The pretender: A story of the Latin Quarter

“Look here, Madden, you really ought to try and shake off your melancholy,” said Helstern, as we sat in front of the Café Soufflet.

“To hear you call me melancholy,” I retorted, “is like hearing the pot call the kettle black. And anyway you’ve never lost an only child.”

“I believe you’re a little mad,” said the sculptor, observing me closely.

“Are we not all of us just a little mad? Would you have us entirely sane? What a humdrum world that would be! I hate people who are so egregiously sane.”

“But you’re letting this idea of yours altogether obsess you. You’ve created an imaginary child, just as you might have created one in fiction, only ten times more vividly. Then when the earthly frame into which it was to pass proves too frail to hold it you refuse to let it die. You keep on thinking: ‘My daughter! my daughter!’ And spiritually you reach out to a being that only exists in your imagination.”

“She doesn’t, Helstern; that’s where you’re wrong. I thought so at first, but now I know. She really exists, exists in that wonderful world we can only dimly conjecture. She sought for admission to this our world and it was denied her; but she lives in the spirit. She will grow up in the spirit; and, even as if she were a child of the flesh, I who loved her so well have her always.”

“Rubbish! Look here, I see what’s the matter with you. You’ve got the fictionists’ imagination. This is only a creature of your brain. Kill it, as Dickens killed little Dombey, as the female novelists kill their little Willies and little Evas. Kill it.”

“Man, would you make a parricide of me? Murder is not done with hands alone. I loved this child as never in my life have I loved any one. It’s strange—I don’t believe I ever did really love any one before. I’ve had an immense affection for people; but for Dorothy I would have died.”

“You make me tired, man. She’s not real.”

“She is—to me; and supposing for a moment that she isn’t, is it not the case that we can never care for real persons with their faults and follies as we can for our idealised abstractions? We never really love any one till we’ve lost them. But, as you say, I must rouse myself.”

“Why, of course. Granted that she really exists in the spirit, let her presence be a sweetness and an inspiration to you, not a gnawing sorrow. Buck up!”

“You’re right. I must get to my writing at once. After all I have my wife to think of. She loves me.”

“She surely does, devotedly. You have a treasure in her, and you don’t realise it.”

“I suppose not. My work takes so much of the power of feeling out of me. My emotional life is sacrificed to it. The world I create is more real to me than the world about me. I don’t think the creative artist should marry. He only makes an apology for a husband.”

“Well, I think a man with the artistic temperament ought to marry a woman who can look after him from the material side. She should be a buffer between him and the world, always willing to keep in the background and never be a constraint on him. A real genius, on the other hand, ought never to marry. He’s altogether too impossible a person. But then, Madden, you know you’re not a genius.”

He said this so oddly that I burst out laughing, and with that I felt my grey mood lifting.

“By the way,” said Helstern, just as we were parting, “I don’t like to mention it, but what with hospital expenses and so on you’ve been having a pretty hard time of it lately. I’ve just had my quarterly allowance—more money than I know what to do with. If a hundred francs would be of any use to you I’ll never miss it.”

I was going to refuse; but the thought that the offer was made in such a generous spirit made me hesitate; and the further thought that at the moment all the money I had was ten francs, made me accept. So Helstern handed me a pinkish bank note.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said. “But don’t be afraid, I’ll pay you back one of these days. You know I’ve got a novel knocking around the publishers. When it gets accepted I’ll be on velvet. In the meantime this will help to keep the pot a-boiling. That reminds me I must find a new place to hole up in. Do you know of any vacant rooms in your quarter?”

“In the famous Quartier Mouffetard? Come with me and we’ll have a look.”

The result was that for a rent of twenty francs a month I found myself the tenant of a spacious garret in the rue Gracieuse. So, feeling well pleased, I returned to the room in the rue D’Assas to gather together our few effects. I was so engaged when a knock came to the door and the little Breton bonne appeared.

“A lady to see Monsieur.”

I rose from the heap of soiled linen I was trying to compress into as small bulk as possible.

“Show her in,” I said with some surprise.

Then there entered one whom I had almost forgotten—Lucretia.

My first thought was: “Thank God! my wife isn’t here!” My second: “How can I get rid of her?” It is true I have always tried to make life more like fiction, to drench it with romance, to cultivate it in purple patches. Here, then, was a dramatic situation I might have used in one of my novels; here was a sentimental scene I might develop most artistically; and now my whole panting, perspiring anxiety was not to develop it. “Confound it!” I thought, “this should never have happened. Why can’t fiction stay where it belongs?”

Lucretia was dressed with some exaggeration. Her split skirt showed a wedge of purple stocking almost to the knee. Her blouse, too, was of purple, a colour that sets my teeth on edge. She wore a mantle of prune colour, and a toque of crushed strawberry velvet with an imitation aigrette. The gilt heels of her shoes were so high that she was obliged to walk in the mincing manner of the mannequin.

She offered me a languid hand and subsided unasked on the sofa. Her lips were Cupid’s bows of vermilion, and her complexion was a work of art. She regarded me with some defiance; then she spoke in excellent French.

“Well, mon ami, I have come. You thought to leave me there in Napoli, but I have followed you. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“Do!” I said, astounded. “Why, you have no claim on me!”

“I have no claim on you. You say that—you who have stolen my heart, you who have made me suffer. You cannot deny that you have run away from me.”

“I don’t deny it. I did run away from you; but it was to save you, to save us both. I have done you no wrong.”

“Ah! you thought so. To leave one who loved you in that way. That is like the Englishman.”

“But good heavens!” I cried, half distracted, “I thought I acted for the best.”

“I love you still,” she went on; “I have traced you here; I am friendless, alone, in this great and cruel city. What must I do?”

As she said these words, Lucretia, after seeing that she possessed a handkerchief, applied it to her eyes so as not to disturb their cosmetic environment, and wept carefully. There was no doubting the genuineness of her grief. I was touched. After all had I not roused a romantic passion in this poor girl’s heart? Was she not the victim of my fatal charms? My heart ached for her. I would have sat down on the sofa by her side and tried to comfort her, but prudence forbade.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but how can I help you? I have no money, and my wife is in the hospital.”

“Your wife!”

“Yes; I’m married.”

“Not one of those girls I saw you with in the café that night?”

“Yes; the small one.”

“A—h.” She prolonged the exclamation. Then she delicately dried her eyes. “That is different. What if I tell your wife how you treated me?”

“But I’ve done you no harm.”

“Would she believe that, do you think?”

“Hum! no! I don’t think she would. But what good would it do? You would only cause suffering and estrangement, and you would gain nothing. I told you I had no money to give you.”

Looking around the shabby room she saw the soiled linen I was trying to do into a newspaper parcel. This evidently convinced her I was speaking the truth.

“Bah!” she said, “why do you insult me with offers of money? If you offered me ten thousand francs at this moment I would refuse them. What I want is help, sympathy.”

“Oh! If it’s sympathy you want,” I said eagerly, “I’m there. I’ve gallons of it on tap. But help—what can I do?”

“You have friends you can introduce me to. Can you not find me work of some kind? Anything at all that will bring me an honest living. Remember I am only a poor, weak woman, and I love you.”

Here she showed signs of weeping again.

“Well,” I said, touched once more, “I don’t know. The men I know are all artists.” Then an idea shot through me like a bullet. To cure a woman who is infatuated with you, introduce her to some man who is more fascinating than yourself. But to whom could I transfer this embarrassing affection? Helstern? He was out of the question. Lorrimer? Ah, there was the man. Handsome, debonnaire Lorrimer; Lorrimer who prided himself on being such a Lothario; whom I had heard say: “Why should I wrong the sex whose privilege it is to love me by permitting any one member to monopolise me?” Yes, Lorrimer should be the lucky one. So I said:

“Let me see: you would not care to pose for the artists, would you?”

“Ah, yes, I think that would suit me very well indeed.”

“Well, then, I’ll give you the address of an artist friend. He’s poor, but he knows every one. Perhaps he can help you. At least there will be no harm in trying.”

So I gave her Lorrimer’s address, and she seemed more than grateful.

“Thank you very much. Shall I see you again soon?”

“Perhaps; but remember, not a word of Napoli.”

“No; trust me. I am very discreet. Well, au revoir.”

With that she took her departure, and once more I felt that I had emerged successfully from a dangerous situation.

On the following day I hired a voiture à bras, and loading on it my few poor sticks of furniture I easily pulled the load to my new residence. Once there, it was surprising how soon I made the place homelike. Anastasia was coming out of the hospital the following day, and I was intensely eager that everything should be cheerful. Fortunately, the window admitted much sunlight, and the slope of the roof lent itself to quaint and snug effects of decoration. I really did wonders with drapings of cheap cotton, made a lounge and a cosy corner out of cushions, contrived a wardrobe (in view of an increase in our prosperity), and constructed two cunning cupboards within which all articles of mere utility were hid from sight.

Lorrimer dropped in and gave me a hand with the finishing touches. He also loaned me three lifesize paintings in oil to adorn my walls. They were studies for the forthcoming Salon picture that was to mark a crisis in his career, and showed Rougette in different poses of the nude. I did not think it worth while to say anything about Lucretia just then.

Helstern, too, came to see how things were progressing and contributed two clay figures, also of the nude; so that by the time everything was finished my garret had become quite a startling repository of feminine loveliness unadorned. The following morning I bought several bunches of flowers from a barrow, at two sous a bunch, and arranged them about the room. Then my two friends insisted on bringing up a supply of food and preparing lunch.

So I went off to the hospital to fetch Anastasia. I felt as excited as a child, and for the moment very happy. I had been to see her for a few moments every day, when she would hold my hand and sometimes carry it to her lips. She was of a deathly whiteness and more like a child than ever. As she came out leaning on my arm I saw another of those sobbing girls leaving the hospital with her baby.

“What an irony!” I said. “There’s a girl would give anything not to have that infant. It’s a reproach and a disgrace to her. It will only drag her down, prevent her making a living. It will be brought up in misery. And we who wanted one so much, and would have made it so happy, must go away empty-handed.”

“Yes,” she answered, with a sob in her throat; “the doctaire tell me nevaire must I have anuzzer. He tell me it will keel me. And I want so much—oh, I want leetle child!”

Hailing a cab, we were soon at our new home. She did not seem to take much interest; yet, when she heard the sounds of welcome from within, she brightened up. Then when the door was thrown open she gave a little gasp of pleasure.

“Oh, I’m glad, I’m glad.”

For Lorrimer had painted a banner, Welcome Home, above the fireplace; the sunshine flooded in; the flowers were everywhere, and a wondrous lunch was spread on the table. Then suddenly the two artists, standing on either side of the doorway, put mirlitons to their mouths and burst into the Marseillaise. They wrung her hand, and even (with my permission) saluted her on both cheeks; and she was so rarely glad to see them that her eyes shone with tears. So after all her homecoming was far from a sad one.

And after lunch and the good bottle of Pommard that Helstern had provided we discussed plans and prospects with the hope and enthusiasm of beginners; while she listened, but more housewife-like took stock of her new home and its practical possibilities.

Next day I began work again. My idea was to completely ignore my own ideals and turn out stuff according to magazine formula. I had made an analysis of some thirty magazine stories; it only remained to mix them according to recipe and serve hot. I continued to hire the rheumatic typewriter, and composed straight on to the machine, so that I accomplished at least one story a day.

Once more Anastasia took charge of the forwarding, but she seemed to have less enthusiasm now. It was as if her severe illness had taken something out of her. All the money I had been able to give her was seventy francs, and this was not very heartening. She got out her métier again; but she would often pause in her work as if her back pained her, and rub her eyes as if they too ached. Then with stubborn patience she would resume her toil.

One morning the manuscript of Tom, Dick and Harry was returned from the publisher, with a note to say that “at that time when the taste of the public was all for realistic fiction work of fancy stood little chance of success without a well-known name on the cover. As the policy of the firm was conservative they were obliged to return it.”

How I laughed over this letter. How bitterly, I thought, they would be chagrined when they found out who the unknown Silenus Starset was. I was even maliciously glad, and, chuckling, sent off the manuscript on another voyage of adventure.

I fairly bombarded the magazines with short stories. There was not one of any standing that was not holding a manuscript of mine. And such manuscripts, some of them! I was amazed at my cheek in offering them. I would select one of my twelve stock plots, alter the setting, give it a dexterous twist or two, and shoot it off. My mark was a minimum of a manuscript a day, and grimly I stuck to it.

For three weeks I kept pounding away on my clacking typewriter. It was costing us a small income in stamps, and economy of the most rigid kind had to be practised in other ways. We gave up eating ordinary meat and took to patronising the Boucherie Chevaline. I came to appreciate a choice mule steak, and considered an entrecôte of ass a special delicacy. We made salads of poiret, which is called the poor man’s asparagus. We drank vin ordinaire at eight sous a litre and our bread was of the coarsest. Down there in the rue Mouffetard it was no trouble to purchase with economy, for everything was sold from that standpoint.

I think the rue Mouffetard deserves a special page of description, because it contains the elements of all Paris slumdom. From the steep and ancient rue St. Geneviève de Montagne branches the dismal rue Descartes. It runs between tall, dreary houses, growing gradually more sordid; then suddenly, as if ashamed of itself, it changes its name to the rue Mouffetard, and continues its infamous way.

The street narrows to the width of a lane and the houses that flank it grow colder, blacker, more decrepit. The pavement on either side is a mere riband, and the cobbled way is overrun with the ratlike humanity spewed forth from the sinister houses. The sharp gables and raking roofs, out of which windows like gaping sores make jagged openings, notch themselves grotesquely against the sky. Their faces are gnawed by the teeth of time and grimy with the dust of ages. Their windows are like blind eyes, barred and repulsive. The doors that burrow into them are nothing but black holes, so narrow that two people passing have to turn sideways, so dark that it is like entering a charnel house.

Nearly every second shop is a chope, a buvette, a saloon. At one point there are four clustered together. Some of these drinking dens are so narrow they seem mere holes in the wall, scarcely any wider than the width of their own door, and running back like dark cupboards. And in them, with their heads together and their elbows on the tiny tables you can see the ferret-faced Poilo, and Gigolette, his gosse, of the greasy and elaborate coiffure. Hollow-cheeked, glittering of eye, light as a cat, cunning, cynical, cruel, he smokes a cigarette; while she, brazen, claw-fingered, rapacious, sips from his Pernod.

At the butchers’ only horse-meat is sold. A golden horse usually surmounts the door, overlooking a sign—Boucherie Chevaline, or sometimes Boucherie Hyppagique. The meat is very dark; the fat very yellow; and there are festoons of red sausages, very red and glossy. One shop bears the sign “House of Confidence.” There are other signs, such as “Mule of premier quality,” “Ass of first choice.”

As you descend the street you get passing glimpses of inner courts of hideous squalor, of side streets, narrow and resigned to misery. Daring odours pollute the air and the way is now packed with wretchedness. Grimy women, whose idea of a coiffure is to get their matted hair out of the way, trudge draggle-skirted by the side of husky-throated, undersized men whose beards bristle brutishly. Bands of younger men hang around the bars. They wear peaked caps and have woollen scarfs around their throats. They look at the well-dressed passer-by with furtive speculation. They live chiefly on the brazen girls who parade up and down, with their hair coiled over their ears, clawed down in front, sleek with brilliantine and studded with combs.

Then, as the narrow, tortuous street plunges down to the carrefour of the Gobelins it becomes violently commercial, a veritable market jammed with barrows, studded with stalls, strident with street cries of all kinds.

Here it is that Anastasia does her marketing. It is wonderful how much she can bring home for a franc, sometimes enough to fill the net bag she carries on her arm. She never wears a hat on these expeditions; it is safer without one.

Three weeks gone; twenty stories written. I throw myself back in weariness and despair. It is hard work doing three thousand words a day, especially when one has to make a second copy for the clean manuscript. I began at eight in the morning and worked till ten at night. My face was thin, my checks pale, my eyes full of fag and stress. How I despised the work I was doing! the shoddy, sentimental piffle, the anæmic twaddle, the pandering to the vulgar taste for stories of the upper circles. Ordinary folk not being sufficiently interesting for a snobbish public my heroes were seldom less than baronets. It got at last that every stroke of my typewriter jarred some sensitive nerve of pain in me—“Typewriter nerves” they call it. Then one night I gave up.

“I won’t do another of these wretched things,” I cried; “I’m worked out. I feel as if my brain was mush, just so much sloppy stuff.”

“You must take rest, darleen. You work too hard.”

“Yes, rest in some far South Sea Island where I can forget that books and typewriters exist. I’m heart-sick of the vampire trade. Well, I’ve reached my limit. To-morrow I’m just going out to the Luxembourg to loaf. Oh, that lovely word! I’m going to sit and watch the children watching the Guignol, and laugh when they laugh. That’s all I’m equal to—the Guignol.”

And I did. Full of sweet, tired melancholy I sat listlessly under the trees, gazing at that patch of eager, intense, serious, uproarious, utterly enchanted faces, planted in front of the immortal Punch and Judy show. Oh, to have written that little drama! Everything else could go. Oh, to play on the emotions like an instrument, as it played on the emotions of these little ones! What an audience! How I envied them their fresh keen joy of appreciation! I felt so jaded, so utterly indifferent to all things. Yet I reflected to some extent their enthusiasm. I gaped with them, I laughed with them, I applauded with them.

Then with a suddenness that is overwhelming came the thought of my own little dream-child, she who in years to come should have taken her place in that hilarious band. After all, the November afternoon was full of sadness. The withered leaves were underfoot, and the vague despondency of the waning year hung heavily around me. Suddenly all joy seemed to go clean out of life, and slowly I returned to the wretched quarter in which I lived.

These were the sad days for us both, grey days of rain and boding. Early and late she would work at her embroidery, yet often look at me with a sigh. Then my manuscripts began to come back. Luckily, two were accepted, one by a society weekly, the other by a woman’s journal. The latter was to be paid for on publication; but I wrote pleading necessity for the money and it was forthcoming. The two netted us three pounds ten, enough to pay the rent and tide us over for another month.

Once more Tom, Dick and Harry was returned, and once more gallantly despatched. About this time I began to lose all confidence in myself. On one occasion I said to her:

“See, Little Thing, what a poor husband you have. He can’t even support you.”

“I have the best husband in the world. Courage, darleen. Everything will come yet very right I know.”

“If only our child had lived,” I said moodily, gazing at the sodden, sullen sky.

Sitting with her hands folded in her lap she did not answer. I saw that she drew back from her beautiful embroidery so that a slow-falling tear would not stain it.

“You know,” I went on, “I can’t believe we’ve lost her. Seems to me she’s with us. I let myself think of her too much. I can’t help it. I loved her. God, how I loved her! I never loved any one else like that.”

She looked at me piteously, but I did not see.

And next day, in a pouring rain, I walked to the cemetery and stood for an hour by an almost indistinguishable little grave. I got back, as they say, “wet as the soup,” and contracted a severe chill. Anastasia made me stay in bed, and looked after me like a mother.

Yes, these were sad days; and there were times when I felt moved to own defeat, to acknowledge success, to accept, the fortune I had gained. Then I ground my teeth.

“No, I won’t. I’m hanged if I do. I’ll play the game, and in spite of it all I’ll win.”