"But, my dear fellow, what else could you have expected? You took Mam'selle Josephine to the Opera Comique. Eh bien! you might as well have taken an oyster up Mount Vesuvius. Our fair friend was out of her element. Voilà tout."
"Confound her and her element!" I exclaimed with a groan. "What the deuce is her element--the Quartier Latin?"
"The Quartier Latin is to some extent her habitat--but then Mam'selle Josephine belongs to a genus of which you, cher Monsieur Arbuthnot, are deplorably ignorant--the genus grisette. The grisette from a certain point of view is the chef-d'oeuvre of Parisian industry; the bouquet of Parisian civilization. She is indigenous to the mansarde and the pavé--bears no transplantation--flourishes in the première balconie, the suburban guingette, and the Salle Valentinois; but degenerates at a higher elevation. To improve her is to spoil her. In her white cap and muslin gown, the Parisian grisette is simply delicious. In a smart bonnet, a Cashmere and a brougham, she is simply detestable. Fine clothes vulgarize her. Fine surroundings demoralize her. Lodged on the sixth story, rich in the possession of a cuckoo-clock, a canary, half a dozen pots of mignonette, and some bits of cheap furniture in imitation mahogany, she has every virtue and every fault that is charming in woman--childlike gaiety; coquetry; thoughtless generosity; the readiest laugh, the readiest tear, and the warmest heart in the world. Transplant her to the Chaussée d'Antin, instil the taste for diamonds, truffles, and Veuve Clicquot, and you poison her whole nature. She becomes false, cruel, greedy, prodigal of your money, parsimonious of her own--a vampire--a ghoul--the hideous thing we call in polite parlance a Fille de Marbre."
Thus, with much gravity and emphasis, spoke Herr Franz Müller, lying on his back upon a very ricketty sofa, and smoking like a steam-engine. A cup of half-cold coffee, and a bottle of rum three parts emptied stood beside him on the floor. These were the remains of his breakfast; for it was yet early in the morning of the day following my great misadventure at the Opéra Comique, and I had sought him out at his lodgings in the Rue Clovis at an hour when the Quartier Latin was for the most part in bed.
"Josephine, at all events, is not of the stuff that Filles de Marbre are made of," I said, smiling.
"Perhaps not--mais, que voulez-vous? We are what we are. A grisette makes a bad fine lady. A fine lady would make a still worse grisette. The Archbishopric of Paris is a most repectable and desirable preferment; but your humble servant, for instance, would hardly suit the place,"
"And the moral of this learned and perspicuous discourse?"
"Tiens! the moral, is--keep our fair friend in her place. Remember that a dinner at thirty sous in the Palais Royal, or a fête with fireworks at Mabille, will give her ten times more pleasure than the daintiest repast you could order at the Maison Dorée, or the choicest night of the season at either opera house. And how should it be otherwise? One must understand a thing to be able to enjoy it; and I'll be sworn Mam'selle Josephine was infinitely more bored last night than yourself."
Our conversation, or rather his monologue, was here interrupted by the ringing of the outer bell.
The artist sat up, took his pipe from his lips, and looked considerably disturbed.
"Mille tonnerres!" said he in a low tone. "Who can it be?... so early in the day ... not yet ten o'clock ... it is very mysterious."
"It is only mysterious," said I, "as long as you don't open the door. Shall I answer the bell?"
"No--yes--wait a moment ... suppose it is that demon, my landlord, or that archfiend, my tailor--then you must say ... holy St. Nicholas! you must say I am in bed with small-pox, or that I've broken out suddenly into homicidal delirium, and you're my keeper."
"Unfortunately I should not know either of your princes of darkness at first sight."
"True--and it might be Dupont, who owes me thirty francs, and swore by the bones of his aunt (an excellent person, who keeps an estaminet in the Place St. Sulpice) that he would pay me this week. Diable! there goes the bell again."
"It would perhaps be safest," I suggested, "to let M. or N. ring on till he is tired of the exercise."
"But conceive the horrid possibility of letting thirty francs ring themselves out of patience! No, mon ami--I will dare the worst that may happen. Wait here for me--I will answer the door myself,"
Now it should be explained that Müller's apartments consisted of three rooms. First, a small outer chamber which he dignified with the title of Salle d'Attente, but which, as it was mainly furnished with old boots, umbrellas and walking-sticks, and contained, by way of accommodation for visitors only a three-legged stool and a door-mat, would have been more fitly designated as the hall. Between this Salle d'Attente and the den in which he slept, ate, smoked, and received his friends, lay the studio--once a stately salon, now a wilderness of litter and dilapidation. On one side you beheld three windows closely boarded up, with strips of newspaper pasted over the cracks to exclude every gleam of day. Overhead yawned a huge, dusty skylight, to make way for which a fine old painted ceiling had been ruthlessly knocked away. On the walls were pinned and pasted all sorts of rough sketches and studies in color and crayon. In one corner lolled a despondent-looking lay-figure in a moth-eaten Spanish cloak; in another lay a heap of plaster-casts, gigantic hands and feet, broken-nosed masks of the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Hercules Farnese, and other foreigners of distinction. Upon the chimney-piece were displayed a pair of foils, a lute, a skull, an antique German drinking-mug, and several very modern empty bottles. In the middle of the room stood two large easels, a divan, a round table, and three or four chairs; while the floor was thickly strewn with empty color-tubes, bits of painting-rag, corks, cigar-ends, and all kinds of miscellaneous litter.
All these things I had observed as I passed in; for this, be it remembered, was my first visit to Müller in his own territory.
I heard him go through the studio and close the door behind him, and then I heard him open the door upon the public staircase. Presently he came back, shutting the door behind him as before.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, breathlessly, "you have brought luck with you! What do you think? A sitter--positively, a sitter! Wants to be sketched in at once--Vive la France!"
"Man or woman? Young or old? Plain or pretty?"
"Elderly half-length, feminine gender--Madame Tapotte. They are both there, Monsieur and Madame Excellent couple--redolent of the country--husband bucolic, adipose, auriferous--wife arrayed in all her glory, like the Queen of Sheba. I left them in the Salle d'Attente--told them I had a sitter--time immensely occupied--half-lengths furiously in demand ... Will you oblige me by performing the part for a few minutes, just to carry out the idea?"
"What part?"
"The part of sitter."
"Oh, with pleasure," I replied, laughing. "Do with me what you please,"
"You don't mind? Come! you are the best fellow in the world. Now, if you'll sit in that arm-chair facing the light--head a little thrown back, arms folded, chin up ... Capital! You don't know what an effect this will have upon the provincial mind!"
"But you're not going to let them in! You have no portrait of me to be at work upon!"
"My dear fellow, I've dozens of half-finished studies, any one of which will answer the purpose. Voilà! here is the very thing."
And snatching up a canvas that had been standing till now with its face to the wall, he flourished it triumphantly before my eyes, and placed it on the easel.
"Heavens and earth!" I exclaimed, "that's a copy of the Titian in the Louvre--the 'Young Man with the Glove!'"
"What of that? Our Tapottes will never find out the difference. By the way, I told them you were a great English Milord, so please keep up the character."
"I will try to do credit to the peerage."
"And if you would not mind throwing in a word of English every now and then ... a little Goddam, for instance.. . Eh?"
I laughed and shook my head.
"I will pose for you as Milord with all the pleasure in life," I said; "only I cannot undertake to pose for the traditional Milord of the Bouffes Parisiens! However, I will speak some English, and, if you like, I'll know no French."
"No, no--diable! you must know a little, or I can't exchange a word with you. But very little--the less the better. And now I'll let them in."
They came; Madame first--tall, buxom, large-featured, fresh-colored, radiant in flowers, lace, and Palais Royal jewelry; then Monsieur--short, fat, bald, rosy and smiling, with a huge frill to his shirt-front and a nankeen waistcoat.
Müller introduced them with much ceremony and many apologies.
"Permit me, milord," he said, "to present Monsieur and Madame Tapotte--Monsieur and Madame Tapotte; Milord Smithfield."
I rose and bowed with the gravity becoming my rank.
"I have explained to milord," continued Müller, addressing himself partly to the new-comers, partly to me, and chiefly to the study on the easel, "that having no second room in which to invite Monsieur and Madame to repose themselves, I am compelled to ask them into the studio--where, however, his lordship is so very kind as to say that they are welcome." (Hereupon Madame Tapotte curtsied again, and Monsieur ducked his bald head, and I returned their salutations with the same dignity as before.) "If Monsieur and Madame will be pleased to take seats, however, his lordship's sitting will be ended in about ten minutes. Mille pardons, the face, milord, a little more to the right. Thank you--thank you very much. And if you will do me the favor to look at me ... for the expression of the eye--just so--thank you! A most important point, milord, is the expression of the eye. When I say the expression, I mean the fire, the sparkle, the liquidity ... enfin the expression!"
Here he affected to put in some touches with immense delicacy--then retreated a couple of yards, the better to contemplate his work--pursed up his mouth--ran his fingers through his hair--shaded his eyes with his hand--went back and put in another touch--again retreated--again put in a touch; and so on some three or four times successively.
Meanwhile Monsieur and Madame Tapotte were fidgeting upon their chairs in respectful silence. Every now and then they exchanged glances of wonder and admiration. They were evidently dying to compare my august features with my portrait, but dared not take the liberty of rising. At length the lady's curiosity could hold out no longer.
"Ah, mon Dieu!" she said; "but it must be very fatiguing to sit so long in the same position. And to paint.... Oiel! what practice! what perseverance! what patience! Avec permission, M'sieur..."
And with this she sidled up to Müller's elbow, leaving Monsieur Tapotte thunderstruck at her audacity.
Then for a moment she stood silent; but during that moment the eager, apologetic smile vanished suddenly out of her face, and was succeeded by an expression of blank disappointment.
"Tiens!" she said bluntly. "I don't see one bit of likeness."
I turned hot from head to foot, but Müller's serene effrontery was equal to the occasion.
"I dare say not, Madame," he replied, coolly. "I dare say not. This portrait is not intended to be like."
Madame Tapotte's eyes and mouth opened simultaneously.
"Comment!" she exclaimed.
"I should be extremely sorry," continued Müller, loftily, "and his lordship would be extremely sorry, if there were too much resemblance."
"But a--a likeness--it seems to me, should at all events be--like," stammered Madame Tapotte, utterly bewildered.
"And if M'sieur is to paint my wife," added Monsieur Tapotte, who had by this time joined the group at the easel, "I--I...Dame! it must be a good deal more like than this."
Müller drew himself up with an air of great dignity.
"Sir," he said, "if Madame does me the honor to sit to me for her portrait--for her own portrait, observe--I flatter myself the resemblance will be overwhelming. But you must permit me to inform you that Milord Smithfield is not sitting for his own portrait."
The Tapottes looked at each other in a state bordering on stupefaction.
"His lordship," continued Müller, "is sitting for the portrait of one of his illustrious ancestors--a nobleman of the period of Queen Elizabeth."
Tapotte mari scratched his head, and smiled feebly.
"Parbleu!" said he, "mais c'est bien drôle, ça!"
The artist shrugged his shoulders.
"It so happens," said he, "that his lordship's gallery at Smithfield Castle has unhappily been more than half destroyed by fire. Two centuries of family portraits reduced to ashes! Terrible misfortune! Only one way of repairing the loss--that is of partially repairing it. I do my best. I read the family records--I study the history of the period--his lordship sits to me daily--I endeavor to give a certain amount of family likeness; sometimes more, you observe, sometimes less ... enormous responsibility, Monsieur Tapotte!"
"Oh, enormous!"
"The taste for family portraits," continued Müller, still touching up the Titian, "is a very natural one--and is on the increase. Many gentlemen of--of somewhat recent wealth, come to me for their ancestors."
"No!"
"Foi d'honneur. Few persons, however, are as conscientious as his lordship in the matter of family resemblance. They mostly buy up their forefathers ready-made--adopt them, christen them, and ask no questions."
Monsieur and Madame Tapotte exchanged glances.
"Tiens, mon ami, why should we not have an ancestor or two, as well as other folks," suggested the lady, in a very audible whisper.
Monsieur shook his head, and muttered something about the expense.
"There is no harm, at all events," urged madame, "in asking the price."
"My charge for gallery portraits, madame, varies from sixty to a hundred francs," said Müller.
"Heavens! how dear! Why, my own portrait is to be only fifty."
"Sixty, Madame, if we put in the hands and the jewelry," said Müller, blandly.
"Eh bien!--sixty. But for these other things.... bah! ils sont fierement chers."
"Pardon, madame! The elegancies and superfluities of life are, by a just rule of political economy, expensive. It is right that they should be so; as it is right that the necessaries of life should be within the reach of the poorest. Bread, for instance, is strictly necessary, and should be cheap. A great-grandfather, on the contrary, is an elegant superfluity, and may be put up at a high figure."
"There is some truth in that," murmured Monsieur Tapotte.
"Besides, in the present instance, one also pays for antiquity."
"C'est juste--C'est juste."
"At the same time," continued Müller, "if Monsieur Tapotte were to honor me with a commission for, say, half a dozen family portraits, I would endeavor to put them in at forty francs apiece--including, at that very low price, a Revolutionary Deputy, a beauty of the Louis Quinze period, and a Marshal of France."
"Tiens! that's a fair offer enough," said madame. "What say you, mon ami?"
But Monsieur Tapotte, being a cautious man, would say nothing hastily. He coughed, looked doubtful, declined to commit himself to an opinion, and presently drew off into a corner for the purpose of holding a whispered consultation with his wife.
Meanwhile Müller laid aside his brushes and palette, informed me with a profound bow that my lordship had honored him by sitting as long as was strictly necessary, and requested my opinion upon the progress of the work.
I praised it rapturously. You would have thought, to hear me, that for drawing, breadth, finish, color, composition, chiaroscuro, and every other merit that a painting could possess, this particular chef-d'oeuvre excelled all the masterpieces of Europe.
Müller bowed, and bowed, and bowed, like a Chinaman at a visit of ceremony; He was more than proud; he was overwhelmed, accablé, et caetera, et caetera.
The Tapottes left off whispering, and listened breathlessly.
"He is evidently a great painter, not' jeune homme!" said Madame in one of her large whispers.
To which Monsieur replied as audibly:--"Ça se voit, ma femme--sacre nom d'une pipe!"
"Milford will do me the favor to sit again on Friday?" said Müller, as I took up my hat and gloves.
I replied with infinite condescension that I would endeavor to do so. I then made the stiffest of stiff bows to the excellent Tapottes, and, ushered to the door by Müller, took my departure majestically in the character of Lord Smithfield.
The dear old Quartier Latin of my time--the Quartier Latin of Balzac, of Béranger, of Henry Murger---the Quartier Latin where Franz Müller had his studio; where Messieurs Gustave; Jules, and Adrien gave their unparalleled soirées dansantes; where I first met my ex-flame Josephine--exists no longer. It has been improved off the face of the earth, and with it such a gay bizarre, improvident world of youth and folly as shall never again be met together on the banks of the Seine.
Ah me! how well I remember that dingy, delightful Arcadia--the Rue de la Vieille Boucherie, narrow, noisy, crowded, with projecting upper stories and Gothic pent-house roofs--the Rue de la Parcheminerie, unchanged since the Middle Ages--the Rue St. Jacques, steep, interminable, dilapidated; with its dingy cabarets, its brasseries, its cheap restaurants, its grimy shop windows filled with colored prints, with cooked meats, with tobacco, old books, and old clothes; its ancient colleges and hospitals, time-worn and weather-beaten, frowning down upon the busy thoroughfare and breaking the squalid line of shops; its grim old hotels swarming with lodgers, floor above floor, from the cobblers in the cellars to the grisettes in the attics! Then again, the gloomy old Place St. Michel, its abundant fountain ever flowing, ever surrounded by water-carts and water-carriers, by women with pails, and bare-footed street urchins, and thirsty drovers drinking out of iron cups chained to the wall. And then, too, the Rue de la Harpe....
I close my eyes, and the strange, precipitous, picturesque, decrepit old street, with its busy, surging crowd, its street-cries, its street-music, and its indescribable union of gloom and gayety, rises from its ashes. Here, grand old dilapidated mansions with shattered stone-carvings, delicate wrought-iron balconies all rust-eaten and broken, and windows in which every other pane is cracked or patched, alternate with more modern but still more ruinous houses, some leaning this way, some that, some with bulging upper stories, some with doorways sunk below the level of the pavement. Yonder, gloomy and grim, stands the College of Saint Louis. Dark alleys open off here and there from the main thoroughfare, and narrow side streets, steep as flights of steps. Low sheds and open stalls cling, limpet-like, to every available nook and corner. An endless procession of trucks, wagons, water-carts, and fiacres rumbles perpetually by. Here people live at their windows and in the doorways--the women talking from balcony to balcony, the men smoking, reading, playing at dominoes. Here too are more cafés and cabarets, open-air stalls for the sale of fried fish, and cheap restaurants for workmen and students, where, for a sum equivalent to sevenpence half-penny English, the Quartier Latin regales itself upon meats and drinks of dark and enigmatical origin. Close at hand is the Place and College of the Sorbonne--silent in the midst of noisy life, solitary in the heart of the most crowded quarter of Paris. A sombre mediæval gloom pervades that ancient quadrangle; scant tufts of sickly grass grow here and there in the interstices of the pavement; the dust of centuries crust those long rows of windows never opened. A little further on is the Rue des Grès, narrow, crowded, picturesque, one uninterrupted perspective of bookstalls and bookshops from end to end. Here the bookseller occasionally pursues a two-fold calling, and retails not only literature but a cellar of petit vin bleu; and here, overnight, the thirsty student exchanges for a bottle of Macon the "Code Civile" that he must perforce buy back again at second-hand in the morning.
A little farther on, and we come to the College Saint Louis, once the old College Narbonne; and yet a few yards more, and we are at the doors of the Theatre du Pantheon, once upon a time the Church of St. Bénoit, where the stage occupies the site of the altar, and an orchestra stall in what was once the nave, may be had for seventy-five centimes. Here, too, might be seen the shop of the immortal Lesage, renowned throughout the Quartier for the manufacture of a certain kind of transcendental ham-patty, peculiarly beloved by student and grisette; and here, clustering within a stone's throw of each other, were to be found those famous restaurants, Pompon, Viot, Flicoteaux, and the "Boeuf Enragé," where, on gala days, many an Alphonse and Fifine, many a Théophile and Cerisette, were wont to hold high feast and festival--terms sevenpence half-penny each, bread at discretion, water gratis, wine and toothpicks extra.
But it was in the side streets, courts, and impasses that branched off to the left and right of the main arteries, that one came upon the very heart of the old Pays Latin; for the Rue St. Jacques, the Rue de la Harpe, the Rue des Grès, narrow, steep, dilapidated though they might be, were in truth the leading thoroughfares--the Boulevards, so to speak--of the Student Quartier. In most of the side alleys, however, some of which dated back as far, and farther, than the fifteenth century, there was no footway for passengers, and barely space for one wheeled vehicle at a time. A filthy gutter invariably flowed down the middle of the street. The pavement, as it peeped out here and there through a moraine of superimposed mud and offal, was seen to consist of small oblong stones, like petrified kidney potatoes. The houses, some leaning this way, some that, with projecting upper stories and overhanging gable-roofs, nodded together overhead, leaving but a narrow strip of sky down which the sunlight strove in vain to struggle. Long poles upon which were suspended old clothes hung out to air, and ragged linen to dry, stood out like tattered banners from the attic windows. Here, too, every ground-floor was a shop, open, unglazed, cavernous, where the dealer lay perdu in the gloom of midday, like a spider in the midst of his web, surrounded by piles of old bottles, old iron, old clothes, old furniture, or whatever else his stock in trade might consist of.
Of such streets--less like streets, indeed, than narrow, overhanging gorges and ravines of damp and mouldering stone--of such streets, I say, intricate, winding, ill-lighted, unventilated, pervaded by an atmosphere compounded of the fumes of fried fish, tobacco, old leather, mildew and dirt, there were hundreds in the Quartier Latin of my time:--streets to the last degree unattractive as places of human habitation, but rich, nevertheless, in historic associations, in picturesque detail, and in archaeological interest. Such a street, for instance, was the Rue du Fouarre (scarcely a feature of which has been modernized to this day), where Dante, when a student of theology in Paris, attended the lectures of one Sigebert, a learned monk of Gemblours, who discoursed to his scholars in the open air, they sitting round him the while upon fresh straw strewn upon the pavement. Such a street was the Rue des Cordiers, close adjoining the Rue des Grès, where Rousseau lived and wrote; and the Rue du Dragon, where might then be seen the house of Bernard Palissy; and the Rue des Maçons, where Racine lived; and the Rue des Marais, where Adrienne Lecouvreur--poor, beautiful, generous, ill-fated Adrienne Lecouvreur!--died. Here, too, in a blind alley opening off the Rue St. Jacques, yet stands part of that Carmelite Convent in which, for thirty years, Madame de la Vallière expiated the solitary frailty of her life. And so at every turn! Not a gloomy by-street, not a dilapidated fountain, not a grim old college façade but had its history, or its legend. Here the voice of Abelard thundered new truths, and Rabelais jested, and Petrarch discoursed with the doctors. Here, in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, walked the shades of Racine, of Molière, of Corneille, of Voltaire. Dear, venerable, immortal old Quartier Latin! Thy streets were narrow, but they were the arteries through which, century after century, circulated all the wisdom and poetry, all the art, and science, and learning of France! Their gloom, their squalor, their very dirt was sacred. Could I have had my will, not a stone of the old place should have been touched, not a pavement widened, not a landmark effaced.
Then beside, yet not apart from, all that was mediæval and historic in the Pays Latin, ran the gay, effervescent, laughing current of the life of the jeunessed' aujour d'hui. Here beat the very heart of that rare, that immortal, that unparalleled vie de Bohème, the vagabond poetry of which possesses such an inexhaustible charm for even the soberest imagination. What brick and mortar idylls, what romances au cinquième, what joyous epithalamiums, what gay improvident ménages, what kisses, what laughter, what tears, what lightly-spoken and lightly-broken vows those old walls could have told of!
Here, apparelled in all sorts of unimaginable tailoring, in jaunty colored cap or flapped sombrero, his pipe dangling from his button-hole, his hair and beard displaying every eccentricity under heaven, the Paris student, the Pays Latiniste pur sang, lived and had his being. Poring over the bookstalls in the Place du Panthéon or the Rue des Grès--hurrying along towards this or that college with a huge volume under each arm, about nine o'clock in the morning--haunting the cafés at midday and the restaurants at six--swinging his legs out of upper windows and smoking in his shirt-sleeves in the summer evenings--crowding the pit of the Odéon and every part of the Theatre du Panthéon--playing wind instruments at dead of night to the torment of his neighbors, or, in vocal mood, traversing the Quartier with a society of musical friends about the small hours of the morning--getting into scuffles with the gendarmes--flirting, dancing, playing billiards and the deuce; falling in love and in debt; dividing his time between Aristotle and Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson ... here, and here only, in all his phases, at every hour of the day and night, he swarmed, ubiquitous.
And here, too (a necessary sequence), flourished the fair and frail grisette. Her race, alas! is now all but extinct--the race of Frétillon, of Francine, of Lisette, Musette, Rosette, and all the rest of that too fascinating terminology--the race immortalized again and again by Béranger, Gavarni, Balzac, De Musset; sketched by a hundred pencils and described by a hundred pens; celebrated in all manner of metres and set to all manner of melodies; now caricatured and now canonized; now painted wholly en noir and now all couleur de rose; yet, however often described, however skilfully analyzed, remaining for ever indescribable, and for ever defying analysis!
"De tous les produits Parisiens," says Monsieur Jules Janin (himself the quintessence of everything most Parisian), "le produit le plus Parisien, sans contredit, c'est la grisette." True; but our epigrammatist should have gone a step farther. He should have added that the grisette pur sang is to be found nowhere except in Paris; and (still a step farther) nowhere in Paris save between the Pont Neuf and the Barrière d'Enfer. There she reigns; there (ah! let me use the delicious present tense--let me believe that I still live in Arcadia!)--there she lights up the old streets with her smile; makes the old walls ring with her laughter; flits over the crossings like a fairy; wears the most coquettish of little caps and the daintiest of little shoes; rises to her work with the dawn; keeps a pet canary; trains a nasturtium round her window; loves as heartily as she laughs, and almost as readily; owes not a sou, saves not a centime; sews on Adolphe's buttons, like a good neighbor; is never so happy as when Adolphe in return takes her to Tivoli or the Jardin Turc; adores galette, sucre d'orge, and Frederick Lemaître; and looks upon a masked ball and a debardeur dress as the summit of human felicity.
Vive la grisette! Shall I not follow many an illustrious example and sing my modest paean in her praise? Frown not, august Britannia! Look not so severely askance upon my poor little heroine of the Quartier Latin! Thinkest thou because thou art so eminently virtuous that she who has many a serviceable virtue of her own, shall be debarred from her share in this world's cakes and ale?
Vive la grisette! Let us think and speak no evil of her. "Elle ne tient au vice que par un rayon, et s'en éloigne par les mille autres points de la circonference sociale." The world sees only her follies, and sees them at first sight; her good qualities lie hidden in the shade. Is she not busy as a bee, joyous as a lark, helpful, pitiful, unselfish, industrious, contented? How often has she not slipped her last coin into the alms-box at the hospital gate, and gone supperless to bed? How often sat up all night, after a long day's toil in a crowded work-room, to nurse Victorine in the fever? How often pawned her Sunday gown and shawl, to redeem that coat without which Adolphe cannot appear before the examiners to-morrow morning? Granted, if you will, that she has an insatiable appetite for sweets, cigarettes, and theatrical admissions--shall she not be welcome to her tastes? And is it her fault if her capacity in the way of miscellaneous refreshments partakes of the nature of the miraculous--somewhat to the inconvenience of Adolphe, who has overspent his allowance? Supposing even that she may now and then indulge (among friends) in a very modified can-can at the Chaumière--what does that prove, except that her heels are as light as her heart, and that her early education has been somewhat neglected?
But I am writing of a world that has vanished as completely as the lost Pleiad. The Quartier Latin of my time is no more. The Chaumière is no more. The grisette is fast dying out. Of the Rue de la Harpe not a recognisable feature is left. The old Place St. Michel, the fountain, the Theatre du Panthéon, are gone as if they had never been. Whole streets, I might say whole parishes, have been swept away--whole chapters of mediæval history erased for ever.
Well, I love to close my eyes from time to time, and evoke the dear old haunts from their ruins; to descend once more the perilous steeps of the Rue St. Jacques, and to thread the labyrinthine by-streets that surround the École de Médecine. I see them all so plainly! I look in at the familiar print-shops--I meet many a long-forgotten face--I hear many a long-forgotten voice--I am twenty years of age and a student again!
Ah me! what a pleasant time, and what a land of enchantment! Dingy, dilapidated, decrepit as it was, that graceless old Quartier Latin, believe me, was paved with roses and lighted with laughing gas.
"Halte là! I thought I should catch you about this time! They've been giving you unconscionable good measure to-day, though, haven't they? I thought Bollinet's lecture was always over by three; and here I've been moralizing on the flight of Time for more than twenty minutes."
So saying, Müller, having stopped me as I was coming down the steps of the Hôtel Dieu, linked his arm in mine, drew me into a shady angle under the lee of Notre Dame, and, without leaving me time to reply, went on pouring out his light, eager chatter as readily as a mountain-spring bubbles out its waters.
"I thought you'd like to know about the Tapottes, you see--and I was dying to tell you. I went to your rooms last night between eight and nine, and you were out; so I thought the only sure way was to come here--I know you never miss Bollinet's Lectures. Well, as I was saying, the Tapottes.... Oh, mon cher! I am your debtor for life in that matter of Milord Smithfield. It has been the making of me. What do you think? Tapotte is not only going to sit for a companion half-length to Madame's portrait, but he has given me a commission for half-a-dozen ancestors. Fancy--half-a-dozen illustrious dead-and-done Tapottes! What a scope for the imagination! What a bewildering vista of billets de banque! I feel--ah, mon ami! I feel that the wildest visions of my youth are about to be realized, and that I shall see my tailor's bill receipted before I die!"
"I'm delighted," said I, "that Tapotte has turned up a trump card."
"A trump card? Say a California--a Pactolus--a Golden Calf. Nay, hath not Tapotte two golden calves? Is he not of the precious metal all compact? Stands he not, in the amiable ripeness of his years, a living representative of the Golden Age? 'O bella età dell' oro!'"
And to my horror, he then and there executed a frantic pas seul.
"Gracious powers!" I exclaimed. "Are you mad?"
"Yes--raving mad. Have you any objection?"
"But, my dear fellow--in the face of day--in the streets of Paris! We shall get taken up by the police!"
"Then suppose we get out of the streets of Paris? I'm tired enough, Heaven knows, of cultivating the arid soil of the Pavé. See, it's a glorious afternoon. Let's go somewhere."
"With all my heart. Where?"
"Ah, mon Dieu! ça m'est égal. Enghien--Vincennes--St. Cloud--Versailles ... anywhere you like. Most probably there's a fête going on somewhere, if we only knew where,"
"Can't we find out?"
"Oh, yes--we can drop into a Café and look at the Petites Affiches; only that entails an absinthe; or we can go into the nearest Omnibus Bureau and see the notices on the walls, which will be cheaper."
So we threaded our way along the narrow thoroughfares of the Ile de la Cité, and came presently to an Omnibus Bureau on the Quai de l'Horloge, overlooking the Pont Neuf and the river. Here the first thing we saw was a flaming placard setting forth the pleasures and attractions of the great annual fête at Courbevoie; a village on the banks of the Seine, a mile or two beyond Neuilly.
"Voilà, notre affaire!" said Müller, gaily. "We can't do better than steer straight for Courbevoie."
Saying which, he hailed a passing fiacre and bade the coachman drive to the Embarcadère of the Rive Droite.
"We shall amuse ourselves famously at Courbevoie," he said, as we rattled over the stones. "We'll dine at the Toison d'Or--an excellent little restaurant overlooking the river; and if you're fond of angling, we can hire a punt and catch our own fish for dinner. Then there will be plenty of fiddling and dancing at the guingettes and gardens in the evening. By the way, though, I've no money! That is to say, none worth speaking of--voilà!... one franc, one piece of fifty centimes, another of twenty centimes, and some sous. I hope your pockets are better lined than mine."
"Not much, I fear," I replied, pulling out my porte-monnaie, and emptying the contents into my hand. They amounted to nine francs and seventy-five centimes.
"Parbleu! we've just eleven francs and a half between us," said Müller. "A modest sum-total; but we must make it as elastic as we can. Let me see, there'll be a franc for the fiacre, four francs for our return tickets, four for our dinner, and two and a half to spend as we like in the fair. Well, we can't commit any great extravagance with that amount of floating capital."
"Better turn back and go to my rooms for some more money?" I exclaimed. "I've two Napoleons in my desk."
"No, no--we should miss the three-fifty train, and not get another till between five and six."
"But we shall have no fun if we have no money!"
"I dissent entirely from that proposition, Monsieur Englishman. I have always had plenty of fun, and I have been short of cash since the hour of my birth. Come, it shall be my proud task to-day to prove to you the pleasures of impecuniosity!"
So with our eleven francs and a half we went on to the station, and took our places for Courbevoie.
We travelled, of course, by third class in the open wagons; and it so happened that in our compartment we had the company of three pretty little chattering grisettes, a fat countrywoman with a basket, and a quiet-looking elderly female with her niece. These last wore bonnets, and some kind of slight mourning. They belonged evidently to the small bourgeoise class, and sat very quietly in the corner of the carriage, speaking to no one. The three grisettes, however, kept up an incessant fire of small talk and squabble.
"I was on this very line last Sunday," said one. "I went with Julie to Asnières, and we were so gay! I wonder if it will be very gay at Courbevoie."
"Je m'en doute," replied another, whom they called Lolotte. "I came to one of the Courbevoie fêtes last spring, and it was not gay at all. But then, to be sure, I was with Edouard, and he is as dull as the first day in Lent. Where were you last Sunday, Adéle?"
"I did not go beyond the barriers. I went to the Cirque with my cousin, and we dined in the Palais Royal. We enjoyed ourselves so much! You know my cousin?"
"Ah! yes--the little fellow with the curly hair and the whiskers, who waits for you at the corner when we leave the workshop."
"The same--Achille."
"Your Achille is nice-looking," said Mademoiselle Lolotte, with a somewhat critical air. "It is a pity he squints."
"He does not squint, mam'selle."
"Oh, ma chère! I appeal to Caroline."
"I am not sure that he actually squints," said Mam'selle Caroline, speaking for the first time; "but he certainly has one eye larger than the other, and of quite a different color."
"Tiens, Caroline--it seems to me that you look very closely into the eyes of young men," exclaims Adèle, turning sharply upon this new assailant.
"At all events you admit that Caroline is right," cries Lolotte, triumphantly.
"I admit nothing of the kind. I say that you are both very ill-natured, and that you say what is not true. As for you, Lolotte, I don't believe you ever had the chance of seeing a young man's eyes turned upon you, or you would not be so pleased with the attentions of an old one."
"An old one!" shrieked Mam'selle Lolotte. "Ah, mon Dieu! Is a man old at forty-seven? Monsieur Durand is in the prime of life, and there isn't a girl in the Quartier who would not be proud of his attentions!"
"He's sixty, if an hour," said the injured Adèle. "And as for you, Caroline, who have never had a beau in your life...."
"Ciel! what a calumny!--I--never had a ... Holy Saint Geneviève! why, it was only last Thursday week...."
Here the train stopped at the Asnières station, and two privates of the Garde Impériale got into the carriage. The horizon cleared as if by magic. The grisettes suddenly forgot their differences, and began to chat quite amicably. The soldiers twirled their mustachios, listened, smiled, and essayed to join in the conversation. In a few minutes all was mirth and flirtation.
Meanwhile Müller was casting admiring glances on the young girl in the corner, whilst the fat countrywoman, pursing up her mouth, and watching the grisettes and soldiers, looked the image of offended virtue.
"Dame! Madame," she said, addressing herself to the old lady in the bonnet, "girls usen't to be so forward in the days when you and I were young!"
To which the old lady in the bonnet, blandly smiling, replied:--
"Beautiful, for the time of year."
"Eh? For the time of year? Dame! I don't see that the time of year has anything to do with it," exclaimed the fat countrywoman.
Here the young girl in the corner, blushing and smiling very sweetly, interposed with--"Pardon, Madame--my aunt is somewhat deaf. Pray, excuse her."
Whereupon the old lady, watching the motion of her niece's lips, added--
"Ah, yes--yes! I am a poor, deaf old woman--I don't understand what you say. Talk to my little Marie, here--she can answer you."
"I, for one, desire nothing better than permission to talk to Mademoiselle," said Müller, gallantly.
"Mais, Monsieur..."
"Mademoiselle, with Madame her aunt, are going to the fête at Courbevoie?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"The river is very pretty thereabouts, and the walks through the meadows are delightful."
"Indeed, Monsieur!"
"Mademoiselle does not know the place?"
"No, Monsieur."
"Ah, if I might only be permitted to act as guide! I know every foot of the ground about Courbevoie."
Mademoiselle Marie blushed again, looked down, and made no reply.
"I am a painter," continued Müller; "and I have sketched all the windings of the Seine from Neuilly to St. Germains. My friend here is English--he is a student of medicine, and speaks excellent French."
"What is the gentleman saying, mon enfant?" asked the old lady, somewhat anxiously.
"Monsieur says that the river is very pretty about Courbevoie, ma tante," replied Mademoiselle Marie, raising her voice.
"Ah! ah! and what else?"
"Monsieur is a painter."
"A painter? Ah, dear me! it's an unhealthy occupation. My poor brother Pierre might have been alive to this day if he had taken to any other line of business! You must take great care of your lungs, young man. You look delicate."
Müller laughed, shook his head, and declared at the top of his voice that he had never had a day's illness in his life.
Here the pretty niece again interposed.
"Ah, Monsieur," she said, "my aunt does not understand....My--my uncle Pierre was a house-painter."
"A very respectable occupation, Mademoiselle," replied Müller, politely. "For my own part, I would sooner paint the insides of some houses than the outsides of some people."
At this moment the train began to slacken pace, and the steam was let off with a demoniac shriek.
"Tiens, mon enfant," said the old lady, turning towards her niece with affectionate anxiety. "I hope you have not taken cold."
The excellent soul believed that it was Mademoiselle Marie who sneezed.
And now the train had stopped--the porters were running along the platform, shouting "Courbevoie! Courbevoie!"--the passengers were scrambling out en masse--and beyond the barrier one saw a confused crowd of charrette and omnibus-drivers, touters, fruit-sellers, and idlers of every description. Müller handed out the old lady and the niece; the fat countrywoman scrambled up into a kind of tumbril driven by a boy in sabots; the grisettes and soldiers walked off together; and the tide of holiday-makers, some on foot, some in hired vehicles, set towards the village. In the meanwhile, what with the crowd on the platform and the crowd outside the barrier, and what with the hustling and pushing at the point where the tickets were taken, we lost sight of the old lady and her niece.
"What the deuce has become of ma tante?" exclaimed Müller, looking round.
But neither ma tante nor Mademoiselle Marie were anywhere to be seen. I suggested that they must have gone on in the omnibus or taken a charrette, and so have passed us unperceived.
"And, after all," I added, "we didn't want to enter upon an indissoluble union with them for the rest of the day. Ma tante's deafness is not entertaining, and la petite Marie has nothing to say."
"La petite Marie is uncommonly pretty, though," said Müller. "I mean to dance a quadrille with her by-and-by, I promise you."
"A la bonne heure! We shall be sure to chance upon them again before long."
We had come by this time to a group of pretty villa-residences with high garden walls and little shady side-lanes leading down to the river. Then came a church and more houses; then an open Place; and suddenly we found ourselves in the midst of the fair.
It was just like any other of the hundred and one fêtes that take place every summer in the environs of Paris. There was a merry-go-round and a greasy pole; there was a juggler who swallowed knives and ribbons; there were fortune-tellers without number; there were dining-booths, and drinking-booths, and dancing-booths; there were acrobats, organ-boys with monkeys, and Savoyards with white mice; there were stalls for the sale of cakes, fruit, sweetmeats, toys, combs, cheap jewelry, glass, crockery, boots and shoes, holy-water vessels, rosaries, medals, and little colored prints of saints and martyrs; there were brass bands, and string bands, and ballad-singers everywhere; and there was an atmosphere compounded of dust, tobacco-smoke, onions, musk, and every objectionable perfume under heaven.
"Dine at the Restaurant de l'Empire, Messieurs," shouted a shabby touter in a blouse, thrusting a greasy card into our faces. "Three dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and a band of music, for one franc-fifty. The cheapest dinner in the fair!"
"The cheapest dinner in the fair is at the Belle Gabrielle!" cried another. "We'll give you for the same money soup, fish, two dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and take your photograph into the bargain!"
"Bravo! mon vieux--you first poison them with your dinner, and then provide photographs for the widows and children," retorts touter number one. "That's justice, anyhow."
Whereupon touter number two shrieks out a torrent of abuse, and we push on, leaving them to settle their differences after their own fashion.
At the next booth we are accosted by a burly fellow daubed to the eyes with red and blue paint, and dressed as an Indian chief.
"Entrez, entrez, Messieurs et Mesdames" he cries, flourishing a war-spear some nine feet in length. "Come and see the wonderful Peruvian maiden of Tanjore, with webbed fingers and toes, her mouth in the back of her head, and her eyes in the soles of her feet! Only four sous each, and an opportunity that will never occur again!"
"Only fifty centimes!" shouts another public orator; "the most ingenious little machine ever invented! Goes into the waistcoat pocket--is wound up every twenty-four hours--tells the day of the month, the day of the year, the age of the moon, the state of the Bourse, the bank rate of discount, the quarter from which the wind is blowing, the price of new-laid eggs in Paris and the provinces, the rate of mortality in the Fee-jee islands, and the state of your sweetheart's affections!"
A little further on, by dint of much elbowing, we made our way into a crowded booth where, for the modest consideration of two sous per head, might be seen a Boneless Youth and an Ashantee King. The performances were half over when we went in. The Boneless Youth had gone through his feats of agility, and was lying on a mat in a corner of the stage, the picture of limp incapability. The Ashantee monarch was just about to make his appearance. Meanwhile, a little man in fleshings and a cocked hat addressed the audience.
"Messieurs and Mesdames--I have the honor to announce that Caraba Radokala, King of Ashantee, will next appear before you. This terrific native sovereign was taken captive by that famous Dutch navigator, the Mynheer Van Dunk, in his last voyage round the globe. Van Dunk, having brought his prisoner to Europe in an iron cage, sold him to the English government in 1840; who sold him again to Milord Barnum, the great American philanthropist, in 1842; who sold him again to Franconi of the Cirque Olympique; who finally sold him to me. At the time of his capture, Caraba Radokala was the most treacherous, barbarous, and sanguinary monster upon record. He had three hundred and sixty-five wives--a wife, you observe, for every day in the year. He lived exclusively upon human flesh, and consumed, when in good health, one baby per diem. His palace in Ashantee was built entirely of the skulls and leg-bones of his victims. He is now, however, much less ferocious; and, though he feeds on live pigeons, rabbits, dogs, mice, and the like, he has not tasted human flesh since his captivity. He is also heavily ironed. The distinguished company need therefore entertain no apprehensions. Pierre--draw the bolt, and let his majesty loose!"
A savage roar was now heard, followed by a rattling of chains. Then the curtains were suddenly drawn back, and the Ashantee king--crowned with a feather head-dress, loaded with red and blue war-paint, and chained from ankle to ankle--bounded on the stage.
Seeing the audience before him, he uttered a terrific howl. The front rows were visibly agitated. Several young women faintly screamed.
The little man in the cocked hat rushed to the front, protesting that the ladies had no reason to be alarmed. Caraba Radokala, if not wantonly provoked, was now quite harmless--a little irritable, perhaps, from being waked too suddenly--would be as gentle as a lamb, if given something to eat:--"Pierre, quiet his majesty with a pigeon!"
Pierre, a lank lad in motley, hereupon appeared with a live pigeon, which immediately escaped from his hands and perched on the top of the proscenium. Caraba Radokala yelled; the little man in the cocked hat raved; and Pierre, in default of more pigeons, contritely reappeared with a lump of raw beef, into which his majesty ravenously dug his royal teeth. The pigeon, meanwhile, dressed its feathers and looked complacently down, as if used to the incident.
"Having fed, Caraba Radokala will now be quite gentle and good-humored," said the showman. "If any lady desires to shake hands with him, she may do so with perfect safety. Will any lady embrace the opportunity?"
A faint sound of tittering was heard in various parts of the booth; but no one came forward.
"Will no lady be persuaded? Well, then, is there any gentleman present who speaks Ashantee?"
Müller gave me a dig with his elbow, and started to his feet.
"Yes," he replied, loudly. "I do."
Every head was instantly turned in our direction.
The showman collapsed with astonishment. Even the captive, despite his ignorance of the French tongue, looked considerably startled.
"Comment!" stammered the cocked hat. "Monsieur speaks Ashantee?"
"Fluently."
"Is it permitted to inquire how and when monsieur acquired this very unusual accomplishment?"
"I have spoken Ashantee from my infancy," replied Müller, with admirable aplomb. "I was born at sea, brought up in an undiscovered island, twice kidnapped by hostile tribes before attaining the age of ten years, and have lived among savage nations all my life."
A murmur of admiration ran through the audience, and Müller became, for the time, an object of livelier interest than Caraba Radokala himself. Seeing this, the indignant monarch executed a warlike pas, and rattled his chains fiercely.
"In that case, monsieur, you had better come upon the stage, and speak to his majesty," said the showman reluctantly.
"With all the pleasure in life."
"But I warn you that his temper is uncertain."
"Bah!" said Müller, working his way round through the crowd, "I'm not afraid of his temper."
"As monsieur pleases--but, if monsieur offends him, I will not be answerable for the consequences."
"All right--give us a hand up, mon vieux!" And Muller, having clambered upon the stage, made a bow to the audience and a salaam to his majesty.
"Chickahominy chowdar bang," said he, by way of opening the conversation.
The ex-king of Ashantee scowled, folded his arms, and maintained a haughty silence.
"Hic hac horum, high cockalorum," continued Müller, with exceeding suavity.
The captive monarch stamped impatiently, ground his teeth, but still made no reply.
"Monsieur had better not aggravate him," said the showman. "On the contrary--I am overwhelming him with civilities Now observe--I condole with him upon his melancholy position. I inquire after his wives and children; and I remark how uncommonly well he is looking."
And with this, he made another salaam, smiled persuasively, and said--
"Alpha, beta, gamma, delta--chin-chin--Potz tausend!--Erin-go-bragh!"
"Borriobooloobah!" shrieked his majesty, apparently stung to desperation.
"Rocofoco!" retorted Müller promptly.
But as if this last was more than any Ashantee temper could bear, Caraba Rodokala clenched both his fists, set his teeth hard, and charged down upon Müller like a wild elephant. Being met, however, by a well-planted blow between the eyes, he went down like a ninepin--picked himself up,--rushed in again, and, being forcibly seized and held back by the cocked hat, Pierre of the pigeons, and a third man who came tumbling up precipitately from somewhere behind the stage, vented his fury, in a torrent of very highly civilized French oaths.
"Eh, sacredieu!" he cried, shaking his fist in Müller's face, "I've not done with you yet, diable de galérien!"
Whereupon there burst forth a general roar--a roar like the "inextinguishable laughter" of Olympus.
"Tiens!" said Müller, "his majesty speaks French almost as well as I speak Ashantee!"
"Bourreau! Brigand! Assassin!" shrieked his Ferocity, as his friends hustled him off the stage.
The curtains then fell together again; and the audience, still laughing vociferously, dispersed with cries of "Vive Caraba Rodokala!" "Kind remembrances to the Queens of Ashantee!" "What's the latest news from home?" "Borriobooloo-bah--ah--ah!"
Elbowing our way out with the crowd, we now plunged once more into the press of the fair. Here our old friends the dancing dogs of the Champs Elysées, and the familiar charlatan of the Place du Châtelet with his chariot and barrel-organ, transported us from Ashantee to Paris. Next we came to a temporary shooting-gallery, adorned over the entrance with a spirited cartoon of a Tyrolean sharpshooter; and then to an exhibition of cosmoramas; and presently to a weighing machine, in which a great, rosy-cheeked, laughing Normandy peasant girl, with her high cap, blue skirt, massive gold cross and heavy ear-rings, was in the act of being weighed.
"Tiens! Mam'selle est joliment solide!" remarks a saucy bystander, as the owner of the machine piles on weight after weight.
"Perhaps if I had no more brains than m'sieur, I should weigh as light!" retorts the damsel, with a toss of her high cap.
"Pardon! it is not a question of brains--it is a question of hearts," interposes an elderly exquisite in a white hat. "Mam'selle has captured so many that she is completely over weighted."
"Twelve stone six ounces," pronounces the owner of the machine, adjusting the last weight.
Whereupon there is a burst of ironical applause, and the big paysanne, half laughing, half angry, walks off, exclaiming, "Eh bien! tant mieux! I've no mind to be a scarecrow--moi!"
By this time we have both had enough of the fair, and are glad to make our way out of the crowd and down to the riverside. Here we find lovers strolling in pairs along the towing-path; family groups pic-nicking in the shade; boats and punts for hire, and a swimming-match just coming off, of which all that is visible are two black heads bobbing up and down along the middle of the stream.
"And now, mon ami, what do you vote for?" asks Müller. "Boating or fishing? or both? or neither?"
"Both, if you like--but I never caught anything in my life,"
"The pleasure of fishing, I take it," says Müller, "is not in the fish you catch, but in the fish you miss. The fish you catch is a poor little wretch, worth neither the trouble of landing, cooking, nor eating; but the fish you miss is always the finest fellow you ever saw in your life!"
"Allons donc! I know, then, which of us two will have most of the pleasure to-day," I reply, laughing. "But how about the expense?"
To which Müller, with a noble recklessness, answers:--
"Oh, hang the expense! Here, boatman! a boat à quatre rames, and some fishing-tackle--by the hour."
Now it was undoubtedly a fine sentiment this of Müller's, and had we but fetched my two Napoleons before starting, I should have applauded it to the echo; but when I considered that something very nearly approaching to a franc had already filtered out of our pockets in passing through the fair, and that the hour of dinner was looming somewhat indefinitely in the distance, I confess that my soul became disquieted within me.
"Don't forget, for heaven's sake," I said, "that we must keep something for dinner!"
"My dear fellow," he replied, "I have already a tremendous appetite for dinner--that is something."
After this, I resigned myself to whatever might happen.
We then rowed up the river for about a mile beyond Courbevoie. moored our boat to a friendly willow, put our fishing-tackle together, and composed ourselves for the gentle excitement that waits upon the gudgeon and the minnow.
"I haven't yet had a single nibble," said Müller, when we had been sitting to our work for something less than ten minutes.
"Hush!" I said. "You mustn't speak, you know."
"True--I had forgotten. I'll sing instead. Fishes, I have been told, are fond of music.
'Fanfan, je vous aimerais bien;
Contre vous je n'ai nul caprice;
Vous êtes gentil, j'en convien....'"
"Come, now!" I exclaimed pettishly, "this is really too bad. I had a bite--a most decided bite--and if you had only kept quiet"....
"Nonsense, my dear fellow! I tell you again--and I have it on the best authority--fishes like music. Did you never hear of Arion! Have you forgotten about the Syrens? Believe me, your gudgeon nibbled because I sang him to the surface--just as the snakes come out for the song of the snake-charmer. I'll try again!"
And with this he began:--
"Jeannette est une brune
Qui demeure à Pantin,
Où toute sa fortune
Est un petit jardin!"
"Well, if you go on like that, all I have to say is, that not a fish will come within half a mile of our bait," said I, with tranquil despair.
"Alas! mon cher, I am grieved to observe in your otherwise estimable character, a melancholy want of faith," replied Müller "Without faith, what is friendship? What is angling? What is matrimony? Now, I tell you that with regard to the finny tribe, the more I charm them, the more enthusiastically they will flock to be caught. We shall have a miraculous draught in a few minutes, if you are but patient."
And then he began again:--
"Mimi Pinson est une blonde,
Une blonde que l'on connaît.
Elle n'a qu'une robe au monde,
Landerirette!
Et qu'un bonnet."
I laid aside my rod, folded my arms, and when he had done, applauded ironically.
"Very good," I said. "I understand the situation. We are here, at some--indeed, I may say, considering the state of our exchequer, at a considerable mutual expense; not to catch fish, but to afford Herr Müller an opportunity of exercising his extensive memory, and his limited baritone voice. The entertainment is not without its agréments, but I find it dear at the price."
"Tiens, Arbuthnot! let us fish seriously. I promise not to open my lips again till you have caught something."
"Then, seriously, I believe you would have to be silent the whole night, and all I should catch would be the rheumatism. I am the worst angler in the world, and the most unlucky."
"Really and truly?"
"Really and truly. And you?"
"As bad as yourself. If a tolerably large and energetic fish did me the honor to swallow my bait, the probability is that he would catch me. I certainly shouldn't know what to do with him."
"Then the present question is--what shall we do with ourselves?"
"I vote that we row up as far as yonder bend in the river, just to see what lies beyond; and then back to Courbevoie."
"Heaven only grant that by that time we shall have enough money left for dinner!" I murmured with a sigh.
We rowed up the river as far as the first bend, a distance of about half a mile; and then we rowed on as far as the next bend. Then we turned, and, resting on our oars, drifted slowly back with the current. The evening was indescribably brilliant and serene. The sky was cloudless, of a greenish blue, and full of light. The river was clear as glass. We could see the flaccid water-weeds swaying languidly with the current far below, and now and then a shoal of tiny fish shooting along half-way between the weeds and the surface. A rich fringe of purple iris, spear-leaved sagittarius, and tufted meadow-sweet (each blossom a bouquet on a slender thyrsus) bordered the towing-path and filled the air with perfume. Here the meadows lay open to the water's edge; a little farther on, they were shut off by a close rampart of poplars and willows whose leaves, already yellowed by autumn, were now fiery in the sunset. Joyous bands of gnats, like wild little intoxicated maenads, circled and hummed about our heads as we drifted slowly on; while, far away and mellowed by distance, we heard the brazen music of the fair.
We were both silent. Müller pulled out a small sketch-book and made a rapid study of the scene--the reach in the river; the wooded banks; the green flats traversed by long lines of stunted pollards; the church-tops and roofs of Courbevoie beyond.
Presently a soft voice, singing, broke upon the silence. Müller stopped involuntarily, pencil in hand. I held my breath, and listened. The tune was flowing and sweet; and as our boat drifted on, the words of the singer became audible.
"O miroir ondoyant!
Je rève en te voyant
Harmonie et lumière,
O ma rivière,
O ma belle rivière!
"On voit se réfléchir
Dans ses eaux les nuages;
Elle semble dormir
Entre les pâturages
Où paissent les grands boeufs
Et les grasses genisses.
Au pâtres amoureux
Que ses bords sont propices!"
"A woman's voice," said Müller. "Dupont's words and music. She must be young and pretty ... where has she hidden herself?"
The unseen singer, meanwhile, went on with another verse.
"Près des iris du bord,
Sous une berge haute,
La carpe aux reflets d'or
Où le barbeau ressaute,
Les goujons font le guet,
L'Ablette qui scintille
Fuit le dent du brochet;
Au fond rampe l'anguille!
"O miroir ondoyant!
Je rève en te voyant
Harmonic et lumière,
O ma rivière,
O ma belle rivière!"
"Look!" said Müller. "Do you not see them yonder--two women under the trees? By Jupiter! it's ma tante and la petite Marie!"
Saying which, he flung himself upon his oars and began pulling vigorously towards the shore.