"Sit down and rest," said he, "and Mademoiselle, you are thinking of going to Chambery? But it is nearly a day"s journey on foot."
"We have to play at a wedding tomorrow, Monsieur," said the girl piteously. "It was arranged two months ago, and we must get there in some manner."
"There is a railway station not far off," said I.
"Alas! we have only ten sous in the world, which is not enough to pay for our tickets," she answered. "Imagine, Monsieur, I had a piece of twenty francs in my pocket this morning, and I went to the station to get a ticket, for I had counted on going by railway, as my grandfather is so ill, and when I came to pay, I found I had lost my louis. How, the _bon Dieu_ only knows. It is desolating, Monsieur; we had to walk so as to keep our engagement at Chambery. If we miss it, _nous sommes dans la puree pour tout de bon_."
To be in the _puree_ is to be in a very bad mess indeed. The prospect of abject pennilessness filled the damsel"s eyes with woe.
"You earn your living by playing at weddings for folks to dance?" asked my master.
"Yes, Monsieur. My grandfather plays the violin and I the zither--we also go to fairs. In the winter we play at cafes in large towns. Life is hard, Monsieur, is it not?"
She closed her umbrella and laid it on the valise. The old man sat by the table, his head resting on his hands, saying nothing.
"When I think of my good louis that is gone!" she added tragically.
The only feature making for charm in a coa.r.s.e homely face was a set of white even teeth. I found her singularly unattractive. A tear rolled down her cheek and its course was that of a rill in a dusty plain.
"Suppose I lend you the money for the railway tickets?" said my master kindly.
"O Monsieur," she cried, "I should thank you from the depths of my heart. _Grandpere_," she turned to the old man who, ashen faced, was staring in front of him, "Monsieur will lend us enough money to get to Chambery."
"I can go no further," he murmured.
Then his eyelids quivered, his body moved spasmodically, and he swayed sideways off the chair on to the ground.
We rushed to aid him. The girl put his head on her lap. My master bade me run into the cafe for brandy. When I returned the old man was dead.
Narcisse sat placidly by, with his tongue out, eyeing his master ironically.
"You are the man," his glance implied, "who said that nothing happens here."
I have known many dogs in my life, but never so mocking and cynical a dog as Narcisse.
It was nearly midnight before my master and I sat down again outside the cafe. The intervening hours had been spent in journeying to and from the nearest village, and obtaining the necessary services of doctor and cure. My master was smoking his porcelain pipe, as usual, but strangely silent. A faint circle of light came from the open ground-floor window of the cafe. The white road gleamed dimly, and beyond the hushed valley the hills loomed vague against a black, starlit sky. In the lighted room a few peasants from neighbouring farms drank their sour white wine and discussed the death in low voices. In other circ.u.mstances my master would have joined them under pretext of getting nearer the Heart of Life, and would have told them amazing tales of Ekaterinoslav or Valladolid till they reeled home drunk with wine and wonder. And I should have been abed. But to-night Paragot seemed to prefer the silent company of Narcisse and myself.
"What do you think of it all, Asticot?" he asked at length.
"Of what, master?"
"Death."
"It frightens me," was all I could answer.
"What I resent about it," said my master reflectively, "is that one is not able to have any personal concern in the most interesting event in one"s career. If you could even follow your own funeral and have a chance of weeping for yourself! You are never so important as when you are a corpse--and you miss it all. I have a good mind not to die. It is either the silliest or the wisest action of one"s life; I wonder which."
Presently the girl came down the pa.s.sage of the cafe, stood for a moment in the doorway, and seeing Paragot advanced to the table.
"You are very kind, Monsieur," she said, "and for what you have done I thank you from my heart."
"It was very little," said my master. "Asticot, why do you not give Mademoiselle your chair? Your manners are worse than those of Narcisse.
Mademoiselle, do me the pleasure of being seated."
She sat down, her feet apart, peasant fas.h.i.+on, her hands in her lap.
"If I had not lost the twenty francs he would not have died," she said dejectedly.
"He would have died if you had brought him here in a carriage. He had aneurism of the heart, the doctor says. He might have died any moment the last ten years. How old was he?"
"Seventy, eighty, ninety--how should I know?"
"But he was your grandfather."
"Ah, no, indeed, Monsieur," she replied in a more animated manner. "He was not a relative. My mother was poor and she sold me to him three years ago."
"Why that is like me, Master!" I cried, vastly interested.
"My son," said he in English, "that is one of the things that must be forgotten. And then, Mademoiselle?" he asked in French.
"Then he taught me to play the zither and to dance. I am sorry he is dead. _Dame, oui, par exemple!_ But I do not weep for him as for a grandfather. Oh, no!"
"And your mother?"
"She died last year. So I am all alone."
He asked her what she thought of doing for her livelihood. She shrugged her shoulders with the resignation of her cla.s.s.
"I can always earn my living. There are bra.s.series, cafes-concerts in all the towns--I am fairly well known. They will give me an engagement.
_Il faut pa.s.ser par la comme les autres._"
"You must go through it like the others?" repeated my master. "But you are very young, my poor child."
"I am eighteen, Monsieur, I know I shall not make a fortune. I am not pretty enough even when I paint, and my figure is heavy. That is what Pere Paragot used to complain of."
"What was his name?" asked my master, p.r.i.c.king up his ears.
"Berzelius Paragot--and he took the name of Nibbidard, which means "no luck"--so he loved to call himself Berzelius Nibbidard Paragot."
"Berzelius Nibbidard Paragot," mouthed my master joyously. "I would give anything for a name like that!"
"It is yours if you like to take it," she said quite seriously. "No one will want it any more."
"Little Asticot of my heart," said he, "what do you think of it?"
It struck me as a most aristocratically romantic appellation. I was used to his aliases by this time. He had long ceased to call himself "Pradel," and what was our surname for the moment I am now unable to recollect.