much disliked by his English friends). Then he put on his béret and his velveteen cloak, and went forth into the sunny streets, with a sense of the fragrance and freedom and pleasantness of Sunday morning in Paris in the month of May.
He found Little Billee sitting in a zinc hip-bath, busy with soap and sponge; and was so tickled and interested by the sight that he quite forgot for the moment what he had come for.
"Himmel! Why the devil are you doing that?" he asked, in his German-Hebrew-French.
"Doingwhat?" asked Little Billee, in his French of Stratford-atte-Bowe.
"Sitting in water and playing with a cake of soap and a sponge!"
"Why, to try and get myselfclean, I suppose!"
"Ach! And how the devil did you get yourselfdirty, then?"
To this Little Billee found no immediate answer, and went on with his ablution after the hissing, splashing, energetic fashion of Englishmen; and Svengali laughed loud and long at the spectacle of a little Englishman trying to get himself clean—"tâchant de se nettoyer!"
When such cleanliness had been attained as was possible under the circumstances, Svengali begged forthe loan of two hundred francs, and Little Billee gave him a five-franc piece.
Content with this,faute de mieux, the German asked him when he would be trying to get himself clean again, as he would much like to come and see him do it.
"Demang mattang, à votre sairveece!" said Little Billee, with a courteous bow.
"What!! Monday too!!Gott in Himmel! you try to get yourself cleanevery day?"
And he laughed himself out of the room, out of the house, out of the Place de l'Odéon—all the way to the Rue de Seine, where dwelt the "Man of Blood," whom he meant to propitiate with the story of that original, Little Billee, trying to get himself clean—that he might borrow another five-franc piece, or perhaps two.
"AND SO, NO MORE.""AND SO, NO MORE."
As the reader will no doubt anticipate, he found Taffy in his bath too, and fell to laughing with such convulsive laughter, such twistings, screwings, and doublings of himself up, such pointings of his dirty forefinger at the huge naked Briton, that Taffy was offended, and all but lost his temper.
"What the devil are you cackling at, sacred headof pig that you are? Do you want to be pitched out of that window into the Rue de Seine? You filthy black Hebrew sweep! Just you wait a bit;I'llwash your head for you!"
And Taffy jumped out of his bath, such a towering figure of righteous Herculean wrath that Svengali was appalled, and fled.
"Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed, as he tumbled down the narrow staircase of the Hôtel de Seine; "what for a thick head! what for a pig-dog! what for a rotten, brutal, verfluchter kerl of an Englander!"
Then he paused for thought.
"Now will I go to that Scottish Englander, in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, for that other five-franc piece. But first will I wait a little while till he has perhaps finished trying to get himself clean."
So he breakfasted at the crèmerie Souchet, in the Rue Clopin-Clopant, and, feeling quite safe again, he laughed and laughed till his very sides were sore.
Two Englanders in one day—as naked as your hand!—a big one and a little one, trying to get themselves clean!
He rather flattered himself he'd scored off those two Englanders.
After all, he was right perhaps, from his point of view: you can get as dirty in a week as in a lifetime, so what's the use of taking such a lot of trouble? Besides, so long as you are clean enough to suit your kind, to be any cleaner would be priggish and pedantic, and get you disliked.
Just as Svengali was about to knock at the Laird's door, Trilby came down-stairs from Durien's, veryunlike herself. Her eyes were red with weeping, and there were great black rings round them; she was pale under her freckles.
"Fous afez du chacrin, matemoiselle?" asked he.
She told him that she had neuralgia in her eyes, a thing she was subject to; that the pain was maddening, and generally lasted twenty-four hours.
"Perhaps I can cure you; come in here with me."
The Laird's ablutions (if he had indulged in any that morning) were evidently over for the day. He was breakfasting on a roll and butter, and coffee of his own brewing. He was deeply distressed at the sight of poor Trilby's sufferings, and offered whiskey and coffee and gingernuts, which she would not touch.
Svengali told her to sit down on the divan, and sat opposite to her, and bade her look him well in the white of the eyes.
"Recartez-moi pien tans le planc tes yeux."
Then he made little passes and counterpasses on her forehead and temples and down her cheek and neck. Soon her eyes closed and her face grew placid. After a while, a quarter of an hour perhaps, he asked her if she suffered still.
"Oh! presque plus du tout, monsieur—c'est le ciel."
In a few minutes more he asked the Laird if he knew German.
"Just enough to understand," said the Laird (who had spent a year in Düsseldorf), and Svengali said to him in German: "See, she sleeps not, but she shall not open her eyes. Ask her."
"Are you asleep, Miss Trilby?" asked the Laird.
"No."
"Then open your eyes and look at me."
She strained her eyes, but could not, and said so.
Then Svengali said, again in German, "She shall not open her mouth. Ask her."
"'TWO ENGLANDERS IN ONE DAY'""'TWO ENGLANDERS IN ONE DAY'"
"Why couldn't you open your eyes. Miss Trilby?" She strained to open her mouth and speak, but in vain. "She shall not rise from the divan. Ask her." But Trilby was spellbound, and could not move.
"I will now set her free," said Svengali.
And, lo! she got up and waved her arms, and cried, "Vive la Prusse! me v'là guérie!" and in her gratitude she kissed Svengali's hand; and he leered, and showed his big brown teeth and the yellow whites at the top of his big black eyes, and drew his breath with a hiss.
"Now I'll go to Durien's and sit. How can I thank you, monsieur? You have taken all my pain away."
"Yes, matemoiselle. I have got it myself; it is in my elbows. But I love it, because it comes from you. Every time you have pain you shall come to me, 12 Rue Tire-Liard, au sixième au-dessus de l'entresol, and I will cure you and take your pain myself—"
"Oh, you are too good!" and in her high spirits she turned round on her heel and uttered her portentous war-cry, "Milk below!" The very rafters rang with it, and the piano gave out a solemn response.
"What is that you say, matemoiselle?"
"Oh! it's what the milkmen say in England."
"It is a wonderful cry, matemoiselle—wunderschön! It comes straight through the heart; it has its roots in the stomach, and blossoms into music on the lips like the voice of Madame Alboni—voce sulle labbre! It is good production—c'est un cri du cœur!"
Trilby blushed with pride and pleasure.
"Yes, matemoiselle! I only know one person in the whole world who can produce the voice so well as you! I give you my word of honor."
"Who is it, monsieur—yourself?"
"Ach, no, matemoiselle; I have not that privilege.I have unfortunately no voice to produce.... It is a waiter at the Café de la Rotonde, in the Palais Royal; when you call for coffee, he says 'Boum!' in basso profondo. Tiefstimme—F. moll below the line—it is phenomenal! It is like a cannon—a cannon also has very good production, matemoiselle. They pay him for it a thousand francs a year, because he brings many customers to the Café de la Rotonde, where the coffee isn't very good. When he dies they will search all France for another, and then all Germany, where the good big waiters come from—and the cannons—but they will not find him, and the Café de la Rotonde will be bankrupt—unless you will consent to take his place. Will you permit that I shall look into your mouth, matemoiselle?"
She opened her mouth wide, and he looked into it.
"Himmel! the roof of your mouth is like the dome of the Panthéon; there is room in it for 'toutes les gloires de la France,' and a little to spare! The entrance to your throat is like the middle porch of St. Sulpice when the doors are open for the faithful on All-Saints' day; and not one tooth is missing—thirty-two British teeth as white as milk and as big as knuckle-bones! and your little tongue is scooped out like the leaf of a pink peony, and the bridge of your nose is like the belly of a Stradivarius—what a sounding-board! and inside your beautiful big chest the lungs are made of leather! and your breath, it embalms—like the breath of a beautiful white heifer fed on the buttercups, and daisies of the Vaterland! and you have a quick, soft, susceptible heart, a heart of gold, matemoiselle—all that sees itself in your face!
"'HIMMEL! THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH'""'HIMMEL! THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH'"
"'Votre cœur est un luth suspendu!Aussitôt qu'on le touche, il résonne....'
"'Votre cœur est un luth suspendu!Aussitôt qu'on le touche, il résonne....'
What a pity you have not also the musical organization!"
"Oh, but Ihave, monsieur; you heard me sing 'Ben Bolt,' didn't you? What makes you say that?"
Svengali was confused for a moment. Then he said: "When I play the 'Rosemonde' of Schubert, matemoiselle, you look another way and smoke a cigarette.... You look at the big Taffy, at the Little Billee, at the pictures on the walls, or out of window, at the sky, the chimney-pots of Notre Dame de Paris; you do not look at Svengali!—Svengali, who looks at you with all his eyes, and plays you the 'Rosemonde' of Schubert!"
"Oh, maïe, aïe!" exclaimed Trilby; "youdouse lovely language!"
"But never mind, matemoiselle; when your pain arrives, then shall you come once more to Svengali, and he shall take it away from you, and keep it himself for a soufenir of you when you are gone. And when you have it no more, he shall play you the 'Rosemonde' of Schubert, all alone for you; and then, 'Messieurs les étutiants, montez à la chaumière!' ... because it is gayer!And you shall see nothing, hear nothing, think of nothing but Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!"
Here he felt his peroration to be so happy and effective that he thought it well to go at once and make a good exit. So he bent over Trilby's shapely freckled hand and kissed it, and bowed himself outof the room, without even borrowing his five-franc piece.
"He's a rum 'un, ain't he?" said Trilby. "He reminds me of a big hungry spider, and makes me feel like a fly! But he's cured my pain! he's cured my pain! Ah! you don't know what my pain is when it comes!"
"I wouldn't have much to do with him, all the same!" said the Laird. "I'd sooner have any pain than have it cured in that unnatural way, and by such a man as that! He's a bad fellow, Svengali—I'm sure of it! He mesmerized you; that's what it is—mesmerism! I've often heard of it, but never seen it done before. They get you into their power, and just make you do any blessed thing they please—lie, murder, steal—anything! and kill yourself into the bargain when they've done with you! It's just too terrible to think of!"
So spake the Laird, earnestly, solemnly, surprised out of his usual self, and most painfully impressed—and his own impressiveness grew upon him and impressed him still more. He loomed quite prophetic.
Cold shivers went down Trilby's back as she listened. She had a singularly impressionable nature, as was shown by her quick and ready susceptibility to Svengali's hypnotic influence. And all that day, as she posed for Durien (to whom she did not mention her adventure), she was haunted by the memory of Svengali's big eyes and the touch of his soft, dirty finger-tips on her face; and her fear and her repulsion grew together.
And "Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!" went ringingin her head and ears till it became an obsession, a dirge, a knell, an unendurable burden, almost as hard to bear as the pain in her eyes.
"Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!"
At last she asked Durien if he knew him.
"Parbleu! Si je connais Svengali!"
"Quest-ce que t'en penses?"
"Quand il sera mort, ça fera une fameuse crapule de moins!"
Carrel's atelier (or painting-school) was in the Rue Notre Dame des Potirons St. Michel, at the end of a large court-yard, where there were many large dirty windows facing north, and each window let the light of heaven into a large dirty studio.
The largest of these studios, and the dirtiest, was Carrel's, where some thirty or forty art students drew and painted from the nude model every day but Sunday from eight till twelve, and for two hours in the afternoon, except on Saturdays, when the afternoon was devoted to much-needed Augean sweepings and cleanings.
One week the model was male, the next female, and so on, alternating throughout the year.
A stove, a model-throne, stools, boxes, some fifty strongly built low chairs with backs, a couple of score easels and many drawing-boards, completed the mobilier.
The bare walls were adorned with endless caricatures—des charges—in charcoal and white chalk; andalso the scrapings of many palettes—a polychromous decoration not unpleasing.
"'ÇA FERA UNE FAMEUSE CRAPULE DE MOINS'""'ÇA FERA UNE FAMEUSE CRAPULE DE MOINS'"
For the freedom of the studio and the use of the model each student paid ten francs a month to the massier, or senior student, the responsible bellwether of the flock; besides this, it was expected of you, on your entrance or initiation, that you should pay for your footing—yourbienvenue—some thirty, forty, or fifty francs, to be spent on cakes and rum punch all round.
Every Friday Monsieur Carrel, a great artist, and also a stately, well-dressed, and most courteous gentleman (duly decorated with the red rosette of the Legion of Honor), came for two or three hours and went theround, spending a few minutes at each drawing-board or easel—ten or even twelve when the pupil was an industrious and promising one.
He did this for love, not money, and deserved all the reverence with which he inspired this somewhat irreverent and most unruly company, which was made up of all sorts.
Graybeards who had been drawing and painting there for thirty years and more, and remembered other masters than Carrel, and who could draw and paint a torso almost as well as Titian or Velasquez—almost, but not quite—and who could never do anything else, and were fixtures at Carrel's for life.
Younger men who in a year or two, or three or five, or ten or twenty, were bound to make their mark, and perhaps follow in the footsteps of the master; others as conspicuously singled out for failure and future mischance—for the hospital, the garret, the river, the Morgue, or, worse, the traveller's bag, the road, or even the paternal counter.
Irresponsible boys, mere rapins, all laugh and chaff and mischief—"blague et bagout Parisien"; little lords of misrule—wits, butts, bullies; the idle and industrious apprentice, the good and the bad, the clean and the dirty (especially the latter)—all more or less animated by a certainesprit de corps, and working very happily and genially together, on the whole, and always willing to help each other with sincere artistic counsel if it were asked for seriously, though it was not always couched in terms very flattering to one's self-love.
Before Little Billee became one of this band ofbrothers he had been working for three or four years in a London art school, drawing and painting from the life; he had also worked from the antique in the British Museum—so that he was no novice.
As he made his début at Carrel's one Monday morning he felt somewhat shy and ill at ease. He had studied French most earnestly at home in England, and could read it pretty well, and even write it and speak it after a fashion; but he spoke it with much difficulty, and found studio French a different language altogether from the formal and polite language he had been at such pains to learn. Ollendorff does not cater for the quartier latin. Acting on Taffy's advice—for Taffy had worked under Carrel—Little Billee handed sixty francs to the massier for hisbienvenue—a lordly sum—and this liberality made a most favorable impression, and went far to destroy any little prejudice that might have been caused by the daintiness of his dress, the cleanliness of his person, and the politeness of his manners. A place was assigned to him, and an easel and a board; for he elected to stand at his work and begin with a chalk drawing. The model (a male) was posed, and work began in silence. Monday morning is always rather sulky everywhere (except perhaps in judee). During the ten minutes' rest three or four students came and looked at Little Billee's beginnings, and saw at a glance that he thoroughly well knew what he was about, and respected him for it.
Nature had given him a singularly light hand—or rather two, for he was ambidextrous, and could use both with equal skill; and a few months' practice ata London life school had quite cured him of that purposeless indecision of touch which often characterizes the prentice hand for years of apprenticeship, and remains with the amateur for life. The lightest and most careless of his pencil strokes had a precision that was inimitable, and a charm that specially belonged to him, and was easy to recognize at a glance. His touch on either canvas or paper was like Svengali's on the key-board—unique.
As the morning ripened little attempts at conversation were made—little breakings of the ice of silence. It was Lambert, a youth with a singularly facetious face, who first woke the stillness with the following uncalled-for remarks in English very badly pronounced:
"Av you seen my fahzere's ole shoes?"
"I av not seen your fahzere's ole shoes."
Then, after a pause:
"Av you seen my fahzere's ole 'at?"
"I av not seen your fahzere's old 'at!"
Presently another said, "Je trouve qu'il a une jolie tête, l'Anglais."
But I will put it all into English:
"I find that he has a pretty head—the Englishman! What sayyou, Barizel?"
"Yes; but why has he got eyes like brandy-balls, two a penny?"
"Because he's an Englishman!"
"Yes; but why has he got a mouth like a guinea-pig, with two big teeth in front like the double blank at dominos?"
"Because he's an Englishman!"
"'AV YOU SEEN MY FAHZERE'S OLE SHOES?'""'AV YOU SEEN MY FAHZERE'S OLE SHOES?'"
"Yes; but why has he got a back without anybend in it, as if he'd swallowed the Colonne Vendôme as far up as the battle of Austerlitz?"
"Because he's an Englishman!"
And so on, till all the supposed characteristics of Little Billee's outer man were exhausted. Then:
"Papelard!"
"What?"
"Ishould like to know if the Englishman says his prayers before going to bed."
"Ask him."
"Ask him yourself!"
"Ishould like to know if the Englishman has sisters; and if so, how old and how many and what sex."
"Ask him."
"Ask him yourself!"
"Ishould like to know the detailed and circumstantial history of the Englishman's first love, and how he lost his innocence!"
"Ask him," etc., etc., etc.
Little Billee, conscious that he was the object of conversation, grew somewhat nervous. Soon he was addressed directly.
"Dites donc, l'Anglais?"
"Kwaw?" said Little Billee.
"Avez-vous une sœur?''
"Wee."
"Est-ce qu'elle vous ressemble?"
"Nong."
"C'est bien dommage! Est-ce qu'elle dit ses prières, le soir, en se couchant?"
A fierce look came into Little Billee's eyes and aredness to his cheeks, and this particular form of overture to friendship was abandoned.
Presently Lambert said, "Si nous mettions l'Anglais à l'échelle?"
Little Billee, who had been warned, knew what this ordeal meant.
They tied you to a ladder, and carried you in procession up and down the court-yard, and if you were nasty about it they put you under the pump.
During the next rest it was explained to him that he must submit to this indignity, and the ladder (which was used for reaching the high shelves round the studio) was got ready.
Little Billee smiled a singularly winning smile, and suffered himself to be bound with such good-humor that they voted it wasn't amusing, and unbound him, and he escaped the ordeal by ladder.
Taffy had also escaped, but in another way. When they tried to seize him he took up the firstrapinthat came to hand, and, using him as a kind of club, he swung him about so freely and knocked down so many students and easels and drawing-boards with him, and made such a terrific rumpus, that the whole studio had to cry for "pax!" Then he performed feats of strength of such a surprising kind that the memory of him remained in Carrel's studio for years, and he became a legend, a tradition, a myth! It is now said (in what still remains of the quartier latin) that he was seven feet high, and used to juggle with the massier and model as with a pair of billiard balls, using only his left hand!
To return to Little Billee. When it struck twelve,the cakes and rum punch arrived—a very goodly sight that put every one in a good temper.
The cakes were of three kinds—Babas, Madeleines, and Savarins—three sous apiece, fourpence half-penny the set of three. No nicer cakes are made in France, and they are as good in the quartier latin as anywhere else; no nicer cakes are made in the whole world, that I know of. You must begin with the Madeleine, which is rich and rather heavy; then the Baba; and finish up with the Savarin, which is shaped like a ring, very light, and flavored with rum. And then you must really leave off.
The rum punch was tepid, very sweet, and not a bit too strong.
They dragged the model-throne into the middle, and a chair was put on for Little Billee, who dispensed his hospitality in a very polite and attractive manner, helping the massier first, and then the other graybeards in the order of their grayness, and so on down to the model.
Presently, just as he was about to help himself, he was asked to sing them an English song. After a little pressing he sang them a song about a gay cavalier who went to serenade his mistress (and a ladder of ropes, and a pair of masculine gloves that didn't belong to the gay cavalier, but which he found in his lady's bower)—a poor sort of song, but it was the nearest approach to a comic song he knew. There are four verses to it, and each verse is rather long. It does not sound at all funny to a French audience, and even with an English one Little Billee was not good at comic songs.
TAFFY À L'ÉCHELLE!TAFFY À L'ÉCHELLE!
He was, however, much applauded at the end of each verse. When he had finished, he was asked if he werequitesure there wasn't any more of it, and they expressed a deep regret; and then each student, straddling on his little thick-set chair as on a horse, and clasping the back of it in both hands, galloped round Little Billee's throne quite seriously—the strangest procession he had ever seen. It made him laugh till he cried, so that he couldn't eat or drink.
Then he served more punch and cake all round; and just as he was going to begin himself, Papelard said:
"Say, you others, I find that the Englishman has something of truly distinguished in the voice, something of sympathetic, of touching—something ofje ne sais quoi!"
Bouchardy: "Yes, yes—something ofje ne sais quoi! That's the very phrase—n'est-ce pas, vous autres, that is a good phrase that Papelard has just invented to describe the voice of the Englishman. He is very intelligent, Papelard."
Chorus: "Perfect, perfect; he has the genius of characterization, Papelard. Dites donc, l'Anglais! once more that beautiful song—hein? Nous vous en prions tous."
Little Billee willingly sang it again, with even greater applause, and again they galloped, but the other way round and faster, so that Little Billee became quite hysterical, and laughed till his sides ached.
Then Dubosc: "I find there is something of very capitous and exciting in English music—of very stimulating. And you, Bouchardy?"
Bouchardy: "Oh, me! It is above all thewordsthat I admire; they have something of passionate, of romantic—'ze-ese glâ-âves, zese glâ-âves—zey do not belong to me.' I don't know what that means, but I love that sort of—of—of—je ne sais quoi, in short! Justoncemore, l'Anglais; onlyonce, thefourcouplets."
So he sang it a third time, all four verses, while they leisurely ate and drank and smoked and looked at each other, nodding solemn commendation of certain phrases in the song: "Très bien!" "Très bien!" "Ah! voilà qui est bien réussi!" "Épatant, ça!" "Très fin!" etc., etc. For, stimulated by success, and rising to the occasion, he did his very utmost to surpass himself in emphasis of gesture and accent and histrionic drollery—heedless of the fact that not one of his listeners had the slightest notion what his song was about.
It was a sorry performance.
And it was not till he had sung it four times that he discovered the whole thing was an elaborate impromptu farce, of which he was the butt, and that of all his royal spread not a crumb or a drop was left for himself.
It was the old fable of the fox and the crow! And to do him justice, he laughed as heartily as any one, as if he thoroughly enjoyed the joke—and when you take jokes in that way people soon leave off poking fun at you. It is almost as good as being very big, like Taffy, and having a choleric blue eye!
Such was Little Billee's first experience of Carrel'sstudio, where he spent many happy mornings and made many good friends.
No more popular student had ever worked there within the memory of the grayest graybeards; none more amiable, more genial, more cheerful, self-respecting, considerate, and polite, and certainly none with greater gifts for art.
Carrel would devote at least fifteen minutes to him, and invited him often to his own private studio. And often, on the fourth and fifth day of the week, a group of admiring students would be gathered by his easel watching him as he worked.
"C'est un rude lapin, l'Anglais! au moins il sait son orthographe en peinture, ce coco-là!"
Such was the verdict on Little Billee at Carrel's studio; and I can conceive no loftier praise.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Young as she was (seventeen or eighteen, or thereabouts), and also tender (like Little Billee), Trilby had singularly clear and quick perceptions in all matters that concerned her tastes, fancies, or affections, and thoroughly knew her own mind, and never lost much time in making it up.
On the occasion of her first visit to the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, it took her just five minutes to decide that it was quite the nicest, homeliest, genialest, jolliest studio in the whole quartier latin, or out of it, and its three inhabitants, individually and collectively, were more to her taste than any one else she had ever met.
"THE FOX AND THE CROW""THE FOX AND THE CROW"
In the first place, they were English, and she loved to hear her mother-tongue and speak it. It awoke all manner of tender recollections, sweet reminiscences of her childhood, her parents, her old home—such a home as it was—or, rather, such homes; for there had been many flittings from one poor nest to another. The O'Ferralls had been as birds on the bough.
She had loved her parents very dearly; and, indeed, with all their faults, they had many endearing qualities—the qualities that so often go with those particular faults—charm, geniality, kindness, warmth of heart, the constant wish to please, the generosity that comes before justice, and lends its last sixpence and forgets to pay its debts!
She knew other English and American artists, and had sat to them frequently for the head and hands; but none of these, for general agreeableness of aspect or manner, could compare in her mind with the stalwart and magnificent Taffy, the jolly fat Laird of Cockpen, the refined, sympathetic, and elegant Little Billee; and she resolved that she would see as much of them as she could, that she would make herself at home in that particular studio, and necessary to its "locataires"; and, without being the least bit vain or self-conscious, she had no doubts whatever of her power to please—to make herself both useful and ornamental if it suited her purpose to do so.
Her first step in this direction was to borrow Père Martin's basket and lantern and pick (he had more than one set of these trade properties) for the use of Taffy, whom she feared she might have offended by the freedom of her comments on his picture.
Then, as often as she felt it to be discreet, she sounded her war-cry at the studio door and went in and made kind inquiries, and, sitting cross-legged on the model-throne, ate her bread and cheese and smoked her cigarette and "passed the time of day," as she chose to call it; telling them all such news of the quartier as had come within her own immediate ken. She was always full of little stories of other studios, which, to do her justice, were always good-natured, and probably true—quite so, as far as she was concerned; she was the most literal person alive; and she told all these "ragots, cancans, et potins d'atelier" in a quaint and amusing manner. The slightest look of gravity or boredom on one of those three faces, and she made herself scarce at once.
She soon found opportunities for usefulness also. If a costume were wanted, for instance, she knew where to borrow it, or hire it or buy it cheaper than any one anywhere else. She procured stuffs for them at cost price, as it seemed, and made them into draperies and female garments of any kind that was wanted, and sat in them for the toreador's sweetheart (she made the mantilla herself), for Taffy's starving dress-maker about to throw herself into the Seine, for Little Billee's studies of the beautiful French peasant girl in his picture, now so famous, called "The Pitcher Goes to the Well."
Then she darned their socks and mended their clothes, and got all their washing done properly and cheaply at her friend Madame Boisse's, in the Rue des Cloîtres Ste. Pétronille.
And then again, when they were hard up and wanteda good round sum of money for some little pleasure excursion, such as a trip to Fontainebleau or Barbizon for two or three days, it was she who took their watches and scarf-pins and things to the Mount of Piety in the Street of the Well of Love (where dwelt "ma tante," which is French for "my uncle" in this connection), in order to raise the necessary funds.
THE LATIN QUARTERTHE LATIN QUARTER
She was, of course, most liberally paid for all these little services, rendered with such pleasure and good-will—far too liberally, she thought. She would have been really happier doing them for love.
Thus in a very short time she became apersona gratissima—a sunny and ever welcome vision of health and grace and liveliness and unalterable good-humor,always ready to take any trouble to please her beloved "Angliches," as they were called by Madame Vinard, the handsome shrill-voicedconcierge, who was almost jealous; for she was devoted to the Angliches too—and so was Monsieur Vinard—and so were the little Vinards.
She knew when to talk and when to laugh and when to hold her tongue; and the sight of her sitting cross-legged on the model-throne darning the Laird's socks or sewing buttons on his shirts or repairing the smoke-holes in his trousers was so pleasant that it was painted by all three. One of these sketches (in water-color, by Little Billee) sold the other day at Christie's for a sum so large that I hardly dare to mention it. It was done in an afternoon.
Sometimes on a rainy day, when it was decided they should dine at home, she would fetch the food and cook it, and lay the cloth, and even make the salad. She was a better saladist than Taffy, a better cook than the Laird, a better caterer than Little Billee. And she would be invited to take her share in the banquet. And on these occasions her tremulous happiness was so immense that it would be quite pathetic to see—almost painful; and their three British hearts were touched by thoughts of all the loneliness and homelessness, the expatriation, the half-conscious loss of caste, that all this eager childish clinging revealed.
And that is why (no doubt) that with all this familiar intimacy there was never any hint of gallantry or flirtation in any shape or form whatever—bonne camaraderie, voilà tout. Had she been Little Billee's sister she could not have been treated with more realrespect. And her deep gratitude for this unwonted compliment transcended any passion she had ever felt. As the good Lafontaine so prettily says,