CHAPTER II
THAT MUDDLE-HEADED SANTA CLAUS
In the morning Anastasia always has her ménage to do. She sweeps till the parquet is like a mirror, and dusts till not a speck can you find from floor to ceiling. No priest could take his ministrations more seriously than Anastasia her daily routine as a femme d’intérieur, and on these occasions she makes me feel negligible to the point of humility. So I kiss her, and after being duly inspected and adjured to take precious care of myself, I am permitted to depart.
Oh, these morning walks! How this Paris inspires and exalts me! The year is closing with a seasonable brilliancy of starry nights and diamond-bright mornings. How radiant the sunshine seems as I emerge from our gloomy porch-way, with its prison-like gate! The gaunt rue Mazarin is a lane of light, and the ancient houses, with their inscriptions of honourable service seem to smile in every wrinkle. Each has a character of its own. There are some that step disdainfully back from their fellows, and there are quaint roofs and unexpected, pokey little windows, and a dilapidated irregularity that takes one back to the days of swashbuckling romance.
At the end of the street I stop to give a penny to the blind man who stamps his cold feet and holds out his red hand. On this particular morning he stamps a little more vigorously than usual, and the red hand is so numb that it seems insensible to the touch of the copper coin. The Seine flashes with light. Upholstered with its long, slim quays, it looks more than ever gilt and gracious. Yes, it is cold. The darting bâteaux-mouche are icicle-fringed, and the guardians of the few book-bins that are open are muffled to the ears. I wear no coat, because, except for my old mackintosh, I do not possess one. I have, however, bought a long muffler which I wind around my throat, and allow to flutter behind. People look oddly at me; because, where the world wears a coat, the coatless man becomes a mark.
From the Pont des Arts the river is yellow in colour, and seethes with slush ice. The sun is poised above the Institute, whose dome is black against the sky. The Ile de la Cite is a wedge of high grey houses that seem to pierce the Pont-Neuf bridge, and protrude in a green point, dominated by an enormous tree, through whose branches I can dimly discern the statue of Henri Quatre. Afar, the sweeping rampart of houses that overhang the river melts in pearly haze, and the dim ranges of roofs uprise like an arena amid which I can see the time-defying towers of Notre Dame and the piercing delicacy of the spire, as it claims the sun in a lance of light.
Here I pause to fill (with reverence) the meerschaum pipe, which is colouring as coyly as a sunkissed peach. “What a privilege to live in this adorable Paris!” I think: “How exasperatingly beautiful!”
Under the statue of Voltaire I stop for a moment to regard that enigmatic smile: then I turn to the rue Bonaparte. The École des Beaux-Arts is disgorging its students, fantastic little fellows with broad-brimmed hats and dark, downy faces. Here they come, these vivacious rapins drawn from all the world by that mighty magnet, Paris. Art is in the very air. In that old quadrangle it quivers from each venerable stone. It challenges at every turn. The shops that line the street exude it. Since I have come here it is odd how I have felt its inspiration, so confident and serene, making me disgusted with everything I have done.
Striking up the rue de Rennes I come to a doorway bearing the sign in large letters:
MONT DE PIETE
Trust the French to do things gracefully. Now, if this was a sordid Anglo-Saxon pawnshop I would be reconnoitring up and down, imagining every one knew my errand. Then I would sneak upstairs like a thief trying to dispose of stolen property. But a Mont de Piété—“here goes!”
In spite, however, of its benevolent designation I find this French pawnshop in no way disposed to generosity. Even the most hardened London pawnbroker could hardly be more niggard in appraisal of my silver cigarette case than this polite Mont de Pietist who offers me twenty francs on it. Twenty! it is worth eighty; but my French is too rudimentary for argument, and as twenty francs is not enough for my purpose I draw forth with a sigh my precious meerschaum and realise another five francs on that.
“What does it matter?” I think dolefully. “’Til the tide turns no more smoking. After all, oh mighty Nicotine, am I thy slave? Never! Here do I defy thee! Oh, little pipe, farewell! We’ll meet again, I trust, in the shade of the mazuma tree.”
It is now nearly half-past eleven, and already the Parisian mind is turning joyfully to thoughts of déjeûner. Portly men, to whom eating is a religion are spurring appetite with apéritif. Within the restaurants many have already lunched on a sea of Graves and gravy. “Be it ever so humble,” I decide. “There’s no cooking like ‘Home.’”
With which sentiment I pause before a little shop devoted to the sale of ladies’ furs, and joyfully regard the object of my journey. It is a large, sleek, glossy muff of the material known as electric rabbit, and its price is twenty-five francs. It just matches a long wrap of Anastasia’s, rather worn out but still nice looking.
“How lucky I ran across it yesterday!” I think, as I hurry joyfully home with the muff under my arm. “And to-morrow’s Christmas Day too. I don’t mind giving up tobacco one bit.”
So many others are hastening home with parcels under their arms! Such a happy Santa Claus spirit fills the air! Every one seems so glad-eyed and rosy. I almost feel sorry for the naked cherubs in the centre of the basin in the Luxembourg. Icicles encase them to the toes. Poor little Amours! so pretty in the spring sunshine, now so forlorn.
How quietly I let myself into the apartment, I am afraid she will hear my key scroop in the lock and run as usual to greet me. Softly I slip into the bedroom and pushing the parcel into the suitcase I lock it quickly. Safe!
“Little Thing!” I shout, but there is no reply.
I look into the kitchen, into the dining-room, into the cupboard—no sign of her. Yet often she will hide in order to jump out on me.
“Come out! I know you’re there,” I cry in several corners. No Little Thing.
Then I must confess I begin to feel just a wee bit anxious; when cautiously I hear another key scroop in the lock. It is Anastasia, and she has evidently been walking briskly for her eyes are radiant, and a roseleaf colour flutters in her cheeks. I watch her steal in just as I have done, holding behind her a largish parcel.
“Hullo! What have you got there?”
She jumps, then tries to conceal the package. Seeing that it is useless she turns on me imperiously.
“Go away one moment! Oh go, please!”
“Tell me what’s in your parcel, then.”
“It’s nossing. It’s not your affair. Please give it to me. Now you are not nice. Oh thanks! Now you are nice. To-morrow I show you what it is.”
So I leave off teasing her and make no further reference to the mysterious packet.
There is no doubt the Christmas spirit is getting into me, for I find it more and more difficult to keep my mind on my work. This is distressing, because lately I have been making but slow progress. Often I find myself halting ten minutes or more to empale some elusive word. Greatly am I concerned over rhythm and structure. Of ideas I have no lack; it is form, form that holds me in travail. And the more I perspire over my periods the more self-exacting I seem to become. There will arrive a time, I fear, when my ideal of expression will be so high I will not be able to express myself at all. I wonder if it is something in the air of this Paris that calls to all that is fine and high in the soul?
After supper Anastasia remarks in some surprise: “Why! you do not smoke zis hevening?”
“No, I’m taking a rest. It’s good to leave off sometimes.”
She seems about to say something further, but checks herself. Oh, how I do miss that after-dinner pipe! Life suddenly seems hollow and empty. I had always sworn that the best part of a meal was the smoke after; I had always vowed that tobacco added twenty per cent. to my enjoyment of life, and now—
“Little Thing,” I say presently, “let’s go out on the boulevard. I can’t work to-night. It’s Christmas eve.”
She responds happily. It is always a joy to her to go out with me.
“You’d better put on your fur. It’s awfully cold.”
“No, I don’t sink so this hevening, if you don’t mind. I have not cold, not one bit.”
As we emerge from the gloom of the rue Mazarin the river leaps at us in a blaze of glory. Under a sky of rosy cloud it is a triumph of jewelled vivacity. Exultantly it seems to mirror all the radiance of the city, and the better to display its jewels it undulates in infinite unrest. Here the play of light is like the fluttering of a thousand argent-winged moths, there a weaving of silver foliage, traversed by wriggling emerald snakes. Yonder it is a wimpling of purest platinum; afar, a billowing of beaten bronze. Bridge beyond bridge is jewel-hung, and coruscates with shifting fires. The little steamers drag their chains of trembling gold, their trains of rippling ruby; even the black quays seem to be supported on undulant pillars of amber.
Over yonder on the right bank the great Magasins overspill their radiance. They are like huge honey-combs of light, nearly all window, and each window a square of molten gold. The roaring streets flame in fiery dust, and flakes of gold seem to quiver skyward. Oh, how it stirs me, this Paris! It moves me to delight and despair. To think that I can feel so intensely its wonder and beauty yet to be powerless to express it. I can imagine how too much beauty drives to madness; how the Chinese poet was drowned trying to clasp the silver reflexion of the moon.
And so we walk along, I fathoms deep in dream, and the little grey figure by my side trying to keep pace with me. She, too, has that appreciation of beauty and art that seems innate in every Parisienne, yet she cannot understand how I can stare at a scene ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. However, she is very patient, and effaces herself most happily.
Never have I seen the Boul’ Mich’ so gay, and nearly all are carrying parcels. A million messengers of Santa Claus are hastening to fill with delight the eyes of innocence. The Petit Jésus they call him here, these charming Parisian children. Their precious letters to him, placed so carefully in the chimney, are often wept over by mothers in estranging after years. What joy when there comes an answer to their tiny petitions! When there is none: “Ah! it is because you have not been wise, Clairette. The Little Jesus is not pleased with you.” But the Gift-bringer always relents, and the little shoes, brushed by each tot till not a speck of dulness remains, are found in the morning overspilling with glorious things.
All along the outer edge of the pavement stalls have been set up, tenanted by portly, red-faced women, who are padded against the cold till their black-braided jackets fit tight as a drum. There are booths of brilliant confectionery, of marvellous mechanical toys, of perfumery and patent medicines, of appliances for the kitchen and knick-knacks for the boudoir, of music, of magnifying glasses, of hair restorer, of boot polish.
And the street hawkers haranguing the crowd! There are vendors of holly and mistletoe; men carrying umbrellas all stuck over with imitation snails to ‘bring the good luck’; others with switches to spank one’s mother-in-law; others with grotesque spiders on wire to make the girls scream.
It is nearly midnight when we reach our apartment. The cafés are a glitter of light and a storm of revelry. The supper that is the prelude to further merriment is just beginning, and thousands of happy, careless people are drinking champagne, shouting, singing, laughing. But the rue Mazarin is very dark and quiet, and the girl is very tired.
Then when I am sure that she is asleep I steal to my suitcase and taking out the precious muff lay it at the foot of her bed. Bending over her, as she sleeps like a child, I kiss her. So I too fall asleep.
I am awakened by her scream of delight. She is sitting up, fondling the new muff.
“Oh, I am so please. You don’t know how I am please, darleen.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Only I thought it would go nicely with your other fur.”
Her face changes oddly. Then she rises and brings me the mysterious parcel.
“It’s your Christmas. I’m sorry I could not geeve you anysing bettaire. Oh, how I love my muff.”
If it had been plucked beaver she could not have been more pleased. I open my parcel eagerly, and a fragrant odour greets me. It is a silver-mounted tobacco jar, full of my favourite amber flake.
Over our petit déjeûner of coffee and croissants we are both very gay. I decide not to work that day; we will go for a walk.
“Geeve me your pipe, darleen. I feel it for you.”
“I don’t seem to be able to find it,” I answer, searching my pockets elaborately.
“You have not lost it?”
“Oh, no, just mislaid it. Never mind, it will turn up all right. Are you ready?”
“Yes, all ready.” She holds the precious muff up to her chin, peering at me over it.
“But your wrap! Aren’t you going to put that on too?”
Then in fear and trembling she confesses. She has taken her fur to the Mont de Piété that she might have ten francs to buy the tobacco jar.
“Why!” I cry, “I sold my pipe so that I might have enough to buy your muff.”
Then I laugh loudly, and after a little she joins me; and there we are both laughing till we are tired; which is not the worst way of beginning Christmas Day, is it?