"But little imbecile, I did it to help you, to enable you to get your ten francs and half a goose. Asticot too. Haven"t you been enchanted all day to be of service to Mademoiselle? Do you want to be paid for wearing a red s.h.i.+rt with a ta.s.selled collar and pommade in your hair? Aren"t we going about the world like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza rescuing damsels in distress? Isn"t that the lodestar of our wanderings?"
"Yes, master," said I.
Blanquette looked open-mouthed from him to me, from me to him, scarce able to grasp such magnanimity. To the peasant, money is a commodity to be struggled for, fought for, grasped, prized; to be doled out like the drops of a priceless Elixir Vitae. Paragot had the aristocratic, artistic scorn of it; and I, as I have said before, was the pale reflexion of Paragot.
"It is yours," I explained, as might a great prince"s chamberlain, "the master gained it for you."
The tears came into her eyes. The corners of her lips went down. Paragot turned half round in his seat and put his hands on her shoulders.
"If you spill tears on the fowl you will make it too salt, and I shall throw it out of the window."
Paragot paid the modest funeral expenses of the worn-out fiddler. Asked why he did not leave the matter in the hands of the communal authorities he replied that he could not take a man"s name without paying for it. Such an appellation as Berzelius Nibbidard Paragot was worth a deal coffin and a ma.s.s or two. This fine sense of integrity was above Blanquette"s comprehension. She thought the funeral was a waste of money.
"It should go to benefit the living and not the dead," she argued.
"Wait till you are dead yourself," he replied, "and see how you would like to be robbed of your name. There are many things for you to learn, my child."
"_Il n"y a pas beaucoup_--not many," she said with a sigh. "We who are poor and live on the high-roads learn very quickly. If you are hungry and have two sous you can buy bread. If you only have two sous and you throw them to a dog who doesn"t need them, you have nothing to buy bread with, and you starve. And it is not so easy to gain two sous."
Paragot sucked reflectively at his porcelain pipe.
"Asticot," said he, "the _argumentum ad ventrem_ is irrefutable."
"Now I must go and make my _malle_" she said. "I return to Chambery to try to earn my two sous."
"Won"t you stay here over the night? You must be very tired."
"One must work for one"s living, Monsieur," she said moving away.
It was afternoon. We had trudged the three dusty miles back from the tiny churchyard where we had left the old man"s unlamented grave, and Paragot, as usual, was was.h.i.+ng his throat with beer. It must be noted, not to his glorification, that about this time a chronic dryness began to be the main characteristic of Paragot"s throat, and the only humectant that seemed to be of no avail was water.
The sun still blazed and the hush of the July afternoon lay over the valley. Paragot watched the thickset form of Blanquette disappear into the cafe; he poured out another bottle of beer and addressed Narcisse who was blinking idly up at him.
"If she had a pair of decent stays, my dog, or no stays at all, she might have something of a figure. What do you think? On the whole--no."
Narcisse stood on his hind legs, his forepaws on his master"s arm, and uttered little plaintive whines. Paragot patted him on the head.
As I was engaged a yard or two away, elbows on knees, in what Paragot was pleased to call my studies--Thierry"s "Recits des Temps Merovingiens," a tattered, flyblown copy of which he had bought at Chambery--he was careful not to interrupt me; he talked to the dog.
Paragot had to talk to something. If he were alone he would have talked to his shadow; in his coffin he would have apostrophised the worms.
"Yes, my dog," said he, after a draught of beer. "We have pa.s.sed through more than we wotted of these two days. We have held a human being by the hand and have faced with her the eternal verities. Now she is going to earn her two sous in the whirlpool, and the whirlpool will suck her down, and as she has not claims to beauty, Narcisse, of any kind whatsoever, either of face or figure, hers will be a shuddersome career and end. Say you are sorry for poor Blanquette de Veau."
Narcisse sniffed at the table, but finding it bare of everything but beer, in which he took no interest, dropped on his four legs and curled himself up in dudgeon.
"You d.a.m.ned cynical sensualist," cried my master. "I have wasted the breath of my sentiment upon you." And he called out for the landlady and more beer.
Presently Blanquette emerged laden with zither case and fiddle and little grey valise and the pearl-b.u.t.toned suit which was slung over one arm.
"Monsieur," she said, putting down her impedimenta, "the _patronne_ has told me that you have paid for my lodging and my nourishment. I am very grateful, Monsieur. And if you will accept this costume it will be a way of repaying your kindness."
Paragot rose, took the suit and laid it on his chair.
"I accept it loyally," said he, with a bow, as if Blanquette had been a d.u.c.h.ess.
"_Adieu, Monsieur, et merci_," she said holding out her hand.
Paragot stuck both his hands in his trousers pockets.
"My good child," said he, "you are bound straight for the most cheerless h.e.l.l that was ever inhabited by unamusing devils."
Blanquette shrugged her shoulders and spoke in her dull fatalistic way.
"_Que voulez-vous?_ I know it is not gay. But it is in the _metier_.
When Pere Paragot was alive it was different. He had his good qualities, Pere Paragot. He was like a watch-dog. If any man came near me he was fierce. I did not amuse myself, it is true, but I remained an honest girl. Now it is changed. I am alone. I go into a bra.s.serie to play and dance. I can get an engagement at the Cafe Bra.s.serie Tissot," and then after a pause, turning her head away, she added the fatalistic words she had used before: "_If faut pa.s.ser par la, comme les autres_."
"I forbid you!" cried my master, striding up and down in front of her and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. horrible oaths. He invoked the sacred name of pigs and of all kinds of other things. My attention had long since been diverted from the learned Monsieur Thierry, and I wondered what she had to pa.s.s through like the others. It must be something dreadful, or my master would not be raving so profanely. I learned in after years. Of all mutilated lives there are few more ghastly than those of the _fille de bra.s.serie_ in a small French provincial town. And here was Blanquette about to abandon herself to it with stolid, hopeless resignation. There was no question of vicious instinct. What semblance of glamour the life presented did not attract her in the least. A sweated alien faces rabbit-pulling in the East End with more pleasurable antic.i.p.ation.
"I am not going to allow you to take an engagement in a bra.s.serie!"
shouted my master. "Do you hear? I forbid you!"
"But Monsieur----" began Blanquette piteously.
Then Paragot had one of his sudden inspirations. He crashed his fist on the little table so that the gla.s.s and bottles leaped and Narcisse darted for shelter into the cafe.
"_Tron de l"air!_" he cried. "I have it. It is an illumination.
Asticot--here! Leave your book. I shall be Paragot in character as well as name. We shall fiddle with Blanquette as we fiddled yesterday--and I shall be a watch-dog like Pere Paragot and keep her an honest girl.
We"ll make it a firm, Paragot and Company, and there will always be two sous for bread and two to throw to a dog. I like throwing sous to dogs.
It is my nature. Now I know why I was sent into the world. It was to play the fiddle up and down the sunny land of France. My little Asticot, why haven"t we thought of it before? You shall learn to play the trumpet, Asticot, and Narcisse shall walk on his hind legs and collect the money. It will be magnificent!"
"Are you serious, Monsieur?" asked Blanquette, trembling.
"Serious? Over an inspiration that came straight from the _bon Dieu_?
But yes, I am serious. _Et toi?_" he added sharply using for the first time the familiar p.r.o.noun, "are you afraid I will beat you like Pere Paragot?"
"You can if you like," she said huskily; and I wondered why on earth she should have turned the colour of cream cheese.
CHAPTER VII
NOT being content with having attached to his person a stray dog and a mongrel boy and rendering himself responsible for their destinies, Paragot must now saddle himself with a young woman. Had she been a beautiful gipsy, holding fascinating allurements in l.u.s.trous eyes and pomegranate lips, and witchery in a supple figure, the act would have been a commonplace of human weakness. But in the case of poor Blanquette, squat and coa.r.s.e, her heavy features only redeemed from ugliness by youth, honesty and clean teeth, the eternal attraction of s.e.x was absent.
From the decorative point of view she was as unlovely as Narcisse or myself. She was dull, unimaginative, ignorant, as far removed from Paragot as Narcisse from a greyhound. Why then, in the name of men and angels, should Paragot have taken her under his protection? My only answer to the question is that he was Paragot. Judge other men by whatever standard you have to hand; it will serve its purpose in a rough and ready manner; but Paragot--unless with me idolatry has obscured reason--Paragot can only be measured by that absolute standard which lies awful and unerring on the knees of the high G.o.ds.
Of course he saved the girl from a hideous doom. Thousands of kindly, earnest men have done the same in one way or another. But Paragot"s way was different from anyone else"s. Its glorious lunacy lifted it above ordinary human methods.