It is no infrequent thing for the loyal Bohemian to "arrive" too late to profit by his success because his spirit has been imbittered or his const.i.tution ruined by the hardships he has undergone.
"The maimed heart, the heart poniarded in this mute struggle for life," says Jules Valles in his _Refractaires_, "cannot be taken out of the chest and replaced by another. There are no wooden hearts in the market. It remains there, bleeding, the poniard at its centre. Rich one day, famous, perhaps, these victims of obscure combats may perfume their sores if they will, sponge up the blood, wipe away their tears; memory will tear open the wounds, strip off the bandages. A word, a song,-joyous or sad,-will be enough to raise in these sick souls the phantom of the past."
Jehan Rictus more recently, in his terrible _Soliloques du Pauvre_, has expressed the same thought in another fashion:-
_"Meme si qu"un jour j" tornais au riche Par un effet de vot" Bonte, Ce jour-la j" f"rai mett"e une affiche, On cherche a vendre un cur gate."_
The following poem embodies the experience of a Latin Quarter Bohemian whose hard-won victory came too late because his health was gone:-
I
_Do you remember, Marguerite, How first we met in the Latin Quarter?
I was a poet, far from gay, And you, well, you were-somebody"s daughter.
You dropped a glove upon the curb,- Say, was it Fate or yourself who willed it?
I picked it up, a natural thing, Laid it within the hand that had filled it.
"Merci, monsieur," was all you said; But, somehow, I knew from your tone, as you said it, That, if I kept the hand awhile, It would not count to my discredit.
So, hand in hand, we strolled and we chatted, Happy as pups whose heads have been patted.
We drank a bock on the Saint Michel; And, when we parted, I knew you so well That I even dropped the "Mademoiselle."
Do you remember I whispered low, As I gazed in your eyes, so dark, so sweet, "A bientot, Marguerite, Au revoir and a bientot"?_
II
_Do you remember, Marguerite, How we rubbed along in the Latin Quarter?
I Roland, the poet, almost gay, And you, my mistress and-somebody"s daughter?
There were only a bed and a chair or two In our tiny chamber under the mansard; But our thoughts were simple, our hearts were true, Something in each to the other answered.
Fresh youth was there, and love was there, My hopes were strong, your face was fair; And we lived and loved as devoted a pair As ever old Paris sheltered.
In a worn beret and a faded blouse, I scribbled for fame. You kept the house,- That is, as much as there was to keep.
You must, sometimes, have suffered in silence then,- It was, oh, so little I earned with my pen!- But you never allowed me to see you weep.
And whenever I left for an hour or so, My Marguerite, do you remember?
Over and over you made me repeat, As if you"d a dread I"d get lost in the street, "A bientot, Marguerite, Au revoir and a bientot."_
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TAVERNE DU PANTHeON ON MARDIGRAS]
III
_For ten long years, my Marguerite, Heart has beaten to heart in the Latin Quarter, The heart of the poet, almost gay, The heart of the mistress, the-somebody"s daughter.
We"ve held to each other through thick and through thin, As the years have gone out and the years have come in; And we"ve always held to the Latin Quarter.
Now fame has come and my pen earns more, We have furnishings choice and books in store.
What a change it is from the days of yore!
The starving days when we lived on air!
No more we climb to the hundredth stair; We have plenty to eat and plenty to wear; Whenever we wish, we can have a fire.
Once that was the acme of our desire.
We"re as snug and slick as the parvenus; But it"s come too late for me and for you, This luck that we prayed for when days were blue.
My work is done in the Latin Quarter.
G.o.d bless you, my dear, for your love for me!
Bless G.o.d for my love for-somebody"s daughter!_
IV
_It"s over, over, Marguerite, The fair, fair life in the Latin Quarter.
I"m dying, dearest; and, when I"m dead, You"ll be once more just-somebody"s daughter.
But you"ll not be driven to work for bread, Or worse than work in the Latin Quarter.
Thank G.o.d for that! You can hold up your head: So you"ve funds, it"s enough to be-somebody"s daughter.
All that is mine will be yours, of course,- The world has been kind these last glad years,- Don"t be foolish, I beg of you, over my corse,_ _Just give what is natural,-a few real tears.
Be a good girl, don"t yield to regret For the thing that is gone. What is must be.
You were born for love, don"t you dare to forget!
Make some poor devil happy, as you"ve made me!
It"s the very last thing I shall ask, I ween; For I feel the whirr of Death"s sickle keen....
I know not what this death may mean, For I scarcely credit what churchmen tell Of a future heaven and a future h.e.l.l.
Without any future all is well, If the life that is past has been loving and true, As the life has been that we have to review; But my heart is breaking at leaving you.
Well, just because it"s my habit so, And because it makes it more natural to go, I"ll say, quite as if we were likely to meet "A bientot, Marguerite, Au revoir and a bientot."_
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INSt.i.tUTE]
CHAPTER XII
THOSE WHO STARVE
"_Whoever throws himself into the streets of a great city, into the melee of rapacities and ambitions, with a pen for a weapon, takes_ "La Misere" _for a flag._"-JEAN RICHEPIN, in Les Etapes d"un Refractaire.
"_You have the stuff of three poets in you; but, before you become known, you run the risk of dying six times of hunger, if you count on the income from your poetry for the means to live._"
Etienne Lousteau to Lucien de Rubempre, in BALZAC"s Illusions Perdues.
"_Cressot died of want the day want forsook him. He died because his body, habituated to suffering, was not able to accept well-being._"
JULES VALLeS.
Fifty odd years ago, in a volume of short stories,-little read in France nowadays, and quite unknown, I fancy, elsewhere,-_Le Roman de Toutes les Femmes_, Henry Murger, author of the universally known and loved _La Vie de Boheme_, narrated, under the t.i.tle "_La Biographie d"un Inconnu_," the life history of a young sculptor who died of "the malady to which science does not dare to give its true name, _la misere_."
Joseph D--, born in a provincial town of poor, hard-working, respectable parents, manifested a strong vocation for sculpture from his early boyhood. His father having decided to put him to the carpenter"s trade, Joseph, who had no notion of becoming a mechanic, went secretly to the Free School of Design. The professor of the school procured him a place as pupil with a government architect, which his father, under the impression that carpentry and architecture were very much the same thing, allowed him to accept. Joseph made such progress that he paid his way at the end of a month, and at the end of six months earned his seven or eight francs a day. But he was getting no nearer to sculpture by this work; and he left the architect"s office, in the face of his father"s opposition, and entered a sculptor"s atelier for study, paying a month in advance for his teaching. He took part in a compet.i.tion for admission to the _Beaux-Arts_, and failed. Having no money with which to pay for lessons, he was forced to leave the atelier, but was received-about the only bit of good luck in his whole career-by the great master, Rude. He lodged at this time in the rue du Cherche-Midi, over a cow stable, where he was warmed only by what heat ascended through a hole in the floor.
Finding he could not pay for the models and materials necessary to enter the _Salon_ compet.i.tions, he a.s.sisted for a year, without entirely neglecting his studies, a noted ornament-worker, and put by enough to enable him to pursue his art studies to good advantage. Working by night in a cold workshop, he contracted a sickness which confined him to his bed for a time, and which swept away all his savings. As soon as he was well again, he went back to work for his first employer (the architect), designing ornaments whose execution was intrusted to others.
He thus gained a little pile-about 1,200 francs-with which to compete for the _Salon_. It was stolen by a roof-worker who, while repairing an adjacent building, had seen him counting it.
This "mischance"-to go on in Murger"s own language-"was a terrible blow to Joseph. "There are some people who have no luck," he said, "who would lose with all the trumps of the pack in their hands." "Never mind," he resumed, brightening, "I will attempt the a.s.sault of the Louvre[74] with what little I have left. I will enter there with plaster instead of bronze or marble.""
All his courage had returned. He tried making fanciful statuettes, which he could prepare without the expense of hiring models; but he had little success in selling them.
"_La Misere_ returned, and knocked at his door. She entered, terrible and pitiless, like a vanquished foe whose turn has come to triumph, and who uses without mercy the right of reprisal. Joseph"s dest.i.tution reached such a point that, when one of his friends invited him to dinner, he answered navely, "I"m afraid it will put me out: it"s not my day." For tobacco he smoked walnut leaves, which he gathered in the forest of Verrieres, then dried, and chopped up fine.