A week or two had thus gone by since the dreadful evening at the Opéra Comique, and all this time I had neither seen nor heard more of the fair Josephine. My acquaintance with Franz Müller and the life of the Quartier Latin had, on the contrary, progressed rapidly. Just as the affair of the Opera had dealt a final blow to my romance à la grisette on the one hand, so had the excursion to Courbevoie, the visit to the École de Natation, and the adventure of the Café Procope, fostered my intimacy with the artist on the other. We were both young, somewhat short of money, and brimful of fun. Each, too, had a certain substratum of earnestness underlying the mere surface-gayety of his character. Müller was enthusiastic for art; I for poetry; and both for liberty. I fear, when I look back upon them, that we talked a deal of nonsense about Brutus, and the Rights of Man, and the noble savage, and all that sort of thing, in those hot-headed days of our youth. It was a form of political measles that the young men of that time were quite as liable to as the young men of our own; and, living as we then were in the heart of the most revolutionary city in Europe, I do not well see how we could have escaped the infection. Müller (who took it worse than I did, and was very rabid indeed when I first knew him) belonged just then not only to the honorable brotherhood of Les Chicards, but also to a small debating club that met twice a week in a private room at the back of an obscure Estaminet in the Rue de la Harpe. The members of this club were mostly art-students, and some, like himself, Chicards--generous, turbulent, high-spirited boys, with more enthusiasm than brains, and a flow of words wholly out of proportion to the bulk of their ideas. As I came to know him more intimately, I used sometimes to go there with Müller, after our cheap dinner in the Quartier and our evening stroll along the Boulevards or the Champs Elysées; and I am bound to admit that I never, before or since, heard quite so much nonsense of the declamatory sort as on those memorable occasions. I did not think it nonsense then, however. I admired it with all my heart; applauded the nursery eloquence of these sucking Mirabeaus and Camille Desmoulins as frantically as their own vanity could desire; and was even secretly chagrined that my own French was not yet fluent enough to enable me to take part in their discussions.
In the meanwhile, my debts were paid; and, having dropped out of society when I fell out of love with Madame de Marignan, I no longer overspent my allowance. I bought no more bouquets, paid for no more opera-stalls, and hired no more prancing steeds at seven francs the hour. I bade adieu to picture-galleries, flower-shows, morning concerts, dress boots, white kid gloves, elaborate shirt-fronts, and all the vanities of the fashionable world. In a word, I renounced the Faubourg St. Germain for the Quartier Latin, and applied myself to such work and such pleasures as pertained to the locality. If, after a long day at Dr. Chéron's, or the Hôtel Dieu, or the École de Médecine, I did waste a few hours now and then, I, at least, wasted them cheaply. Cheaply, but oh, so pleasantly! Ah me! those nights at the debating club, those evenings at the Chicards, those student's balls at the Chaumière, those third-class trips to Versailles and Fontainebleau, those one-franc pit seats at the Gaîeté and the Palais Royal, those little suppers at Pompon's and Flicoteau's--how delightful they were! How joyous! How free from care! And even when we made up a party and treated the ladies (for to treat the ladies is de rigueur in the code of Quartier Latin etiquette), how little it still cost, and what a world of merriment we had for the money!
It was well for me, too, and a source of much inward satisfaction, that my love-affair with Mademoiselle Josephine had faded and died a natural death. We never made up that quarrel of the Opéra Comique, and I had not desired that we should make it up. On the contrary, I was exceedingly glad of the opportunity of withdrawing my attentions; so I wrote her a polite little note, in which I expressed my regret that our tastes were so dissimilar and our paths in life so far apart; wished her every happiness; assured her that I should ever remember her with friendly regard; and signed my name with a tremendous flourish at the bottom of the second page. With the note, however, I sent her a raised pie and a red and green shawl, of which I begged her acceptance in token of amity; and as neither of those gifts was returned, I concluded that she ate the one and wore the other, and that there was peace between us.
But the scales of fortune as they go up for one, go down for another. This man's luck is balanced by that man's ruin--Orestes falls sick, and Pylades returns from Kissingen cured of his lumbago--old Croesus dies, and little Miss Kilmansegg comes into the world with a golden spoon in her mouth, So it fell out with Franz Müller and myself. As I happily steered clear of Charybdis, he drifted into Scylla--in other words, just as I recovered from my second attack of the tender passion, he caught the epidemic and fancied himself in love with the fair Marie.
I say "fancied," because his way of falling in love was so unlike my way, that I could scarcely believe it to be the same complaint. It affected neither his appetite, nor his spirits, nor his wardrobe. He made as many puns and smoked as many pipes as usual. He did not even buy a new hat. If, in fact, he had not told me himself, I should never have guessed that anything whatever was the matter with him.
It came out one day when he was pressing me to go with him to a certain tea-party at Madame Marotte's, in the Rue St. Denis.
"You see," said he, "it is la petite Marie's fête; and the party's in her honor; and they'd be so proud if we both went to it; and--and, upon my soul, I'm awfully fond of that little girl"....
"Of Marie Marotte?"
He nodded.
"You are not serious," I said.
"I am as serious," he replied, "as a dancing dervish."
And then, for I suppose I looked incredulous, he went on to justify himself.
"She's very good," he said, "and very pretty. Quite a Madonna face, to my thinking."
"You may see a dozen such Madonna faces among the nurses in the Luxembourg Gardens, every afternoon of your life," said I.
"Oh, if you come to that, every woman is like every other woman, up to a certain point."
"Les femmes se suivent et se ressemblent toujours," said I, parodying a well-known apothegm.
"Precisely, but then they wear their rue, or cause you to wear yours, 'with a difference.' This girl, however, escapes the monotony of her sex by one or two peculiarities:--she has not a bit of art about her, nor a shred of coquetry. She is as simple and as straightforward as an Arcadian. She doesn't even know when she is being made love to, or understand what you mean, when you pay her a compliment."
"Then she's a phenomenon--and what man in his senses would fall in love with a phenomenon?"
"Every man, mon cher enfant, who falls in love at all! The woman we worship is always a phenomenon, whether of beauty, or grace, or virtue--till we find her out; and then, probably, she becomes a phenomenon of deceit, or slovenliness, or bad temper! And now, to return to the point we started from--will you go with me to Madame Marotte's tea-party to-morrow evening at eight? Don't say 'No,' there's a good fellow."
"I'll certainly not say No, if you particularly want me to say Yes," I replied, "but--"
"Prythee, no buts! Let it be Yes, and the thing is settled. So--here we are. Won't you come in and smoke a pipe with me? I've a bottle of capital Rhenish in the cupboard."
We had met near the Odéon, and, as our roads lay in the same direction, had gone on walking and talking till we came to Müller's own door in the Rue Clovis. I accepted the invitation, and followed him in. The portière, a sour-looking, bent old woman with a very dirty duster tied about her head, hobbled out from her little dark den at the foot of the stairs, and handed him the key of his apartment.
"Tiens!" said she, "wait a moment--there's a parcel for you, M'sieur Müller."
And so, hobbling back again, she brought out a small flat brown paper-packet sealed at both ends.
"Ah, I see--from the Emperor!" said Müller. "Did he bring it himself, Madame Duphôt, or did he send it by the Archbishop of Paris?"
A faint grin flitted over the little old woman's withered face.
"Get along with you, M'sieur Müller," she said. "You're always playing the farceur! The parcel was brought by a man who looked like a stonemason."
"And nobody has called?"
"Nobody, except M'sieur Richard."
"Monsieur Richard's visits are always gratifying and delightful--may the diable fly away with him!" said Müller. "What did dear Monsieur Richard want to-day, Madame Duphôt?"
"He wanted to see you, and the third-floor gentleman also--about the rent."
"Dear Richard! What an admirable memory he has for dates! Did he leave any message, Madame Duphôt?"
The old woman looked at me, and hesitated.
"He says, M'sieur Müller--he says ..."
"Nay, this gentleman is a friend--you may speak out. What does our beloved and respected propriétaire say, Madame Duphôt?"
"He says, if you don't both of you pay up the arrears by midday on Sunday next, he'll seize your goods, and turn you into the street."
"Ah, I always said he was the nicest man I knew!" observed Müller, gravely. "Anything else, Madame Duphôt?"
"Only this, Monsieur Müller--that if you didn't go quietly, he'd take your windows out of the frames and your doors off the hinges."
"Comment! He bade you give me that message, the miserable old son of a spider! Quatre-vingt mille plats de diables aux truffes! Take my windows out of the frames, indeed! Let him try, Madame Duphôt--that's all--let him try!"
And with this, Müller, in a towering rage, led the way upstairs, muttering volleys of the most extraordinary and eccentric oaths of his own invention, and leaving the little old portière grinning maliciously in the hall.
"But can't you pay him?" said I.
"Whether I can, or can't, it seems I must," he replied, kicking open the door of his studio as viciously as if it were the corporeal frame of Monsieur Richard. "The only question is--how? At the present moment, I haven't five francs in the till."
"Nor have I more than twenty. How much is it?"
"A hundred and sixty--worse luck!"
"Haven't the Tapottes paid for any of their ancestors yet?"
"Confound it!--yes; they've paid for a Marshal of France and a Farmer General, which are all I've yet finished and sent home. But there was the washerwoman, and the traiteur, and the artist's colorman, and, enfin, the devil to pay--and the money's gone, somehow!"
"I've only just cleared myself from a lot of debts," I said, ruefully, "and I daren't ask either my father or Dr. Chéron for an advance just at present. What is to be done?"
"Oh, I don't know. I must raise the money somehow. I must sell something--there's my copy of Titian's 'Pietro Aretino.' It's worth eighty francs, if only for a sign. And there's a Madonna and Child after Andrea del Sarto, worth a fortune to any enterprising sage-femme with artistic proclivities. I'll try what Nebuchadnezzar will do for me."
"And who, in the name of all that's Israelitish, is Nebuchadnezzar?"
"Nebuchadnezzar, my dear Arbuthnot, is a worthy Shylock of my acquaintance--a gentleman well known to Bohemia--one who buys and sells whatever is purchasable and saleable on the face of the globe, from a ship of war to a comic paragraph in the Charivari. He deals in bric-à-brac, sermons, government sinecures, pugs, false hair, light literature, patent medicines, and the fine arts. He lives in the Place des Victoires. Would you like to be introduced to him?"
"Immensely."
"Well, then, be here by eight to-morrow morning, and I'll take you with me. After nine he goes out, or is only visible to buyers. Here's my bottle of Rhenish--genuine Assmanshauser. Are you hungry?"
I admitted that I was not unconscious of a sensation akin to appetite.
He gazed steadfastly into the cupboard, and shook his head.
"A box of sardines," he said, gloomily, "nearly empty. Half a loaf, evidently disinterred from Pompeii. An inch of Lyons sausage, saved from the ark; the remains of a bottle of fish sauce, and a pot of currant jelly. What will you have?"
I decided for the relics of Pompeii and the deluge, and we sat down to discuss those curious delicacies. Having no corkscrew, we knocked off the neck of the bottle, and being short of glasses, drank our wine out of teacups.
"But you have never opened your parcel all this time," I said presently. "It may be full of billets de banque--who can tell?"
"That's true," said Müller; and broke the seals.
"By all the Gods of Olympus!" he shouted, holding up a small oblong volume bound in dark green cloth. "My sketch-book!"
He opened it, and a slip of paper fell out. On this slip of paper were written, in a very neat, small hand, the words, "Returned with thanks;" but the page that contained the sketch made in the Café Procope was missing.
Madame Marotte, as I have already mentioned more than once, lived in the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis; which, as all the world knows, is a prolongation of the Rue St. Denis--just as the Rue St. Denis was, in my time, a transpontine continuation of the old Rue de la Harpe. Beginning at the Place du Châtelet as the Rue St. Denis, opening at its farther end on the Boulevart St. Denis and passing under the triumphal arch of Louis le Grand (called the Porte St. Denis), it there becomes first the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, and then the interminable Grande Route du St. Denis which drags its slow length along all the way to the famous Abbey outside Paris.
The Rue du Faubourg St. Denis is a changed street now, and widens out, prim, white, and glittering, towards the new barrier and the new Rond Point. But in the dear old days of which I tell, it was the sloppiest, worst-paved, worst-lighted, noisiest, narrowest, and most crowded of all the great Paris thoroughfares north of the Seine. All the country traffic from Chantilly and Compiégne came lumbering this way into the city; diligences, omnibuses, wagons, fiacres, water-carts, and all kinds of vehicles thronged and blocked the street perpetually; and the sound of wheels ceased neither by night nor by day. The foot-pavements of the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, too, were always muddy, be the weather what it might; and the gutters were always full of stagnant pools. An ever-changing, never-failing stream of rustics from the country, workpeople from the factories of the banlieu, grisettes, commercial travellers, porters, commissionaires, and gamins of all ages here flowed to and fro. Itinerant venders of cakes, lemonade, cocoa, chickweed, allumettes, pincushions, six-bladed penknives, and never-pointed pencils filled the air with their cries, and made both day and night hideous. You could not walk a dozen yards at any time without falling down a yawning cellar-trap, or being run over by a porter with a huge load upon his head, or getting splashed from head to foot by the sudden pulling-up of some cart in the gutter beside you.
It was among the peculiarities of the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis that everybody was always in a hurry, and that nobody was ever seen to look in at the shop-windows. The shops, indeed, might as well have had no windows, since there were no loungers to profit by them. Every house, nevertheless, was a shop, and every shop had its window. These windows, however, were for the most part of that kind before which the passer-by rarely cares to linger; for the commerce of the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis was of that steady, unpretending, money-making sort that despises mere shop-front attractions. Grocers, stationers, corn-chandlers, printers, cutlers, leather-sellers, and such other inelegant trades, here most did congregate; and to the wearied wayfarer toiling along the dead level of this dreary pavé, it was quite a relief to come upon even an artistically-arranged Magasin de Charcuterie, with its rows of glazed tongues, mighty Lyons sausages, yellow terrines of Strasbourg pies, fantastically shaped pickle-jars, and pyramids of silvery sardine boxes.
It was at number One Hundred and Two in this agreeable thoroughfare that my friend's innamorata resided with her maternal aunt, the worthy relict of Monsieur Jacques Marotte, umbrella-maker, deceased. Thither, accordingly, we wended our miry way, Müller and I, after dining together at one of our accustomed haunts on the evening following the events related in my last chapter. The day had been dull and drizzly, and the evening had turned out duller and more drizzly still. We had not had rain for some time, and the weather had been (as it often is in Paris in October) oppressively hot; and now that the rain had come, it did not seem to cool the air at all, but rather to load it with vapors, and make the heat less endurable than before.
Having toiled all the way up from the Rue de la Harpe on the farther bank of the Seine, and having forded the passage of the Arch of Louis le Grand, we were very wet and muddy indeed, very much out of breath, and very melancholy objects to behold.
"It's dreadful to think of going into any house in this condition, Müller," said I, glancing down ruefully at the state of my boots, and having just received a copious spattering of mud all down the left side of my person. "What is to be done?"
"We've only to go to a boot-cleaning and brushing-up shop," replied Müller. "There's sure to be one close by somewhere."
"A boot-cleaning and brushing-up shop!" I echoed.
"What--didn't you know there were lots of them, all over Paris? Have you never noticed places that look like shops, with ground glass windows instead of shop-fronts, on which are painted up the words, 'cirage des bottes?'"
"Never, that I can remember."
"Then be grateful to me for a piece of very useful information! Suppose we turn down this by-street--it's mostly to the seclusion of by-streets and passages that our bashful sex retires to renovate its boots and its broadcloth."
I followed him, and in the course of a few minutes we found the sort of place of which we were in search. It consisted of one large, long room, like a shop without goods, counters, or shelves. A single narrow bench ran all round the walls, raised on a sort of wooden platform about three feet in width and three feet from the ground. Seated upon this bench, somewhat uncomfortably, as it seemed, with their backs against the wall, sat some ten or a dozen men and boys, each with an attendant shoeblack kneeling before him, brushing away vigorously. Two or three other customers, standing up in the middle of the shop, like horses in the hands of the groom, were having their coats brushed instead of their boots. Of those present, some looked like young shopmen, some were of the ouvrier class, and one or two looked like respectable small tradesmen and fathers of families. The younger men were evidently smartening up for an hour or two at some cheap ball or Café-Concert, now that the warehouse was closed, and the day's work was over.
Our boots being presently brought up to the highest degree of polish, and our garments cleansed of every disfiguring speck, we paid a few sous apiece and turned out again into the streets. Happily, we had not far to go. A short cut brought us into the midst of the Rue de Faubourg St. Denis, and within a few yards of a gloomy-looking little shop with the words "Veuve Marotte" painted up over the window, and a huge red and white umbrella dangling over the door. A small boy in a shiny black apron was at that moment putting up the shutters; the windows of the front room over the shop were brightly lit from within; and a little old gentleman in goloshes and a large blue cloak with a curly collar, was just going in at the private door. We meekly followed him, and hung up our hats and overcoats, as he did, in the passage.
"After you, Messieurs," said the little old gentleman, skipping politely back, and flourishing his hand in the direction of the stairs. "After you!"
We protested vehemently against this arrangement, and fought quite a skirmish of civilities at the foot of the stairs.
"I am at home here, Messieurs," said the little old gentleman, who, now that he was divested of hat, cloak, and goloshes, appeared in a flaxen toupet, an antiquated blue coat with brass buttons, a profusely frilled shirt, and low-cut shoes with silver buckles. "I am an old friend of the family--a friend of fifty years. I hold myself privileged to do the honors, Messieurs;--a friend of fifty years may claim to have his privileges."
With this he smirked, bowed, and backed against the wall, so that we were obliged to precede him. When we reached the landing, however, he (being evidently an old gentleman of uncommon politeness and agility) sprang forward, held open the door for us, and insisted on ushering us in.
It was a narrow, long-shaped room, the size of the shop, with two windows looking upon the street; a tiny square of carpet in the middle of the floor; boards highly waxed and polished; a tea-table squeezed up in one corner; a somewhat ancient-looking, spindle-legged cottage piano behind the door; a mirror and an ornamental clock over the mantelpiece; and a few French lithographs, colored in imitation of crayon drawings, hanging against the walls.
Madame Marotte, very deaf and fussy, in a cap with white ribbons, came forward to receive us. Mademoiselle Marie, sitting between two other young women of her own age, hung her head, and took no notice of our arrival.
The rest of the party consisted of a gentleman and two old ladies. The gentleman (a plump, black-whiskered elderly Cupid, with a vast expanse of shirt-front like an immense white ace of hearts, and a rose in his button-hole) was standing on the hearth-rug in a graceful attitude, with one hand resting on his hip, and the other under his coat-tails. Of the two old ladies, who seemed as if expressly created by nature to serve as foils to one another, one was very fat and rosy, in a red silk gown and a kind of black velvet hat trimmed with white marabout feathers and Roman pearls; while the other was tall, gaunt, and pale, with a long nose, a long upper lip, and supernaturally long yellow teeth. She wore a black gown, black cotton gloves, and a black velvet band across her forehead, fastened in the centre with a black and gold clasp containing a ghastly representation of a human eye, apparently purblind--which gave this lady the air of a serious Cyclops.
Madame Marotte was profuse of thanks, welcomes, apologies, and curtseys. It was so good of these gentlemen to come so far--and in such unpleasant weather, too! But would not these Messieurs give themselves the trouble to be seated? And would they prefer tea or coffee--for both were on the table? And where was Marie? Marie, whose fête-day it was, and who should have come forward to welcome these gentlemen, and thank them for the honor of their company!
Thus summoned, Mademoiselle Marie emerged from between the two young women, and curtsied demurely.
In the meanwhile, the little old gentleman who had ushered as in was bustling about the room, shaking hands with every one, and complimenting the ladies.
"Ah, Madame Desjardins," he said, addressing the stout lady in the hat, "enchanted to see you back from the sea-side!--you and your charming daughter. I do not know which looks the more young and blooming."
Then, turning to the grim lady in black:--
"And I am charmed to pay my homage to Madame de Montparnasse. I had the pleasure of being present at the brilliant début of Madame's gifted daughter the other evening at the private performance of the pupils of the Conservatoire. Mademoiselle Honoria inherits the grand air, Madame, from yourself."
Then, to the plump gentleman with the shirt-front:--
"And Monsieur Philomène!--this is indeed a privilege and a pleasure. Bad weather, Monsieur Philomène, for the voice!"
Then, to the two girls:--
"Mesdemoiselles--Achille Dorinet prostrates himself at the feet of youth, beauty, and talent! Mademoiselle Honoria, I salute in you the future Empress of the tragic stage. Mademoiselle Rosalie, modesty forbids me to extol the acquired graces of even my most promising pupil; but I may be permitted to adore in you the graces of nature."
While I was listening to these scraps of salutation, Müller was murmuring tender nothings in the ear of the fair Marie, and Madame Marotte was pouring out the coffee.
Monsieur Achille Dorinet, having gone the round of the company, next addressed himself to me.
"Permit me, Monsieur," he said, bringing his heels together and punctuating his sentences with little bows, "permit me, in the absence of a master of the ceremonies, to introduce myself--Achille Dorinet, Achille Dorinet, whose name may not, perhaps, be wholly unknown to you in connection with the past glories of the classical ballet. Achille Dorinet, formerly premier sujet of the Opéra Français--now principal choreographic professor at the Conservatoire Impériale de Musique. I have had the honor, Monsieur, of dancing at Erfurth before their Imperial Majesties the Emperors Napoleon and Alexander, and a host of minor sovereigns. Those, Monsieur, were the high and palmy days of the art. We performed a ballet descriptive of the siege of Troy, and I undertook the part of a river god--the god Scamander, en effet. The great ladies of the court, Monsieur, were graciously pleased to admire my proportions as the god Scamander. I wore a girdle of sedges, a wreath of water-lilies, and a scarf of blue and silver. I have reason to believe that the costume became me."
"Sir," I replied gravely, "I do not doubt it."
"It is a noble art, Monsieur, l'art de la dame" said the former premier sujet, with a sigh; "but it is on the decline. Of the grand style of fifty years ago, only myself and tradition remain."
"Monsieur was, doubtless, a contemporary of Vestris, the famous dancer," I said.
"The illustrious Vestris, Monsieur," said the little old gentleman, "was, next to Louis the Fourteenth, the greatest of Frenchmen. I am proud to own myself his disciple, as well as his contemporary."
"Why next to Louis the Fourteenth, Monsieur Dorinet?" I asked, keeping my countenance with difficulty. "Why not next to Napoleon the First, who was a still greater conqueror?"
"But no dancer, Monsieur!" replied the ex-god Scamander, with a kind of half pirouette; "whereas the Grand Monarque was the finest dancer of his epoch."
Madame Marotte had by this time supplied all her guests with tea and coffee, while Monsieur Philomène went round with the cakes and bread and butter. Madame Desjardins spread her pocket-handkerchief on her lap--a pocket-handkerchief the size of a small table-cloth. Madame de Montparnasse, more mindful of her gentility, removed to a corner of the tea-table, and ate her bread and butter in her black cotton gloves.
"We hope we have another bachelor by-and-by," said Madame Marotte, addressing herself to the young ladies, who looked down and giggled. "A charming man, mesdemoiselles, and quite the gentleman--our locataire, M'sieur Lenoir. You know him, M'sieur Dorinet--pray tell these demoiselles what a charming man M'sieur Lenoir is!"
The little dancing-master bowed, coughed, smiled, and looked somewhat embarrassed.
"Monsieur Lenoir is no doubt a man of much information," he said, hesitatingly; "a traveller--a reader--a gentleman--oh! yes, certainly a gentleman. But to say that he is a--a charming man ... well, perhaps the ladies are the best judges of such nice questions. What says Mam'selle Marie?"
Thus applied to, the fair Marie became suddenly crimson, and had not a word to reply with. Monsieur Dorinet stared. The young ladies tittered. Madame Marotte, deaf as a post and serenely unconscious, smiled, nodded, and said "Ah, yes, yes--didn't I tell you so?"
"Monsieur Dorinet has, I fear, asked an indiscreet question," said Müller, boiling over with jealousy.
"I--I have not observed Monsieur Lenoir sufficiently to--to form an opinion," faltered Marie, ready to cry with vexation.
Müller glared at her reproachfully, turned on his heel, and came over to where I was standing.
"You saw how she blushed?" he said in a fierce whisper. "Sacredie! I'll bet my head she's an arrant flirt. Who, in the name of all the fiends, is this lodger she's been carrying on with? A lodger, too--oh! the artful puss!"
At this awkward moment, Monsieur Dorinet, with considerable tact, asked Monsieur Philomène for a song; and Monsieur Philomène (who as I afterwards learned was a favorite tenor at fifth-rate concerts) was graciously pleased to comply.
Not, however, without a little preliminary coquetry, after the manner of tenors. First he feared he was hoarse; then struck a note or two on the piano, and tried his falsetto; then asked for a glass of water; and finally begged that one of the young ladies would be so amiable as to accompany him.
Mademoiselle Honoria, inheriting rigidity from the maternal Cyclops, drew herself up and declined stiffly; but the other, whom the dancing-master had called Rosalie, got up directly and said she would do her best.
"Only," she added, blushing, "I play so badly!"
Monsieur Philomène was provided with two copies of his song--one for the accompanyist and one for himself; then, standing well away from the piano with his face to the audience, he balanced his music in his hand, made his little professional bow, coughed, ran his fingers through his hair, and assumed an expression of tender melancholy.
"One--two--three," began Mdlle. Rosalie, her little fat fingers staggering helplessly among the first cadenzas of the symphony. "One--two--three. One" ...
Monsieur Philomène interrupted with a wave of the hand, as if conducting an orchestra.
"Pardon, Mademoiselle," he said, "not quite so fast, if you please! Andantino--andantino--one--two--three ... Just so! A thousand thanks!"
Again Mdlle. Rosalie attacked the symphony. Again Monsieur Philomène cleared his voice, and suffered a pensive languor to cloud his manly brow.
"Revenez, revenez, beaux jours de mon enfance,"
he began, in a small, tremulous, fluty voice.
"They'll have a long road to travel back, parbleu!" muttered Müller.
"De votre aspect riant charmer ma souvenance!"
Here Mdlle. Rosalie struck a wrong chord, became involved in hopeless difficulties, and gasped audibly.
Monsieur Philomène darted a withering glance at her, and went on:--
"Mon coeur; mon pauvre coeur" ...
More wrong chords, and a smothered "mille pardons!" from Mdlle. Rosalie.
"Mon coeur, mon pauvre coeur a la tristesse en proie,
En fouillant le passé"....
A dead stop on the part of Mdlle. Rosalie.
"En fouillant le passé"....
repeated the tenor, with the utmost severity of emphasis.
"Mais, mon Dieu, Rosalie! what are you doing?" cried Madame Desjardins, angrily. "Why don't you go on?"
Mdlle. Rosalie burst into a flood of tears.
"I--I can't!" she sobbed. "It's so--so very difficult--and"...
Madame Desjardins flung up her hands in despair.
"Ciel!" she cried, "and I have been paying three francs a lesson for you, Mademoiselle, twice a week for the last six years!"
"Mais, maman"....
"Fi done, Mademoiselle! I am ashamed of you. Make a curtsey to Monsieur Philomène this moment, and beg his pardon; for you have spoiled his beautiful song!"
But Monsieur Philomène would hear of no such expiation. His soul, to use his own eloquent language, recoiled from it with horror! The accompaniment, à vrai dire, was not easy, and la bien aimable Mam'selle Rosalie had most kindly done her best with it. Allons donc!--on condition that no more should be said on the subject, Monsieur Philomène would volunteer to sing a little unaccompanied romance of his own composition--a mere bagatelle; but a tribute to "les beaux yeux de ces chères dames!"
So Mam'selle Rosalie wiped away her tears, and Madame Desjardins smoothed her ruffled feathers, and Monsieur Philomène warbled a plaintive little ditty in which "coeur" rhymed to "peur" and "amours" to "toujours" and "le sort" to "la mort" in quite the usual way; so giving great satisfaction to all present, but most, perhaps, to himself.
And now, hospitably anxious that each of her guests should have a chance of achieving distinction, Madame Marotte invited Mdlle. Honoria to favor the company with a dramatic recitation.
Mdlle. Honoria hesitated; exchanged glances with the Cyclops; and, in order to enhance the value of her performance, began raising all kinds of difficulties. There was no stage, for instance; and there were no footlights; but M. Dorinet met these objections by proposing to range all the seats at one end of the room, and to divide the stage off by a row of lighted candles.
"But it is so difficult to render a dramatic scene without an interlocutor!" said the young lady.
"What is it you require, ma chère demoiselle?" asked Madame Marotte.
"I have no interlocutor," said Mdlle. Honoria.
"No what, my love?"
"No interlocutor," repeated Mdlle. Honoria, at the top of her voice.
"Dear! dear! what a pity! Can't we send the boy for it? Marie, my child, bid Jacques run to Madame de Montparnasse's appartement in the Rue" ...
But Madame Marotte's voice was lost in the confusion; for Monsieur Dorinet was already deep in the arrangement of the room, and we were all helping to move the furniture. As for Mademoiselle's last difficulty, the little dancing-master met that by offering to read whatever was necessary to carry on the scene.
And now, the stage being cleared, the audience placed, and Monsieur Dorinet provided with a volume of Corneille, Mademoiselle Honoria proceeded to drape herself in an old red shawl belonging to Madame Marotte.
The scene selected is the fifth of the fourth act of Horace, where Camille, meeting her only surviving brother, upbraids him with the death of Curiace.
Mam'selle Honoria, as Camille, with clasped hands and tragic expression, stalks in a slow and stately manner towards the footlights.
(Breathless suspense of the audience.)
M. Dorinet, who should begin by vaunting his victory over the Curiatii, stops to put on his glasses, finds it difficult to read with all the candles on the ground, and mutters something about the smallness of the type.
Mdlle. Honoria, not to keep the audience waiting, surveys the ex-god Seamander with a countenance expressive of horror; starts; and takes a turn across the stage.
"Ma soeur," begins M. Dorinet, holding the book very much on one side, so as to catch the light upon the page, "ma soeur, voici le bras"....
"Ah, Heaven! my dear Mademoiselle, take care of the candles!" cries Madame Marotte in a shrill whisper.
... "le bras qui venge nos deux frères,
Le bras qui rompt le cours de nos destins contraires,
Qui nous rend"...
Here he lost his place; stammered; and recovered it with difficulty.
"Qui nous rend maîtres d'Albe"....
Madame Marotte groans aloud in an agony of apprehension
"Ah, mon Dieu!" she exclaims, gaspingly, "if they didn't flare so, it wouldn't be half so dangerous!"
Here M. Dorinet dropped his book, and stooping to pick up the book, dropped his spectacles.
"I think," said Mdlle. Honoria, indignantly, "we had better begin again. Monsieur Dorinet, pray read with the help of a candle this time!"
And, with an angry toss of her head, Mdlle. Honoria went up the stage, put on her tragedy face again, and prepared once more to stalk down to the footlights.
Monsieur Dorinet, in the meanwhile, had snatched up a candle, readjusted his spectacles, and found his place.
"Ma soeur" he began again, holding the book close to his eyes and the candle just under his nose, and nodding vehemently with every emphasis:--
"Ma soeur, voici le bras qui venge nos deux frères,
Le bras qui rompt le cours de nos destins contraires,
Qui nous rend maîtres d'Albe" ...
A piercing scream from Madame Marotte, a general cry on the part of the audience, and a strong smell of burning, brought the dancing-master to a sudden stop. He looked round, bewildered.
"Your wig! Your wig's on fire!" cried every one at once.
Monsieur Dorinet clapped his hand to his head, which was now adorned with a rapidly-spreading glory; burned his fingers; and cut a frantic caper.
"Save him! save him!" yelled Madame Marotte.
But almost before the words were out of her mouth, Müller, clearing the candles at a bound, had rushed to the rescue, scalped Monsieur Dorinet by a tour de main, cast the blazing wig upon the floor, and trampled out the fire.
Then followed a roar of "inextinguishable laughter," in which, however, neither the tragic Camille nor the luckless Horace joined.
"Heavens and earth!" murmured the little dancing-master, ruefully surveying the ruins of his blonde peruke. And then he put his hand to his head, which was as bald as an egg.
In the meanwhile Mdlle. Honoria, who had not yet succeeded in uttering a syllable of her part, took no pains to dissemble her annoyance; and was only pacified at last by a happy proposal on the part of Monsieur Philomène, who suggested that "this gifted demoiselle" should be entreated to favor the society with a soliloquy.
Thus invited, she draped herself again, stalked down to the footlights for the third time, and in a high, shrill voice, with every variety of artificial emphasis and studied gesture, recited Voltaire's famous "Death of Coligny," from the Henriade.
In the midst of this performance, just at that point when the assassins are described as falling upon their knees before their victim, the door of the room was softly opened, and another guest slipped in unseen behind us. Slipped in, indeed, so quietly that (the backs of the audience being turned that way) no one seemed to hear, and no one looked round but myself.
Brief as was that glance, and all in the shade as he stood, I recognised him instantly.
It was the mysterious stranger of the Café Procope.
Having despatched the venerable Coligny much to her own satisfaction and apparently to the satisfaction of her hearers, Mdlle. Honoria returned to private life; Messieurs Philomène and Dorinet removed the footlights; the audience once more dispersed itself about the room; and Madame Marotte welcomed the new-comer as Monsieur Lenoir.
"Monsieur est bien aimable," she said, nodding and smiling, and, with tremulous hands, smoothing down the front of her black silk gown. "I had told these young ladies that we hoped for the honor of Monsieur's society. Will Monsieur permit me to introduce him?"
"With pleasure, Madame Marotte."
And M. Lenoir--white cravatted, white kid-gloved, hat in hand, perfectly well-dressed in full evening black, and wearing a small orange-colored rosette at his button-hole--bowed, glanced round the room, and, though his eyes undoubtedly took in both Müller and myself, looked as if he had never seen either of us in his life.
I< saw Müller start, and the color fly into his face.
"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, "it is--it must be ... look at him, Arbuthnot! If that isn't the man who stole my sketch-book, I'll eat my head!"
"It is the man," I replied. "I recognised him ten minutes ago, when he first came in."
"You are certain?"
"Quite certain."
"And yet--there is something different!"
There was something different; but, at the same time, much that was identical. There was the same strange, inscrutable look, the same bronzed complexion, the same military bearing. M. Lenoir, it was true, was well, and even elegantly dressed; whereas, the stranger of the Café Procope bore all the outward stigmata of penury; but that was not all. There was yet "something different." The one looked like a man who had done, or suffered, a wrong in his time; who had an old quarrel with the world; and who only sought to hide himself, his poverty, and his bitter pride from the observation of his fellow men. The other stood before us dignified, décoré, self-possessed, a man not only of the world, but apparently no stranger to that small section of it called "the great world." In a word, the man of the Café, sunken, sullen, threadbare as he was, would have been almost less out of his proper place in Madame Marotte's society of small trades-people and minor professionals, than was M. Lenoir with his grand air and his orange-colored ribbon.
"It's the same man," said Müller; "the same, beyond a doubt. The more I look at him, the more confident I am."
"And the more I look at him," said I, "the more doubtful I get."
Madame Marotte, meanwhile, had introduced M. Lenoir to the two Conservatoire pupils and their mammas; Monsieur Dorinet had proposed some "petits jeux;" and Monsieur Philomène was helping him to re-arrange the chairs--this time in a circle.
"Take your places, Messieurs et Mesdames--take your places!" cried Monsieur Dorinet, who had by this time resumed his wig, singed as it was, and shorn of its fair proportions. "What game shall we play at?"
"Pied de Boeuf" "Colin Maillard" and other games were successively proposed and rejected.
"We have a game in Alsace called 'My Aunt's Flower Garden'" said Müller. "Does any one know it?"
"'My Aunt's Flower Garden?'" repeated Monsieur Dorinet. "I never heard of it."
"It sounds pretty," said Mdlle. Rosalie.
"Will M'sieur teach it to us, if it is not very difficult?" suggested Mdlle. Rosalie's mamma.
"With pleasure, Madame. It is not a bad game--and it is extremely easy. We will sit in a circle, if you please--the chairs as they are placed will do quite well."
We were just about to take our places when Madame Marotte seized the opportunity to introduce Müller and myself to M. Lenoir.
"We have met before, Monsieur," said Müller, pointedly.
"I am ashamed to confess, Monsieur, that I do not remember to have had that pleasure," replied M. Lenoir, somewhat stiffly.
"And yet, Monsieur, it was but the other day," persisted Müller.
"Monsieur, I can but reiterate my regret."
"At the Café Procope."
M. Lenoir stared coldly, slightly shrugged his shoulders, and said, with the air of one who repudiates a discreditable charge:--
"Monsieur, I do not frequent the Café Procope."
"If Monsieur Müller is to teach us the game, Monsieur Müller must begin it!" said Monsieur Dorinet.
"At once," replied Müller, taking his place in the circle.
As ill-luck would have it (the rest of us being already seated), there were but two chairs left; so that M. Lenoir and Müller had to sit side by side.
"I begin with my left-hand neighbor," said Müller, addressing himself with a bow to Mdlle. Rosalie; "and the circle will please to repeat after me:--'I have the four corners of my Aunt's Flower Garden for sale--
'In the first of these corners grows sweet mignonette; I've seen thee, and lov'd thee, and ne'er can forget.'"
MDLLE. ROSALIE to M. PHILOMÈNE.--I have the four corners of my Aunt's Flower Garden for sale--
'In the first of these corners grows sweet mignonette; I've seen thee, and lov'd thee, and ne'er can forget.'
M. PHILOMÈNE to MADAME DE MONTPARNASSE.--I have the four corners of my Aunt's Flower Garden, etc., etc.
MADAME DE MONTPARNASSE to M. DORINET.--I have the four corners of my Aunt's Flower Garden, etc., etc.
Monsieur Dorinet repeats the formula to Madame Desjardins; Madame Desjardins passes it on to me; I proclaim it at the top of my voice to Madame Marotte; Madame Marotte transfers it to Mdlle. Honoria; Mdlle. Honoria delivers it to the fair Marie; the fair Marie tells it to M. Lenoir, and the first round is completed.
Müller resumes the lead :--
"In the second grow heartsease and wild eglantine;
Fair exchange is no theft--for my heart, give me thine."
MDLLE. ROSALIE to M. PHILOMÈNE:--
"In the second grow heartsease and wild eglantine;
Fair exchange is no theft--for my heart, give me thine."
M. PHILOMÈNE to MDLLE. DE MONTPARNASSE:--
"In the second grow heartsease," &c., &c.
And so on again, till the second round is done. Then Müller began again:--
"In the third of these corners pale primroses grow;
Now tell me thy secret, and whisper it low."
Mdlle. Rosalie was about to repeat these lines as before; but he stopped her.
"No, Mademoiselle, not till you have told me the secret."
"The secret, M'sieur? What secret?"
"Nay, Mademoiselle, how can I tell that till you have told me? You must whisper something to me--something very secret, which you would not wish any one else to hear--before you repeat the lines. And when you repeat them, Monsieur Philomène must whisper his secret to you--and so on through the circle."
Mdlle. Rosalie hesitated, smiled, whispered something in Müller's ear, and went on with:--
"In the third of these corners pale primroses grow;
Now tell me thy secret, and whisper it low."
Monsieur Philomène then whispered his secret to Mdlle. Rosalie, and so on again till it ended with M. Lenoir and Müller.
"I don't think it is a very amusing game," said Madame Marotte; who, being deaf, had been left out of the last round, and found it dull.
"It will be more entertaining presently, Madame," shouted Müller, with a malicious twinkle about his eyes. "Pray observe the next lines, Messieurs et Mesdames, and follow my lead as before:--
'Roses bloom in the fourth; and your secret, my dear,
Which you whisper'd so softly just now in my ear,
I repeat word for word, for the others to hear!'
Mademoiselle Rosalie (whose pardon I implore!) whispered to me that Monsieur Philomène dyed his moustache and whiskers."
There was a general murmur of alarm tempered with tittering. Mademoiselle Rosalie was dumb with confusion. Monsieur Philomène's face became the color of a full-blown peony. Madame de Montparnasse and Mdlle. Honoria turned absolutely green.
"Comment!" exclaimed one or two voices. "Is everything to be repeated?"
"Everything, Messieurs et Mesdames," replied Müller--"everything--without reservation. I call upon Mdlle. Rosalie to reveal the secret of Monsieur Philomène."
MDLLE. ROSALIE (with great promptitude):--Monsieur Philomène whispered to me that Honoria was the most disagreeable girl in Paris, Marie the dullest, and myself the prettiest.
M. PHILOMÈNE (in an agony of confusion):--I beseech you, Mam'selle Honoria ... I entreat you, Mam'selle Marie, not for an instant to suppose....
MDLLE. HONORIA (drawing herself up and smiling acidly):--Oh, pray do not give yourself the trouble to apologize, Monsieur Philomène. Your opinion, I assure you, is not of the least moment to either of us. Is it, Marie?
But the fair Marie only smiled good-naturedly, and said:--
"I know I am not clever. Monsieur Philomène is quite right; and I am not at all angry with him."
"But--but, indeed, Mesdemoiselles, I--I--am incapable...." stammered the luckless tenor, wiping the perspiration from his brow. "I am incapable...."
"Silence in the circle!" cried Müller, authoritatively. "Private civilities are forbidden by the rules of the game. I call Monsieur Philomène to order, and I demand from him the secret of Madame de Montparnasse."
M. Philomène looked even more miserable than before.
"I--I ... but it is an odious position! To betray the confidence of a lady ... Heavens! I cannot."
"The secret!--the secret!" shouted the others, impatiently.
Madame de Montparnasse pursed up her parchment lips, glared upon us defiantly, and said:--
"Pray don't hesitate about repeating my words, M'sieur Philomène. I am not ashamed of them."
M. PHILOMENE (reluctantly):--Madame de Montparnasse observed to me that what she particularly disliked was a mixed society like--like the present; and that she hoped our friend Madame Marotte would in future be less indiscriminate in the choice of her acquaintances.
MULLER (with elaborate courtesy):--We are all infinitely obliged to Madame de Montparnasse for her opinion of us--(I speak for the society, as leader of the circle)--and beg to assure her that we entirely coincide in her views. It rests with Madame to carry on the game, and to betray the confidence of Monsieur Dorinet.
MADAME DE MONTPARNASSE (with obvious satisfaction):--Monsieur Dorinet told me that Rosalie Desjardin's legs were ill-made, and that she would never make a dancer, though she practised from now till doomsday.
M. DORINET (springing to his feet as if he had been shot):--Heavens and earth! Madame de Montparnasse, what have I done that you should so pervert my words? Mam'selle Rosalie--ma chère elève, believe me, I never....
"Silence in the circle!" shouted Müller again.
M. DORINET:--But, M'sieur, in simple self-defence....
MULLER:--Self-defence, Monsieur Dorinet, is contrary to the rules of the game. Revenge only is permitted. Revenge yourself on Madame Desjardins, whose secret it is your turn to tell.
M. DORINET:--Madame Desjardins drew my attention to the toilette of Madame de Montparnasse. She said: "Mon Dieu! Monsieur Dorinet, are you not tired of seeing La Montparnasse in that everlasting old black gown? My Rosalie says she is in mourning for her ugliness."
MADAME DESJARDINS (laughing heartily):--Eh bien--oui! I don't deny it; and Rosalie's mot was not bad. And now, M'sieur the Englishman (turning to me), it is your turn to be betrayed. Monsieur, whose name I cannot pronounce, said to me:--"Madame, the French, selon moi, are the best dressed and most spirituel people of Europe. Their very silence is witty; and if mankind were, by universal consent, to go without clothes to-morrow, they would wear the primitive costume of Adam and Eve more elegantly than the rest of the world, and still lead the fashion,"
(A murmur of approval on the part of the company, who take the compliment entirely aux serieux.)
MYSELF (agreeably conscious of having achieved popularity):--Our hostess's deafness having unfortunately excluded her from this part of the game, I was honored with the confidence of Mdlle. Honoria, who informed me that she is to make her début before long at the Theatre Français, and hoped that I would take tickets for the occasion.
MDLLE. ROSALIE (satirically):--Brava, Honoria! What a woman of business you are!
MDLLE. HONORIA (affecting not to hear this observation)--
"Roses bloom in the fourth, and your secret, my dear,
Which you whispered so softly just now in my ear,
I repeat word for word for the others to hear."
Marie said to me.... Tiens! Marie, don't pull my dress in that way. You shouldn't have said it, you know, if it won't bear repeating! Marie said to me that she could have either Monsieur Müller or Monsieur Lenoir, by only holding up her finger--but she couldn't make up her mind which she liked best.
MDLLE. MARIE (half crying):--Nay, Honoria--how can you be so--so unkind ... so spiteful? I--I did not say I could have either M'sieur Müller or... or...
M. LENOIR (with great spirit and good breeding):--Whether Mademoiselle used those words or not is of very little importance. The fact remains the same; and is as old as the world. Beauty has but to will and to conquer.
MULLER:--Order in the circle! The game waits for Mademoiselle Marie.
MARIE (hesitatingly):--
"Roses bloom in the fourth, and your secret"
M'sieur Lenoir said that--that he admired the color of my dress, and that blue became me more than lilac.
MULLER: (coldly)--Pardon, Mademoiselle, but I happened to overhear what Monsieur Lenoir whispered just now, and those were not his words. Monsieur Lenoir said, "Look in"... but perhaps Mademoiselle would prefer me not to repeat more?
MARIE--(in great confusion):--As--as you please, M'sieur.
MULLER:--Then, Mademoiselle, I will be discreet, and I will not even impose a forfeit upon you, as I might do, by the laws of the game. It is for Monsieur Lenoir to continue.
M. LENOIR:--I do not remember what Monsieur Müller whispered to me at the close of the last round.
MULLER (pointedly):--Pardon, Monsieur, I should have thought that scarcely possible.
M. LENOIR:--It was perfectly unintelligible, and therefore left no impression on my memory.
MULLER:--Permit me, then, to have the honor of assisting your memory. I said to you--"Monsieur, if I believed that any modest young woman of my acquaintance was in danger of being courted by a man of doubtful character, do you know what I would do? I would hunt that man down with as little remorse as a ferret hunts down a rat in a drain."
M. LENOIR:--The sentiment does you honor, Monsieur; but I do not see the application,
MULLER:--Vous ne le trouvez pas, Monsieur?
M. LENOIR--(with a cold stare, and a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders):--Non, Monsieur.
Here Mdlle. Rosalie broke in with:--"What are we to do next, M'sieur Müller? Are we to begin another round, or shall we start a fresh game?"
To which Müller replied that it must be "selon le plaisir de ces dames;" and put the question to the vote.
But too many plain, unvarnished truths had cropped up in the course of the last round of my Aunt's Flower Garden; and the ladies were out of humor. Madame de Montparnasse, frigid, Cyclopian, black as Erebus, found that it was time to go home; and took her leave, bristling with gentility. The tragic Honoria stalked majestically after her. Madame Desjardins, mortally offended with M. Dorinet on the score of Rosalie's legs, also prepared to be gone; while M. Philomène, convicted of hair-dye and brouillé for ever with "the most disagreeable girl in Paris," hastened to make his adieux as brief as possible.
"A word in your ear, mon cher Dorinet," whispered he, catching the little dancing-master by the button-hole. "Isn't it the most unpleasant party you were ever at in your life?"
The ex-god Scamander held up his hands and eyes.
"Eh, mon Dieu!" he replied. "What an evening of disasters! I have lost my best pupil and my second-best wig!"
In the meanwhile, we went up like the others, and said good-night to our hostess.
She, good soul! in her deafness, knew nothing about the horrors of the evening, and was profuse of her civilities. "So amiable of these gentlemen to honor her little soirée--so kind of M'sieur Müller to have exerted himself to make things go off pleasantly--so sorry we would not stay half an hour longer," &c., &c.
To all of which Müller (with a sly grimace expressive of contrition) replied only by a profound salutation and a rapid retreat. Passing M. Lenoir without so much as a glance, he paused a moment before Mdlle. Marie who was standing near the door, and said in a tone audible only to her and myself:--
"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle, on your admirable talent for intrigue. I trust, when you look in the usual place and find the promised letter, it will prove agreeable reading. J'ai l'honneur, Mademoiselle, de vous saluer."
I saw the girl flush crimson, then turn deadly white, and draw back as if his hand had struck her a sudden blow. The next moment we were half-way down the stairs.
"What, in Heaven's name, does all this mean?" I said, when we were once more in the street.
"It means," replied Müller fiercely, "that the man's a scoundrel, and the woman, like all other women, is false."
"Then the whisper you overheard" ...
"Was only this:--'Look in the usual place, and you will find a letter.' Not many words, mon cher, but confoundedly comprehensive! And I who believed that girl to be an angel of candor! I who was within an ace of falling seriously in love with her! Sacredie! what an idiot I have been!"
"Forget her, my dear fellow," said I. "Wipe her out of your memory (which I think will not be difficult), and leave her to her fate."
He shook his head.
"No," he said, gloomily, "I won't do that. I'll get to the bottom of that man's mystery; and if, as I suspect, there's that about his past life which won't bear the light of day--I'll save her, if I can."