"Indeed? How long have you known that, pray?"
"When I came to you with the tambourine at Aix-les-Bains."
"I don"t understand," she said, the frozen blue coming into her eyes.
"Did he tell you then--a child like you?"
"He has never mentioned your name to me, Madame," I said eagerly, for I saw her resentment.
"Then how did you know?"
I recounted the history of the old stocking. I also mentioned Paragot"s appeal to me as a scholar and a gentleman.
A wan smile played about her lips.
"Was that soon after he bought you for half-a-crown?"
"Yes, Madame," said I.
"And an old stocking?"
"Yes, Madame. And since then we have never spoken of the papers."
"But how did you know I was the--the Joanna of the papers?"
"I guessed," said I. I could not tell her of the _pet.i.ts pieds si adores_.
"You are an odd boy," she said. "Tell me all about yourself."
Unversed in woman"s wiles I flushed with pleasure at her flattering interest. I did not perceive that it was an invitation to tell her all about Paragot. I related, however, artlessly the story of my life from the morning when I delivered my tattered copy of "Paradise Lost" to Paragot instead of the greasy was.h.i.+ng book: and if my narrative glowed rosier with poetic illusion than the pages on which it has been set down, pray forgive nineteen for seeing things in a different light and perspective from a hundred and fifty. In my description of the Lotus Club, for instance, I felt instinctively that Madame de Verneuil would wince at the sound of tripe; I conveyed to her my own childish impression of the magnificence of Paragot"s bedchamber, and the story of our wanderings became an Idyll of No Man"s Land.
"And what is he doing now?" We had grown so confidential that we exchanged smiles.
"He is cultivating philosophy," said I.
Perhaps it was a sign of my development that I could detect a little spot of clay in my idol.
We had gone south, past the Observatoire to Montrouge, and had turned back before I realised that we were in the Boulevard Saint-Michel again near the prearranged end of my drive.
"Do you know why I am so glad to have met you to-day?" she asked. "I think--indeed I know I can trust you. I am in great trouble and I have an idea that your Master can help me."
She looked at me so earnestly, so wistfully, her face seemed to grow of a sudden so young and helpless, that all my boy"s fantastic chivalry was roused.
"My Master would lay down his life for you, Madame," I cried. "And so would I."
"Even if I never, never, in this world forgave him?"
"You would forgive him in the next, Madame," I answered, scarce knowing what I said, "and he would be contented."
The carriage stopped at the appointed place. I felt as if I were about to descend from the side of an Olympian G.o.ddess to sordid humanity, to step from the Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon on to the common earth. It was I who looked wistful.
"May I come to see you, Madame?"
The quick fear came into her eyes.
"Not as yet, Mr. Asticot," she said holding out her hand. "My husband is queer tempered at times. I will write to you."
The carriage drove off. For the second time she had left me with her husband on her lips. I had forgotten him completely. I stamped my foot on the pavement.
"He is a scaly vulture," said I, echoing Paragot. G.o.ds! How I hated the poor man.
One evening, about a week after this, some seven or eight of us were gathered around Paragot"s table at the Cafe Delphine. Two were _rapins_--we have no word for the embryo painter--my companions in Janot"s _atelier_. Of the rest I only remember one--poor Cazalet. He wore a self-tailored grotesque attire, a brown stuff tunic girt at the waist by a leathern belt, shapeless trousers of the same material, and sandals. He had long yellow hair and untrimmed chicken fluff grew casually about his face. A sombre genius, he used to paint dark writhing horrors of souls in pain, and in his hours of relaxation to drink litres of anisette. At first he disliked and scoffed at me because I was an Englishman, which grieved me sorely, for I regarded him as the greatest genius, save Paragot, of my acquaintance. I found him ten years afterwards a _sous-chef de gare_ on the Belgian frontier.
It was about half past eleven. Our table gleamed a motley wilderness of gla.s.ses and saucers. Only two other tables were occupied: at the one two men and a woman played _manille_, on the other a pair of players rattled dominoes, Madame Boin, sunk into her rolls of fat, drowsed on her throne behind the counter. Hercule stood by, his dirty napkin tucked under his arm, listening to Paragot"s discourse. Through the gla.s.s side of the cafe one could see the moving, flaring lights of the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Paragot sipped absinthe and smoked his eternal pipe with the porcelain bowl, and talked.
"The _Quartier Latin_! Do you call this bourgeois-stricken aceldama the _Quartier Latin_? Do you miserable little white mice in clean s.h.i.+rts call this the _Vie de Boheme_? Is there a devil of a fellow among you, save Cazalet whose chilblains make him indecent, who doesn"t wear socks?
Haven"t you all dress suits? Aren"t you all suffocating with virtue?
Would any Marcel of you lie naked in bed for two days so that Rodolfe could p.a.w.n your clothes for the wherewithal to nurse Mimi in sickness?
Is there a Mimi in the whole etiolated _Quartier_?"
"But yes, _mon vieux_," said my friend Bringard who prided himself on his intimacy with life. "There are even a great many."
Paragot swept his skinny fingers in a circular gesture.
"Where are they? Here? You see not. It is a stunted generation, my gentle little lambs. Why _sacre nom de Saint-Antoine_!" he cried, with one of his apposite oaths, "the very pigs in the good days could teach you lessons in the romantic. Vices you have--but the n.o.ble pa.s.sions? No!
Did you ever hear of the Cafe du Cochon Fidele? Of course not. What do you know? It was situated in the Rue des Cordiers. Mimi la Blonde was the _demoiselle du comptoir_. Ah _bigre_! There are no such _demoiselles du comptoir_ now. Exquisite. Ah!" He blew a kiss from the tips of his long nails.
"You are very impolite, Monsieur Paragot," cried Madame Boin from her throne.
"Listen, Madame," said he, "to the story of the pig and you shall judge.
The whole quartier was mad for Mimi, including a pig. Yes, a great fat clean pig with sentimental eyes. He belonged to the _charcutier_ opposite. I am telling you the authentic history of the _Quartier_.
Every day the devoted animal would stand at the door and gaze at Mimi with adoration--ah! but such an adoration, my children, an adoration, respectful, pa.s.sionate, without hope. Only now and then his poor sensitive snout quivered his despair. Sometimes happier rivals, with two legs, _mais pour ca pas moins cochons que lui_, admitted him into the cafe. He would sit before the counter, his little tail well arranged behind him, his ears c.o.c.ked up politely, his eyes full of tears--he wept like a cow this poor Nepomucene--they called him Nepomucene--and when Mimi looked at him he would utter little cries of the heart like a strangulated troubadour. Ah, it was hopeless this pa.s.sion; but for one long year he never wavered. The _Quartier_ respected him. Of him it was said: "Love is given to us as a measure to gauge our power of suffering." Suddenly Mimi disappeared. She married a certain G.o.diveau, a charcoal merchant in the vicinity. Nepomucene stood all day by the door with haggard eyes. Then knowing she would return no more, he walked with a determined air to the roadway of the Boul" Mich" and cast himself beneath the wheels of an omnibus. He committed suicide."
Paragot stopped abruptly and finished his absinthe. There was vociferous applause. I have never met anyone with his gift of magical narration.
Hercule was summoned amid a confused hubbub and received orders for eight or nine different kinds of drink. We were fantastic in our potations in those days.
"Ah!" said Paragot, excited as usual by his success, "_ou sont les neiges d"antan_? Where is the good Pere Cordier of the Cafe Cordier? He would play billiards with his nose, and a little pug nose at that, my children. When it grew greasy he would chalk it deliberately. Once he made a break of two hundred and forty-five. A champion! The Cafe Cordier itself? Swept long ago into the limbo of dear immemorable dissolute things. Then there was the Cafe du Bas-Rhin on the Boul" Mich" where Marie la Democrate drank fifty-five bocks in an evening against Helene la Severe who drank fifty-three. Where are such women now, O generation of slow worms? Where is----"
He stopped. His jaw dropped. "My G.o.d!" he exclaimed in English, rising from his chair. We followed his gaze. Astounded, I too sprang up.
It was the Comtesse de Verneuil standing in the doorway and looking in her frightened way into the cafe: Joanna in dark fitting toque and loose jacket beneath which one saw a gleaming high evening dress. I noted swiftly that she had violets in her toque. Her beauty, her rare daintiness compelled a stupefied silence. I sped towards the door and went with her into the street. A closed carriage stood by the kerb.
She took me by the front of my loose jacket and twisted it nervously.
"Get him out, Mr. Asticot. Tell him I must see him."
"But how did you come here?" I asked.