The pretender: A story of the Latin Quarter

“Anastasia,” I said with a sigh, “did I ever tell you of Gwendolin?”

“No; what is it?” she asked, and her face had rather an anxious expression.

“Gwendolin was a girl, a very nice girl, a trained nurse; and we were engaged.”

“What you mean? She was your fiancée?”

“Yes, she was one of my fiancées.”

“What! You have more than one?” The poor girl was really horrified.

“Oh, several. I don’t just remember how many. I quarrelled with one because we couldn’t agree over the name we would give the first baby. I broke it off with another because her stomach made such funny noises every time I tried to squeeze her. It made me nervous. But Gwendolin—I must tell you about her. I was very ill with diphtheria in a lonely house by the sea, and she had come to nurse me. She would let no one else come near me, and she waited on me night and day.”

(Anastasia suspended operations on the heel of my sock she was darning.)

“She was a nervous, high-strung girl, and she watched over me with an agony of care. There was a doctor, too, who came twice a day, yet, in spite of all, I hourly grew more weak. My dreary moans seemed to be echoed by the hollow moans of the sea.”

(Anastasia seemed divided between resentment of Gwendolin and pity for me.)

“Well, the poor girl was almost worn to a shadow, and one night, as she sat by me, pale and hollow-eyed, I saw a sudden change come over her.

“‘I can stand it no longer,’ she cried. ‘His every moan pierces me to the heart. I must do something, something.’

“Then she rose, and I was conscious of her great, pitiful eyes. Suddenly I thrilled with horror, for I realised that they were the eyes of a mad woman. The strain of nursing had unhinged her mind.

“‘The doctor tells me there is no hope,’ she went on. ‘Oh, I cannot bear to hear him suffer so; I must give him peace;—but how?’

“On a table near by there was a small pair of scissors. She took them up thoughtfully.

“‘Dearest,’ she said to me, ‘your sufferings will soon be over. I am going to cut your poor throat, that gives you such pain.’

“I struggled, twisting my head this way and that, but she held me like a vice, and over my throat I felt two edges of cold steel.”

(Anastasia was gazing in horror.)

“Steadily they closed, tighter, tighter. Now I could feel them bite the flesh and the blood spout. Then I, who for days had been unable to utter a word, suddenly found my voice.

“‘Don’t butcher me,’ I whispered hoarsely. ‘Cut my accursed throat by all means, but do it neatly. Your scissors are far too blunt.’

“‘But how may I sharpen them, darling?’ she cried piteously.

“I remembered how I had seen other women do it.

“‘Try to cut on the neck of a bottle.’

“‘Will that do?’

“‘Yes, yes. Keep cutting on the smooth round glass. It’s astonishing the difference it makes.’

“‘What kind of a bottle, sweetheart?’

“‘An ink-bottle’s best. You’ll find one downstairs on the dining-room mantelpiece. Hurry.’

“‘All right, I’ll get it.’

“She flew downstairs. Now was my chance. With my remaining strength I crawled to the door and locked it. When I recovered from a faint her struggles to force it had ceased, and at the same moment I heard the honk of the doctor’s auto. Going to the window, I bellowed like a bull. Then I was conscious of a strange thing: by the pressure on my throat, by my struggles, the malignant growth had broken. I was saved.”

Anastasia shuddered. “And that Gwendolin?” she queried.

“Was taken to an asylum, where she died,” I said sadly.

“Poor sing,” said Anastasia.

To tell the truth, the whole thing had happened to me the night before in a very vivid dream. Often, indeed, I get ideas in this way, so I promptly made a story of Nurse Gwendolin.

I was putting the finishing touches to it when a knock came to the door. It was Helstern, panting, perspiring.

“Heavens! but it’s hard climbing that stairway of yours with a game leg. Sorry to disturb you, Madden, but where does the mother of your little girl live? You don’t know how that youngster inspires me. I feel that if I could do a full-length of her it would get me into the Salon. See! here’s a sketch. Spring, it’s called. Of course, I mean to follow up with the other seasons, but I want a child for my Spring.”

He showed me a tender fillette in a state of nature, trying to avoid tripping over a tame lamb as she scattered abroad an armful of flowers.

“Stunning!” I said. “So original! Let’s go down and interview the mother.”

Into his brown eyes came a look of distress. “I’m a bit awkward with women, you know. Would you mind doing the talking?”

“Right O! Follow me.”

So we descended the narrow, crumbling stairs, from each stage of which came a smell of cookery. Thus we passed through a stratum of ham and eggs, another of corned beef and cabbage, a third of beefsteak and onions, down to the fried fish stratum of the entresol.

Frosine was in the midst of dinner. The Môme regarded us over a spoonful of milk soup, and as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, Helstern looked at her almost devouringly. But in the presence of Frosine he seemed almost tongue-tied. To me, who have never known what shyness was, it seemed pitiable. However I explained our mission, and even showed the sketch at a flattering angle. Frosine listened politely, seemed to want to laugh, then turned to the sculptor with that frank, kindly smile that seemed to radiate good fellowship.

“You do me too great honour, Monsieur. I am sure your work would be very beautiful. But alas! Solonge is very shy and very modest. One could never get her to pose for the figure. I am sorry, but believe me, the thing is impossible.”

“Thank you, Madam. I am sorry too,” he said humbly. He stumped away crestfallen, and with a final, sorrowful look at the Môme.

Anastasia was keeping supper hot for me. “Poor Helstern,” I remarked over my second chop, “I’m afraid he’ll have to look out for another vernal infant. But talking of Spring reminds me, time is passing, and we’re not getting any richer. How’s the family treasury?”

An examination of the tea-canister that contained our capital revealed the sum of twenty-seven francs. I looked at it ruefully.

“I never dreamed we were so low as that. With care we can live for a week on twenty-seven francs—but what then?”

“You must try and sell some of your work, darleen; and I—I can sell some hem-broderie.”

“Never! I can’t let you sell those things. They’re lovely. I want to keep them.”

“But I easily do some more. It is pleasure for me.”

“No, no; at least, hold on a bit. I’ll make some money from my work. I’m going to send it off to-morrow.”

Yes, we were surely “getting down to cases.” But what matter! Of course my work will be accepted at once, and paid for on the spot. True, I have no experience in this kind of peddling. My stuff has always appeared virgin in a book. Not that I think I am prostituting it by sending it to a magazine, but that no sooner do I see it in print than my interest in it dies. It belongs to the public then.

Next day I bought a box of big envelopes, a quantity of French and English stamps, and a manuscript book in which I entered the titles of the different items. I also ruled columns: Where Sent: When Sent; even When Returned, though I thought the latter superfluous. Here then was my list:

Twelve items in all. So I prepared them for despatch; but where? That was the question. However, after examining the windows of several English book-shops, I took a chance shot, posted them to twelve different destinations, and sat down to await results.

Since then, with a fine sense of freedom, I have been indulging in my mania for old houses. I do not mean houses of historic interest, but ramshackle ruins tucked away in seductive slums. To gaze at an old home and imagine its romance is to me more fascinating than trying to realise romance you know occurred there. I examine doors studded with iron, search mouldering walls for inscriptions, peer into curious courtyards. I commune with the spirit of Old Paris, I step in the footprints of Voltaire and Verlaine, of Rousseau and Racine, of Mirabeau and Molière.

One day I visit the room where an English Lord of Letters died more deaths than one. A gloomy, gruesome hotel, with an electric night-sign that goes in and out like some semaphore of sin. A cadaverous, miserable-looking man tells me that the room is at present occupied. I return. A cadaverous, miserable-looking woman whines to a dejected looking valet-de-chambre that I may go up.

It is on the first floor and overlooks a court. There is the bed of varnished pine in which he died; the usual French hotel wardrobe, the usual plush armchair, but not, I note, the usual clock of chocolate marble. Everything so commonplace, so sordid; yet for a moment I could see that fallen demi-god, as with eyes despairful as death in their tear-corroded sockets, he stared and stared into that drab, rain-sodden court.

And so in sweet, haphazard wanderings amid the Paris of the Past time sped ever so swiftly. I forgot my manuscripts, my position, everything in my sheer delight of freedom; and how long my dream would have continued I know not if I had not had a sudden awakening. It was on my return from one of my rambles when I drew up with a start in front of a shop that showed all kinds of woman’s work for sale.

“Heavens! Surely that isn’t Anastasia’s cushion?”

I was staring at a piece of exquisite silk embroidery, an imitation of ancient tapestry. No, I could not be mistaken. Too well I remembered every detail of it; how I had watched it take on beauty under her patient fingers; how hour after hour I could hear the crisp snap as the needle broke through the taut silk. Over a week had she toiled on it, rising with the first dawn, so that she might have more daylight in which to blend her colours. And there it was, imbedded in that mass of cheap stuff, and marked with a smudgy paper, “Forty-five francs.” Yes, I felt sick.

How careless I had been! I had never given the financial situation another thought, yet we had wanted for nothing. There was that excellent dinner we had had the night before; why, she must have sold this to buy it! Even now I was living on the proceeds of her work.

“What a silly girl! She wouldn’t say a word, in case I should be worried. Just like women; they take a fiendish delight in humiliating a man by sacrificing themselves for him. But I can’t let her support me. Let’s see.... There’s my watch and chain. What’s a chain but a useless gaud, a handhold for a pick-pocket. Maybe this very afternoon I’ll have the whole thing snatched. I’ll take no chances; it’s a fine, heavy chain, and cost over a hundred dollars; maybe the Mont de Pietists will give me fifty for it.”

They wouldn’t. Twenty-five was their limit, so I took it meekly. Then, returning hastily to the embroidery shop, I bought the cushion cover, carried it home under my coat, and locked it safely away in the alligator-skin suitcase.

Though her greeting was bravely bright, it seemed to me that Anastasia had been crying, and of the nice omelette she had provided for my lunch she would scarcely taste.

“What’s the trouble, Little Thing; out with it.”

She hesitated; looked anxious, miserable, apologetic.

“I don’t like trouble you, darleen, but the concierge have come for the rent tree time, and I don’t know what I must say.”

“The rent! I quite forgot that. Why, yes, we pay rent, don’t we? How much is it?”

“Don’t you remember? One ’undred twenty-five franc.”

“Well, there’s only one thing to do—pay it. But to do so I must put my ticker up the spout.”

“Oh, my poor darleen, I’m so sorry. I sink it is me bring you so much trouble. If it was not for me you have plenty of money, I sink.”

“Don’t say that. If it wasn’t for your economies I’d be rustling for crusts in the gutter. And anyway, what’s the good of a watch when I can see the time in every shop I pass? Besides, I might lose it; so here goes.”

It is quite in tune with the cheerful philosophy of the French to find a virtue in misfortune. Whether they break a glass, spill red wine, or step in dirt, it’s all the same: “Ah! but it will carry the good luck.”

For my gold watch I received two hundred francs, though it had cost over a thousand; and with this I returned. Much the shape and colour of a bloated spider, the concierge emerged from her den, and to her I paid the rent. Then, leaping upstairs, I poured the balance remaining from both transactions into Anastasia’s lap.

“There! That ought to keep away the wolf for a month. A hundred and fifty francs and the rent paid for another quarter. Aren’t we the lucky things? The roof’s overhead; the soup’s in the pot; let’s sing. Now do I know why the very wastrels in the street are not so much to be pitied after all; a warm corner and a full belly, that’s happiness to them. Wealth’s only a matter of wants. Well, we’re wealthy, let’s go to the cinema.”

“No, darleen, that would not be serious. I must guard your money now. When you sink you begeen work once more?”

“I don’t know. I’m having one of my bad spells. Funny how it takes one. Times ideas come in a perfect spate, and I miss half grabbing for the others. At present the divine afflatus is on a vacation. I’m trying to start a novel and I haven’t got the Idea. You see this short story and article stuff is all very well to boil the marmite, but a novel’s my real chance. A successful novel would put me on my feet. Pray, Little Thing, I get the idea for a novel.”

“Yes, I will, I will indeed,” she answered me quite seriously.

And indeed she did: for one day I strolled into Notre Dame, and there by one of those hard, high-backed chairs before the mighty altar I discovered her imploring (I have no doubt) the “bon Dieu” that the idea might come.

For simple, shining faith I’m willing to bet my last dollar on Anastasia.