BY
LEONARD MERRICK
Copyright © 2017 by Leonard Merrick.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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First Edition: July 2017
A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE TRAGEDY OF A COMIC SONG
TRICOTRIN ENTERTAINS
THE FATAL FLOROZONDE
THE OPPORTUNITY OF PETITPAS
THE CAFÉ OF THE BROKEN HEART
THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET
THE SUICIDES IN THE RUE SOMBRE
THE CONSPIRACY FOR CLAUDINE
THE DOLL IN THE PINK SILK DRESS
THE LAST EFFECT
AN INVITATION TO DINNER
THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
THE FAIRY POODLE
LITTLE-FLOWER-OF-THE-WOOD
A MIRACLE IN MONTMARTRE
THE DANGER OF BEING A TWIN
HERCULES AND APHRODITE
"PARDON, YOU ARE MADEMOISELLE GIRARD!"
HOW TRICOTKIN SAW LONDON
THE INFIDELITY OF MONSIEUR NOULENS
These disjointed thoughts about one of Leonard Merrick's most articulate books must begin with a personal confession.
For many years I walked about this earth avoiding the works of Leonard Merrick, as other men might have avoided an onion. This insane aversion was created in my mind chiefly by admirers of what is called the "cheerful" note in fiction. Such people are completely agreed in pronouncing Mr. Merrick to be a pessimistic writer. I hate pessimistic writers.
Years ago, when I was of an age when the mind responds acutely to exterior impressions, some well-meaning uncle, or other fool, gave me a pessimistic book to read. This was a work of fiction which the British Public had hailed as a masterpiece of humour. It represented, with an utter fury of pessimism, the spiritual inadequacies of--but why go into details.
Now, I have to confess that for a long time I did Mr. Merrick the extraordinary injustice of believing him to be the author of that popular masterpiece.
The mistake, though intellectually unpardonable, may perhaps be condoned on other grounds. By virtue of that process of thought which we call the "association of ideas," I naturally connected Mr. Merrick with this work of super-pessimism; my friends being so confirmed in their belief that he was a super-pessimist.
But by virtue of a fortunate accident, I at last got the truth about Mr. Merrick. This event arose from the action of a right-minded butcher, who, having exhausted his stock of _The Pigeon-Fancier's Gazette_, sent me my weekly supply of dog-bones wrapped about with Leonard Merrick.
These dog-bones happened to reach my house at a moment when no other kind of literary nutriment was to be had. Having nothing better to read I read the dog-bone wrappers. Thus, by dog-bones, was I brought to Merrick: the most jolly, amusing, and optimistic of all spiritual friends.
The book to which these utterances are prefixed is to my mind one of the few really amusing books which have been published in England during my lifetime. But, then, I think that all of Mr. Merrick's books are amusing: even his "earnest" books, such as _The Actor-Manager, When Love Flies out o' the Window, or The Position of Peggy Harper_.
It is, of course, true that such novels as these are unlikely to be found congenial by those persons who derive entertainment from fiction like my uncle's present. On the other hand, there are people in the world with a capacity for being amused by psychological inquiry. To such people I would say: "Don't miss Merrick." The extraordinary cheerfulness of Mr. Merrick's philosophy is a fact which will impress itself upon all folk who are able to take a really cheerful view of life.
All of Mr. Merrick's sermons--I do not hesitate to call his novels "sermons," because no decent novel can be anything else--all his sermons, I say, point to this conclusion: that people who go out deliberately to look for happiness, to kick for it, and fight for it, or who try to buy it with money, will miss happiness; this being a state of heart--a mere outgrowth, more often to be found by a careless and self-forgetful vagrant than by the deliberate and self-conscious seeker. A cheerful doctrine this. Not only cheerful, but self-evidently true. How right it is, and how cheerful it is, to think that while philosophers and clergymen strut about this world looking out, and smelling out, for its prime experiences, more careless and less celebrated men are continually finding such things, without effort, without care, in irregular and unconsecrated places.
In novel after novel, Mr. Merrick has preached the same good-humoured, cheerful doctrine: the doctrine of anti-fat. He asks us to believe--he makes us believe--that a man (or woman) is not merely virtuous, but merely sane, who exchanges the fats of fulfilment for the little lean pleasures of honourable hope and high endeavour. Oh wise, oh witty Mr. Merrick!
Mr. Merrick has not, to my knowledge, written one novel in which his hero is represented as having achieved complacency. Mr. Merrick's heroes all undergo the very human experience of "hitting a snag." They are none of them represented as enjoying this experience; but none of them whimper and none of them "rat."
If anybody could prove to me that Mr. Merrick had ever invented a hero who submitted tamely to tame success, to fat prosperity; or who had stepped, were it ever so lightly, into the dirty morass of accepted comfort, then would I cheerfully admit to anybody that Leonard Merrick is a Pessimistic Writer. But until this proof be forthcoming, I stick to my opinion: I stick to the conviction that Mr. Merrick is the gayest, cheer fullest, and most courageous of living humorists.
This opinion is a general opinion, applicable to Mr. Merrick's general work. This morning, however, I am asked to narrow my field of view: to contemplate not so much Mr. Merrick at large as Mr. Merrick in particular: to look at Mr. Merrick in his relationship to this one particular book: A Chair on the Boulevard.
Now, if I say, as I have said, that Mr. Merrick is cheerful in his capacity of solemn novelist, what am I to say of Mr. Merrick in his lighter aspect, that of a writer of feuilletons? Addressing myself to an imaginary audience of Magazine Enthusiasts, I ask them to tell me whether, judged even by comparison with their favourite fiction, some of the stories to be found in this volume are not exquisitely amusing?
The first story in the book--that which Mr. Merrick calls "The Tragedy of a Comic Song"--is in my view the funniest story of this century: but I don't ask or expect the Magazine Enthusiast to share this view or to endorse that judgment. "The Tragedy of a Comic Song" is essentially one of those productions in which the reader is expected to collaborate. The author has deliberately contrived certain voids of narrative; and his reader is expected to populate these anecdotal wastes. This is asking more than it is fair to ask of a Magazine Enthusiast. No genuine Magazine reader cares for the elusive or allusive style in fiction. "The Tragedy of a Comic Song" won't do for Bouverie Street, however well and completely it may do for me.
But there are other stories in this book. There is that screaming farce called "The Suicides in the Rue Sombre." Now, then, you Magazine zealots, speak up and tell me truly: is there anything too difficult for you in this? If so, the psychology of what is called "public taste" becomes a subject not suited to public discussion.
The foregoing remarks and considerations apply equally to such stories as "The Dress Clothes of M. Pomponnet" and "Tricotrin Entertains." There are other stories which delight me, as, for example, "Little- Flower-of-the-Wood": but this jerks us back again to the essential Mr. Merrick: he who demands collaboration.
There are, again, other stories, and yet others; but to write down all their titles here would be merely to transcribe the index page of the book. Neither the reader nor I can afford to waste our time like that.
I have said nothing about the technical qualities of Mr. Merrick's work. I don't intend to do so. It has long been a conceit of mine to believe that professional vendors of letterpress should reserve their mutual discussions of technique for technical occasions, such as those when men of like mind and occupation sit at table, with a bottle between them.
I am convinced that Mr. Merrick is a very great and gifted man, deeply skilled in his profession. I can bring forth arguments and proofs to support this conviction; but I fail utterly to see why I should do so. To people who have a sense of that which is sincere and fresh in fiction, these facts will be apparent. To them my arguments and illustrations would be profitless. As for those honest persons to whom the excellencies of Merrick are not apparent, I can only think that nothing which I or any other man could say would render them obvious. "Happiness is in ourselves," as the Vicar remarked to the donkey who was pulling the lawn-mower.
Good luck, Leonard Merrick, and good cheer! I shout my greeting to you across the ripples of that inky lake which is our common fishery.
A. NEIL LYONS.
I like to monopolise a table in a restaurant, unless a friend is with me, so I resented the young man's presence. Besides, he had a melancholy face. If it hadn't been for the piano-organ, I don't suppose I should have spoken to him. As the organ that was afflicting Lisle Street began to volley a comic song of a day that was dead, he started.
"That tune!" he murmured in French. If I did not deceive myself, tears sprang to his eyes.
I was curious. Certainly, on both sides of the Channel, we had long ago had more than enough of the tune--no self-respecting organ-grinder rattled it now. That the young Frenchman should wince at the tune I understood. But that he should weep!
I smiled sympathetically. "We suffered from it over here as well," I remarked.
"I did not know," he said, in English that reproved my French, "it was sung in London also--'Partant pour le Moulin'?"
"Under another name," I told him, "it was an epidemic."
Clearly, the organ had stirred distressing memories in him, for though we fell to chatting, I could see that he neither talked nor dined with any relish. As luck would have it, too, the instrument of torture resumed its répertoire well within hearing, and when "Partant pour le Moulin" was reached again, he clasped his head.
"You find it so painful?" I inquired.
"Painful?" he exclaimed. "Monsieur, it is my 'istory, that comic tune! It is to me romance, tragedy, ruin. Will you hear? Wait! I shall range my ideas. Listen:"
* * * * *
It is Paris, at Montmartre--we are before the door of a laundress. A girl approaches. Her gaze is troubled, she frowns a little. What ails her? I shall tell you: the laundress has refused to deliver her washing until her bill is paid. And the girl cannot pay it--not till Saturday-- and she has need of things to put on. It is a moment of anxiety.
She opens the door. Some minutes pass. The girl reappears, holding under her arm a little parcel. Good! she has triumphed. In coming out she sees a young man, pale, abstracted, who stands before the shop. He does not attempt to enter. He stands motionless, regarding the window with an air forlorn.
"Ah," she says to herself, "here is another customer who cannot pay his bill!"
But wait a little. After 'alf an hour what happens? She sees the young man again! This time he stands before a modest restaurant. Does he go in? No, again no! He regards the window sorrowfully. He sighs. The dejection of his attitude would melt a stone.
"Poor boy," she thought; "he cannot pay for a dinner either!"
The affair is not finished. How the summer day is beautiful--she will do some footing! Figure yourself that once more she perceives the young man. Now it is before the mont-de-piété, the pawnbroker's. She watches him attentively. Here, at least, he will enter, she does not doubt. She is wrong. It is the same thing--he regards, he laments, he turns away!
"Oh, mon Dieu," she said. "Nothing remains to him to pawn even!"
It is too strong! She addressed him:
"Monsieur!"
But, when she has said "Monsieur," there is the question how she shall continue. Now the young man regards the girl instead of the pawnbroker's. Her features are pretty--or "pretty well"; her costume has been made by herself, but it is not bad; and she has chic--above all she has chic. He asks:
"What can I have the pleasure to do for you?"
Remark that she is bohemian, and he also.
The conversation was like this:
"Monsieur, three times this morning I have seen you. It was impossible that I resist speaking. You have grief?"
"Frightful!" he said.
"Perhaps," she added timidly, "you have hunger also?"
"A hunger insupportable, mademoiselle!"
"I myself am extremely hard up, monsieur, but will you permit that I offer you what I can?"
"Angel!" the young man exclaimed. "There must be wings under your coat. But I beg of you not to fly yet. I shall tell you the reason of my grief. If you will do me the honour to seat yourself at the café opposite, we shall be able to talk more pleasantly."
This appeared strange enough, this invitation from a young man who she had supposed was starving; but wait a little! Her amazement increased when, to pay for the wine he had ordered, her companion threw on to the table a bank-note with a gesture absolutely careless.
She was in danger of distrusting her eyes.
"Is it a dream?" she cried. "Is it a vision from the _Thousand and One Nights_, or is it really a bank-note?"
"Mademoiselle, it is the mess of pottage," the young man answered gloomily. "It is the cause of my sadness: for that miserable money, and more that is to come, I have sold my birthright."
She was on a ship--no, what is it, your expression?--"at sea"!
"I am a poet," he explained; "but perhaps you may not know my work; I am not celebrated. I am Tricotrin, mademoiselle--Gustave Tricotrin, at your feet! For years I have written, aided by ambition, and an uncle who manufactures silk in Lyons. Well, the time is arrived when he is monstrous, this uncle. He says to me, 'Gustave, this cannot last--you make no living, you make nothing but debts. (My tragedies he ignores.) Either you must be a poet who makes money, or you must be a partner who makes silk,' How could I defy him?--he holds the purse. It was unavoidable that I stooped. He has given me a sum to satisfy my creditors, and Monday I depart for Lyons. In the meantime, I take tender farewells of the familiar scenes I shall perhaps never behold again."
"How I have been mistaken!" she exclaimed. And then: "But the hunger you confessed?"
"Of the soul, mademoiselle," said the poet--"the most bitter!"
"And you have no difficulties with the laundress?"
"None," he groaned. "But in the bright days of poverty that have fled for ever, I have had many difficulties with her. This morning I reconstituted the situation--I imagined myself without a sou, and without a collar."
"The little restaurant," she questioned, "where I saw you dining on the odour?"
"I figured fondly to myself that I was ravenous and that I dared not enter. It was sublime."
"The mont-de-piété?"
"There imagination restored to me the vanished moments when I have mounted with suspense, and my least deplorable suit of clothes." His emotion was profound. "It is my youth to which I am bidding adieu!" he cried. "It is more than that--it is my aspirations and my renown!"
"But you have said that you have no renown," she reminded him.
"So much the more painful," said the young man; "the hussy we could not win is always the fairest--I part from renown even more despairingly than from youth."
She felt an amusement, an interest. But soon it was the turn of him to feel an interest--the interest that had consequences so important, so 'eart-breaking, so fatales! He had demanded of her, most naturally, her history, and this she related to him in a style dramatic. Myself, I have not the style dramatic, though I avow to you I admire that.
"We are in a provincial town," she said to the young man, "we are in Rouen--the workroom of a modiste. Have no embarrassment, monsieur Tricotrin, you, at least, are invisible to the girls who sew! They sew all day and talk little--already they are tristes, resigned. Among them sits one who is different--one passionate, ambitious--a girl who burns to be divette, singer, who is devoured by longings for applause, fashion, wealth. She has made the acquaintance of a little pastrycook. He has become fascinated, they are affianced. In a month she will be married."
The young man, Tricotrin, well understood that the girl she described was herself.
"What does she consider while she sits sewing?" she continued. "That the pastrycook loves her, that he is generous, that she will do her most to be to him a good wife? Not at all. Far from that! She considers, on the contrary, that she was a fool to promise him; she considers how she shall escape--from him, from Rouen, from her ennui-- she seeks to fly to Paris. Alas! she has no money, not a franc. And she sews--always she sews in the dull room--and her spirit rebels."
"Good!" said the poet. "It is a capital first instalment."
"The time goes on. There remains only a week to the marriage morning. The little home is prepared, the little pastrycook is full of joy. Alors, one evening they go out; for her the sole attraction in the town is the hall of varieties. Yes, it is third class, it is not great things; however, it is the only one in Rouen. He purchases two tickets. What a misfortune--it is the last temptation to her! They stroll back; she takes his arm--under the moon, under the stars; but she sees only the lamps of Paris!--she sees only that he can say nothing she cares to hear!"
"Ah, unhappy man!" murmured the poet.
"They sit at a café table, and he talks, the fiancé, of the bliss that is to come to them. She attends to not a word, not a syllable. While she smiles, she questions herself, frenzied, how she can escape. She has commanded a sirop. As she lifts her glass to the syphon, her gaze falls on the ring she wears--the ring of their betrothal. 'To the future, cher ange!' says the fiancé. 'To the future, vieux chéri!' she says. And she laughs in her heart--for she resolves to sell the ring!"
Tricotrin had become absolutely enthralled.
"She obtained for the ring forty-five francs the next day--and for the little pastrycook all is finished. She wrote him a letter--'Good-bye.' He has lost his reason. Mad with despair, he has flung himself before an electric car, and is killed.... It is strange," she added to the poet, who regarded her with consternation, "that I did not think sooner of the ring that was always on my finger, n'est-ce-pas? It may be that never before had I felt so furious an impulse to desert him. It may be also--that there was no ring and no pastrycook!" And she broke into peals of laughter.
"Ah, mon Dieu," exclaimed the young man, "but you are enchanting! Let us go to breakfast--you are the kindred soul I have looked for all my life. By-the-bye, I may as well know your name?"
Then, monsieur, this poor girl who had trembled before her laundress, she told him a name which was going, in a while, to crowd the Ambassadeurs and be famous through all Paris--a name which was to mean caprices, folly, extravagance the most wilful and reckless. She answered--and it said nothing yet--"My name is Paulette Fleury."
* * * * *
The piano-organ stopped short, as if it knew the Frenchman had reached a crisis in his narrative. He folded his arms and nodded impressively.
"Voilà! Monsieur, I 'ave introduced you to Paulette Fleury! It was her beginning."
He offered me a cigarette, and frowned, lost in thought, at the lady who was chopping bread behind the counter.
"Listen," he resumed.
* * * * *
They have breakfasted; they have fed the sparrows around their chairs, and they have strolled under the green trees in the sunshine. She was singing then at a little café-concert the most obscure. It is arranged, before they part, that in the evening he shall go to applaud her.
He had a friend, young also, a composer, named Nicolas Pitou. I cannot express to you the devotion that existed between them. Pitou was employed at a publisher's, but the publisher paid him not much better than his art. The comrades have shared everything: the loans from the mont-de-piété, the attic, and the dreams. In Montmartre it was said "Tricotrin and Pitou" as one says "Orestes and Pylades." It is beautiful such affection, hein? Listen!
Tricotrin has recounted to his friend his meeting with Paulette, and when the hour for the concert is arrived, Pitou accompanied him. The musician, however, was, perhaps, the more sedate. He has gone with little expectation; his interest was not high.
What a surprise he has had! He has found her an actress--an artist to the ends of the fingers. Tricotrin was astonished also. The two friends, the poet and the composer, said "Mon Dieu!" They regarded the one the other. They said "Mon Dieu!" again. Soon Pitou has requested of Tricotrin an introduction. It is agreed. Tricotrin has presented his friend, and invited the chanteuse to drink a bock--a glass of beer.... A propos, you take a liqueur, monsieur, yes? What liqueur you take? Sst, garçon!... Well, you conjecture, no doubt, what I shall say? Before the bock was finished, they were in love with her--both!
At the door of her lodging, Paulette has given to each a pressure of the hand, and said gently, "Till to-morrow."
"I worship her!" Tricotrin told Pitou.
"I have found my ideal!" Pitou answered Tricotrin.
It is superb, such friendship, hein?
In the mind of the poet who had accomplished tragedies majestic--in the mind of the composer, the most classical in Montmartre--there had been born a new ambition: it was to write a comic song for Paulette Fleury!
It appears to you droll, perhaps? Monsieur, to her lover, the humblest divette is more than Patti. In all the world there can be no joy so thrilling as to hear the music of one's brain sung by the woman one adores--unless it be to hear the woman one adores give forth one's verse. I believe it has been accepted as a fact, this; nevertheless it is true.
Yes, already the idea had come to them, and Paulette was well pleased when they told her of it. Oh, she knew they loved her, both, and with both she coquetted. But with their intention she did not coquet; as to that she was in earnest. Every day they discussed it with enthusiasm-- they were to write a song that should make for her a furore.
What happened? I shall tell you. Monday, when Tricotrin was to depart for Lyons, he informed his uncle that he will not go. No less than that! His uncle was furious--I do not blame him--but naturally Tricotrin has argued, "If I am to create for Paulette her great chance, I must remain in Paris to study Paulette! I cannot create in an atmosphere of commerce. I require the Montmartrois, the boulevards, the inspiration of her presence." Isn't it?
And Pitou--whose very soul had been enraptured in his leisure by a fugue he was composing--Pitou would have no more of it. He allowed the fugue to grow dusty, while day and night he thought always of refrains that ran "Zim-la-zim-la zim-boum-boum!" Constantly they conferred, the comrades. They told the one the other how they loved her; and then they beat their heads, and besought of Providence a fine idea for the comic song.
It was their thought supreme. The silk manufacturer has washed his 'ands of Tricotrin, but he has not cared--there remained to him still one of the bank-notes. As for Pitou, who neglected everything except to find his melody for Paulette, the publisher has given him the sack. Their acquaintances ridiculed the sacrifices made for her. But, monsieur, when a man loves truly, to make a sacrifice for the woman is to make a present to himself.
Nevertheless I avow to you that they fretted because of her coquetry. One hour it seemed that Pitou had gained her heart; the next her encouragement has been all to Tricotrin. Sometimes they have said to her:
"Paulette, it is true we are as Orestes and Pylades, but there can be only one King of Eden at the time. Is it Orestes, or Pylades that you mean to crown?"
Then she would laugh and reply:
"How can I say? I like you both so much I can never make up my mind which to like best."
It was not satisfactory.
And always she added. "In the meantime, where is the song?"
Ah, the song, that song, how they have sought it!--on the Butte, and in the Bois, and round the Halles. Often they have tramped Paris till daybreak, meditating the great chance for Paulette. And at last the poet has discovered it: for each verse a different phase of life, but through it all, the pursuit of gaiety, the fever of the dance--the gaiety of youth, the gaiety of dotage, the gaiety of despair! It should be the song of the pleasure-seekers--the voices of Paris when the lamps are lit.
Monsieur, if we sat 'ere in the restaurant until it closed, I could not describe to you how passionately Tricotrin, the devoted Tricotrin, worked for her. He has studied her without cease; he has studied her attitudes, her expressions. He has taken his lyric as if it were material and cut it to her figure; he has taken it as if it were plaster, and moulded it upon her mannerisms. There was not a moue that she made, not a pretty trick that she had, not a word that she liked to sing for which he did not provide an opportunity. At the last line, when the pen fell from his fingers, he shouted to Pitou, "Comrade, be brave--I have won her!"
And Pitou? Monsieur, if we sat 'ere till they prepared the tables for déjeuner to-morrow, I could not describe to you how passionately Pitou, the devoted Pitou, worked that she might have a grand popularity by his music. At dawn, when he has found that strepitoso passage, which is the hurrying of the feet, he wakened the poet and cried, "Mon ami, I pity you--she is mine!" It was the souls of two men when it was finished, that comic song they made for her! It was the song the organ has ground out--"Partant pour le Moulin."
And then they rehearsed it, the three of them, over and over, inventing always new effects. And then the night for the song is arrived. It has rained all day, and they have walked together in the rain--the singer, and the men who loved her, both--to the little café-concert where she would appear.
They tremble in the room, among the crowd, Pitou and Tricotrin; they are agitated. There are others who sing--it says nothing to them. In the room, in the Future, there is only Paulette!
It is very hot in the café-concert, and there is too much noise. At last they ask her: "Is she nervous?" She shakes her head: "Mais non!" She smiles to them.
Attend! It is her turn. Ouf; but it is hot in the café-concert, and there is too much noise! She mounts the platform. The audience are careless; it continues, the jingle of the glasses, the hum of talk. She begins. Beneath the table Tricotrin has gripped the hand of Pitou.
Wait! Regard the crowd that look at her! The glasses are silent, now, hein? The talk has stopped. To a great actress is come her chance. There is not too much noise in the café-concert!
But, when she finished! What an uproar! Never will she forget it. A thousand times she has told the story, how it was written--the song-- and how it made her famous. Before two weeks she was the attraction of the Ambassadeurs, and all Paris has raved of Paulette Fleury.
Tricotrin and Pitou were mad with joy. Certainly Paris did not rave of Pitou nor Tricotrin--there have not been many that remembered who wrote the song; and it earned no money for them, either, because it was hers --the gift of their love. Still, they were enraptured. To both of them she owed equally, and more than ever it was a question which would be the happy man.
Listen! When they are gone to call on her one afternoon she was not at 'ome. What had happened? I shall tell you. There was a noodle, rich-- what you call a "Johnnie in the Stalls"--who became infatuated with her at the Ambassadeurs. He whistled "Partant pour le Moulin" all the days, and went to hear it all the nights. Well, she was not at 'ome because she had married him. Absolutely they were married! Her lovers have been told it at the door.
What a moment! Figure yourself what they have suffered, both! They had worshipped her, they had made sacrifices for her, they had created for her her grand success; and, as a consequence of that song, she was the wife of the "Johnnie in the Stalls"!
* * * * *
Far down the street, but yet distinct, the organ revived the tune again. My Frenchman shuddered, and got up.
"I cannot support it," he murmured. "You understand? The associations are too pathetic."
"They must be harrowing," I said. "Before you go, there is one thing I should like to ask you, if I may. Have I had the honour of meeting monsieur Tricotrin, or monsieur Pitou?"
He stroked his hat, and gazed at me in sad surprise. "Ah, but neither, monsieur," he groaned. "The associations are much more 'arrowing than that--I was the 'Johnnie in the Stalls'!"
One night when Pitou went home, an unaccustomed perfume floated to meet him on the stairs. He climbed them in amazement.
"If we lived in an age of miracles I should conclude that Tricotrin was smoking a cigar," he said to himself. "What can it be?"
The pair occupied a garret in the rue des Trois Frères at this time, where their window, in sore need of repairs, commanded an unrivalled view of the dirty steps descending to the passage des Abbesses. To-night, behold Tricotrin pacing the garret with dignity, between his lips an Havannah that could have cost no less than a franc. The composer rubbed his eyes.
"Have they made you an Academician?" he stammered. "Or has your uncle, the silk manufacturer, died and left you his business?"
"My friend," replied the poet, "prepare yourself forthwith for 'a New and Powerful Serial of the Most Absorbing Interest'! I am no longer the young man who went out this evening--I am a celebrity."
"I thought," said the composer, "that it couldn't be you when I saw the cigar."
"Figure yourself," continued Tricotrin, "that at nine o'clock I was wandering on the Grand Boulevard with a thirst that could have consumed a brewery. I might mention that I had also empty pockets, but--"
"It would be to pad the powerful Serial shamelessly," said Pitou: "there are things that one takes for granted."
"At the corner of the place de l'Opera a fellow passed me whom I knew and yet did not know; I could not recall where it was we had met. I turned and followed him, racking my brains the while. Suddenly I remembered--"
"Pardon me," interrupted the composer, "but I have read Bel-Ami myself. Oh, it is quite evident that you are a celebrity--you have already forgotten how to be original!"
"There is a resemblance, it is true," admitted Tricotrin. "However, Maupassant had no copyright in the place de l'Opera. I say that I remembered the man; I had known him when he was in the advertisement business in Lyons. Well, we have supped together; he is in a position to do me a service--he will ask an editor to publish an Interview with me!"
"An Interview?" exclaimed Pitou. "You are to be Interviewed? Ah, no, my poor friend, too much meat has unhinged your reason! Go to sleep--you will be hungry and sane again to-morrow."
"It will startle some of them, hein? 'Gustave Tricotrin at Home'--in the illustrated edition of Le Demi-Mot?"
"Illustrated?" gasped Pitou. He looked round the attic. "Did I understand you to say 'illustrated'?"
"Well, well," said Tricotrin, "we shall move the beds! And, when the concierge nods, perhaps we can borrow the palm from the portals. With a palm and an amiable photographer, an air of splendour is easily arrived at. I should like a screen--we will raise one from a studio in the rue Ravignan. Mon Dieu! with a palm and a screen I foresee the most opulent effects. 'A Corner of the Study'--we can put the screen in front of the washhand-stand, and litter the table with manuscripts--you will admit that we have a sufficiency of manuscripts?--no one will know that they have all been rejected. Also, a painter in the rue Ravignan might lend us a few of his failures--'Before you go, let me show you my pictures,' said monsieur Tricotrin: 'I am an ardent collector'!"
In Montmartre the sight of two "types" shifting household gods makes no sensation--the sails of the remaining windmills still revolve. On the day that it had its likeness taken, the attic was temporarily transformed. At least a score of unappreciated masterpieces concealed the dilapidation of the walls; the broken window was decorated with an Eastern fabric that had been a cherished "property" of half the ateliers in Paris; the poet himself--with the palm drooping gracefully above his head--mused in a massive chair, in which Solomon had been pronouncing judgment until 12:15, when the poet had called for it. The appearance of exhaustion observed by admirers of the poet's portrait was due to the chair's appalling weight. As he staggered under it up the steps of the passage des Abbesses, the young man had feared he would expire on the threshold of his fame.
However, the photographer proved as resourceful as could be desired, and perhaps the most striking feature of the illustration was the spaciousness of the apartment in which monsieur Tricotrin was presented to readers of Le Demi-Mot. The name of the thoroughfare was not obtruded.
With what pride was that issue of the journal regarded in the rue des Trois Frères!
"Aha!" cried Tricotrin, who in moments persuaded himself that he really occupied such noble quarters, "those who repudiated me in the days of my struggles will be a little repentant now, hein? Stone Heart will discover that I was not wrong in relying on my genius!"
"I assume," said Pitou, "that 'Stone Heart' is your newest pet-name for the silk-manufacturing uncle?"
"You catch my meaning precisely. I propose to send a copy of the paper to Lyons, with the Interview artistically bordered by laurels; I cannot draw laurels myself, but there are plenty of persons who can. We will find someone to do it when we palter with starvation at the Café du Bel Avenir this evening--or perhaps we had better fast at the Lucullus Junior, instead; there is occasionally some ink in the bottle there. I shall put the address in the margin--my uncle will not know where it is, and on the grounds of euphony I have no fault to find with it. It would not surprise me if I received an affectionate letter and a bank-note in reply--the perversity of human nature delights in generosities to the prosperous."
"It is a fact," said Pitou. "That human nature!"
"Who knows?--he may even renew the allowance that he used to make me!"
"Upon my word, more unlikely things have happened," Pitou conceded.
"Mon Dieu, Nicolas, we shall again have enough to eat!"
"Ah, visionary!" exclaimed Pitou; "are there no bounds to your imagination?"
Now, the perversity to which the poet referred did inspire monsieur Rigaud, of Lyons, to loosen his purse-strings. He wrote that he rejoiced to learn that Gustave was beginning to make his way, and enclosed a present of two hundred and fifty francs. More, after an avuncular preamble which the poet skipped--having a literary hatred of digression in the works of others--he even hinted that the allowance might be resumed.
What a banquet there was in bohemia! How the glasses jingled afterwards in La Lune Rousse, and oh, the beautiful hats that Germaine and Marcelle displayed on the next fine Sunday! Even when the last ripples of the splash were stilled, the comrades swaggered gallantly on the boulevard Rochechouart, for by any post might not the first instalment of that allowance arrive?
Weeks passed; and Tricotrin began to say, "It looks to me as if we needed another Interview!"
And then came a letter which was no less cordial than its predecessor, but which stunned the unfortunate recipient like a warrant for his execution. Monsieur Rigaud stated that business would bring him to Paris on the following evening and that he anticipated the pleasure of visiting his nephew; he trusted that his dear Gustave would meet him at the station. The poet and composer stared at each other with bloodless faces.
"You must call at his hotel instead," faltered Pitou at last.
"But you may be sure he will wish to see my elegant abode."
"'It is in the hands of the decorators. How unfortunate!'"
"He would propose to offer them suggestions; he is a born suggester."
"'Fever is raging in the house--a most infectious fever'; we will ask a medical student to give us one."
"It would not explain my lodging in a slum meanwhile."
"Well, let us admit that there is nothing to be done; you will have to own up!"
"Are you insane? It is improvident youths like you, who come to lament their wasted lives. If I could receive him this once as he expects to be received, we cannot doubt that it would mean an income of two thousand francs to me. Prosperity dangles before us--shall I fail to clutch it? Mon Dieu, what a catastrophe, his coming to Paris! Why cannot he conduct his business in Lyons? Is there not enough money in the city of Lyons to satisfy him? O grasper! what greed! Nicolas, my more than brother, if it were night when I took him to a sumptuous apartment, he might not notice the name of the street--I could talk brilliantly as we turned the corner. Also I could scintillate as I led him away. He would never know that it was not the rue des Trois Frères."
"You are right," agreed Pitou; "but which is the pauper in our social circle whose sumptuous apartment you propose to acquire?"
"One must consider," said Tricotrin. "Obviously, I am compelled to entertain in somebody's; fortunately, I have two days to find it in. I shall now go forth!"
It was a genial morning, and the first person he accosted in the rue Ravignan was Goujaud, painting in the patch of garden before the studios. "Tell me, Goujaud," exclaimed the poet, "have you any gilded acquaintance who would permit me the use of his apartment for two hours to-morrow evening?"
Goujaud reflected for some seconds, with his head to one side. "I have never done anything so fine as this before," he observed; "regard the atmosphere of it!"
"It is execrable!" replied Tricotrin, and went next door to Flamant. "My old one," he explained, "I have urgent need of a regal apartment for two hours to-morrow--have you a wealthy friend who would accommodate me?"
"You may beautify your bedroom with all my possessions," returned Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but I have not a friend that is wealthy."
"You express yourself like a First Course for the Foreigner," said Tricotrin, much annoyed. "Devil take your stuffed parrot!"
The heat of the sun increased towards midday, and drops began to trickle under the young man's hat. By four o'clock he had called upon sixty-two persons, exclusive of Sanquereau, whom he had been unable to wake. He bethought himself of Lajeunie, the novelist; but Lajeunie could offer him nothing more serviceable than a pass for the Elysée- Montmartre. "Now how is it possible that I spend my life among such imbeciles?" groaned the unhappy poet; "one offers me a parrot, and another a pass for a dancing-hall! Can I assure my uncle, who is a married man, and produces silk in vast quantities, that I reside in a dancing-hall? Besides, we know those passes--they are available only for ladies."
"It is true that you could not get in by it," assented Lajeunie, "but I give it to you freely. Take it, my poor fellow! Though it may appear inadequate to the occasion, who knows but what it will prove to be the basis of a fortune?"
"You are as crazy as the stories you write," said Tricotrin, "Still, it can go in my pocket." And he made, exhausted, for a bench in the place Dancourt, where he apostrophised his fate.
Thus occupied, he fell asleep; and presently a young woman sauntered from the sidewalk across the square. In the shady little place Dancourt is the little white Theatre Montmartre, and she first perused the play-bill, and then contemplated the sleeping poet. It may have been that she found something attractive in his bearing, or it may have been that ragamuffins sprawled elsewhere; but, having determined to wait awhile, she selected the bench on which he reposed, and forthwith woke him.
"Now this is nice!" he exclaimed, realising his lapse with a start.
"Oh, monsieur!" said she, blushing.
"Pardon; I referred to my having dozed when every moment is of consequence," he explained. "And yet," he went on ruefully, "upon my soul, I cannot conjecture where I shall go next!"
Her response was so sympathetic that it tempted him to remain a little longer, and in five minutes she was recounting her own perplexities. It transpired that she was a lady's-maid with a holiday, and the problem before her was whether to spend her money on a theatre, or on a ball.
"Now that is a question which is disposed of instantly," said Tricotrin, "You shall spend your money on a theatre, and go to a ball as well." And out fluttered the pink pass presented to him by Lajeunie.
The girl's tongue was as lively as her gratitude. She was, she told him, maid to the famous Colette Aubray, who had gone unattended that afternoon to visit the owner of a villa in the country, where she would stay until the next day but one. "So you see, monsieur, we poor servants are left alone in the flat to amuse ourselves as best we can!"
"Mon Dieu!" ejaculated Tricotrin, and added mentally, "It was decidedly the good kind fairies that pointed to this bench!"
He proceeded to pay the young woman such ardent attentions that she assumed he meant to accompany her to the ball, and her disappointment was extreme when he had to own that the state of his finances forbade it. "All I can suggest, my dear Léonie," he concluded, "is that I shall be your escort when you leave. It is abominable that you must have other partners in the meantime, but I feel that you will be constant to me in your thoughts. I shall have much to tell you--I shall whisper a secret in your ear; for, incredible as it may sound, my sweet child, you alone in Paris have the power to save me!"
"Oh, monsieur!" faltered the admiring lady's-maid, "it has always been my great ambition to save a young man, especially a young man who used such lovely language. I am sure, by the way you talk, that you must be a poet!"
"Extraordinary," mused Tricotrin, "that all the world recognises me as a poet, excepting when it reads my poetry!" And this led him to reflect that he must sell some of it, in order to provide refreshment for Léonie before he begged her aid. Accordingly, he arranged to meet her when the ball finished, and limped back to the attic, where he made up a choice assortment of his wares.
He had resolved to try the office of Le Demi-Mot; but his reception there was cold. "You should not presume on our good nature," demurred the Editor; "only last month we had an article on you, saying that you were highly talented, and now you ask us to publish your work besides. There must be a limit to such things."
He examined the collection, nevertheless, with a depreciatory countenance, and offered ten francs for three of the finest specimens. "From Le Demi-Mot I would counsel you to accept low terms," he said, with engaging interest, "on account of the prestige you, derive from appearing in it."
"In truth it is a noble thing, prestige," admitted Tricotrin; "but, monsieur, I have never known a man able to make a meal of it when he was starving, or to warm himself before it when he was without a fire. Still--though it is a jumble-sale price--let them go!"
"Payment will be made in due course," said the Editor, and became immersed in correspondence.