Part 10

To-morrow would be Sunday. When it had passed and the evening was come, and after we had enjoyed two courses of Madame Darblay's juicy gigots and irresistible beans, with the incomparable sauce afforded by the presence of the sunny actresses who were there, we walked over to the Boulevard St.-Jacques and waited for the Montmartre 'bus to come along. These small, ancient omnibuses are different from the other vehicles of that breed in Paris, in that instead of having a narrow curved stairway at the rear leading up to the impériale, there are but three or four iron foot-rests against the outside of the rear wall, with an iron rod on either side to cling to in mounting. Now, the traveller who would reach the impériale must be something of either an acrobat or a sailor, because, first, as these 'buses do not stop, a running leap has to be made for the ladder, and, second, because of the pitching and rolling of the lumbering vehicle, the catching and climbing are not easy. If you carry a cane or a parcel, it must be held in the teeth until the ascent is made, for both hands have all they can do in the ladder exercise.

The gleam of the red lamp coming down the street prepared us for a test of our agility. As only one could mount the ladder at a time, and as I was the first to attack the feat, Bishop had to run behind for nearly a block before I could give him the right of way up the ladder. The conductor registered deux sur l'impériale as we swung to the top and took seats forward, just behind the driver. Ladies and fat gentlemen are rarely, or never, found riding on the impériale of the Montmartre line.

We wrapped up in our big warm coats and lay back smoking three-sous cigars (always three-sous ones on Sunday), and as the driver cracked his whip and the heavy machine went rolling along, we enjoyed the wonderful treat of seeing gay Paris of a Sunday night from the top of an omnibus. There is hardly anything more delightful, particularly from the top of a St. Jacques-Montmartre 'bus, which generally avoids the broad, brilliant streets and goes rolling and swaying through the narrow, crooked streets of old Paris. Here there is hardly room for such a vehicle to pass, and one is anxious lest one's feet sweep off the gas-lamps that fly past. An intimate view of the domestic life of Paris presents itself likewise, for, being on a level with the second story windows, you have flitting visions of the Parisian ménage in all its freedom and variety. At this time of the evening the windows are wide open and the dinner-tables are spread near them, for a view of the street below.

On, on we rumbled, through seemingly interminable miles of crooked streets, over the gay Boul' Mich', and the Place St.-Michel; across the river, which reflected the myriads of lights along its walls and bridges; past the Halles, the greatest marketplace in the world; past the grand boulevards, a confusing glitter of colors and lights; past the Folies-Bergère, where flaming posters announced Loie Fuller in the throes of a fire dance; and at last to the steep grade of Montmartre. Here a third horse was added to the pair, and slowly we were dragged up the slope.

At the Boulevard Clichy we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a terrific uproar; bells, steam-whistles, hand-organs, bands of music, drums, and calliopes made the bedlam. The streets were blocked with moving masses of laughing people, and the scene was gayly illuminated by rows of lamps overhead and on hundreds of stands, merry-go-rounds, theatres, circuses, museums, and all kinds of catchpenny attractions that lined the boulevard. For this was the Fête de Clichy. Far down the street, almost hidden by a curve, could be seen the illuminated arms of the Moulin Rouge slowly revolving through the night.

Still on and up crawled the 'bus, now in the very heart of Montmartre, through the lively, crowded, bright streets on the great hill of Paris. Here are hot-chestnut venders at the corners; fried-potato women, serving crisp brown chips; street hawkers, with their heavy push-carts; song-sellers, singing the songs that they sell, to make purchasers familiar with the airs; flower-girls; gaudy shops; bright restaurants and noisy _café_s,--all constituting that distinctive quarter of Paris, Montmartre.

At last the summit of the hill was made, and the panting horses must have been glad that it was all down-hill ahead. Bishop gave the signal to alight a block before the desired street was reached, for by the time we could touch the ground the 'bus had covered that distance on the down run. Bishop led the way up a dim little street,--the Rue Muller, I noticed on the wall. It was very steep, and at last ended at the bottom of a flight of stone steps that seemed to run into the sky. Their length was marked by lamps glowing one above another in long rows. It was hard work climbing to the top.

The top at last! We seemed to be among the clouds. Far below us lay the great shining city, spreading away into distance; and although it was night, the light of a full moon and untold thousands of lamps in the streets and buildings below enabled us easily to pick out the great thoroughfares and the more familiar structures. There was the Opéra, there the Panthéon, there Notre-Dame, there St.-Sulpice, there the Invalides, and, uplifted to emulate the eminence on which we stood, the Tour Eiffel, its revolving searchlight at the apex shining like an immense meteor or comet with its misty trail stretching out over the city. The roar of life faintly reached our ears from the vast throbbing plain, where millions of human mysteries were acting out their tragedies. The scene was vast, wonderful, entrancing.

Far above us still a maze of rafters, beams, and scaffolding fretted the sky,--the skeleton of that beautiful but unfinished Church of the Sacré- Cour, crowning the very summit of Montmartre.

There seemed to be no life here, for not a soul did we meet, and not a light shone except that of the moon. Bishop guided me through a maze of steep stony passages, between the walls of dark gardens, turning now to the right, again to the left, through archways and courts; and I wondered how he could remember them all. Before I could fully comprehend our position we were confronted by two black, gaunt, uncanny objects with long outstretched arms that cut across the sky like giant skeleton sentinels forbidding our farther advance. But the sounds of lively music and the glow of rows of white-globed lamps quickly banished the illusion and advertised the fact that we were in a very material and sensual world, for they announced the Moulin de la Galette at the foot of the passage. The spectres against the sky were only very, very old windmills, relics of the time, three centuries gone, when windmills crowded the summit of Montmartre to catch all the winds that blew. Now they stand, stark, dead, silent, and decaying; their stately revolutions are no more; and the skeleton frames of their fans look down on a marvellous contrast, the intensely real life of the Galette.

We fell in line with many others at the ticket office, and paid the fifty centimes admission fee (ladies twenty-five centimes). We were relieved of our hats and canes by a stout old woman in the vestiaire, who claimed two sous from each. Following the up-hill passage of the entrance, the walls of which are painted with flowers and garden scenes, we entered the great ball-room. What a brilliant scene of life and light!--at first a blur of sound, light, and movement, then gradually resolving into the simple elements composing it. The floor was covered with dancers, and the girls were making a generous display of graceful anatomy. A large band at the farther end of the room, on an inclined stand, was the vortex of the din. The promenade encircling the hall was crowded with hatless laughing girls and smooth-faced boys wearing caps or flat-brimmed low-crowned hats; their trousers fitted tight at the knees, and their heads were closely cropped. These were strolling in groups, or watching the dancers, or sitting at the rows of wooden tables drinking. All within the vast hall had gone to enjoy their Sunday night as much as possible. To most of the girls this was the one night in the week when, not tired out from the drudgery of hard work, they could throw aside all cares and live in the way for which their cramped and meagre souls yearned. This is a rendezvous for the humble workers of the city, where they may dress as best they can, exchange their petites histoires, and abandon themselves to the luxury of the dance; for they are mostly shop-girls, and blanchisseuses, and the like, who, when work fails them, have to hover about the dark streets at night, that prosperous-looking passers-by may be tempted by the pleading of their dark saucy eyes, or be lured by them to some quiet spot where their lovers lie in wait with a lithe and competent black slung-shot. No mercy for the hapless bourgeois then! For the dear Henris and Jacques and Louises must have their sous for the comforts of life, as well as the necessities, and such luxuries as tobacco and drink must be considered; and if the money wherewith all this may be bought is not produced by Marcelle or Hélène or Marie, she will get a beating for her slothfulness or lack of skill, and will be driven into the street with a hurting back to try again. And so Henri, Jacques, or Louis basks in the sun, and smokes cigarettes with never a care, except that of making his devoted little mistress perform her duties, knowing well how to retain her affection by selfishness and brutality.

This night, however, all that was forgotten. It was the one free, happy night of the week, the night of abandon and the dance, of laughter, drinking, and jollity, for which one and all had longed for a whole impatient and dreary week; and Henri, Jacques, and Louis could spend on drinks with other of their feminine acquaintances the sous that their mistresses had provided. The band played lustily; the lights shone; the room was filled with laughter,--let the dance go on!

Stationed in different parts of the room were the big soldiers of the Garde Municipale, in their picturesque uniform so familiar to all the theatre-goers of Paris. They were here to preserve order, for the dancers belong to an inflammable class, and a blaze may spring up at any moment. Equally valuable as a repressing force was a burly, thick- necked, powerful man who strolled hither and thither, his glance everywhere and always veiling a threat. He wore a large badge that proclaimed him the master of ceremonies. True, he was that, which was something, but he was a great deal more,--a most astonishingly prompt and capable bouncer. The male frequenters of the place were evidently in mortal terror of him, for his commanding size and threatening manner, and his superbly developed muscles, contrasted strikingly with the cringing manner and weak bodies of Henri and his kind; and should he look their way with a momentary steadiness of glance and poise of figure, their conversation would instantly cease, and they would slink away.

We seated ourselves at a vacant table that commanded a sweeping view of the floor and the promenade. A seedy-looking garçon worked his way through the crowd and took our order for beer; and mean, stale beer it was. But we did not care for that. Bishop was all afire with enjoyment of the scene, for, he protested, the place was infinitely rich in types and character,--the identical types that the great Steinlen loves to draw. And here is an interesting thing: The girls all were of that chic and petite order so peculiar to certain classes of Parisian women, some hardly so high as Bishop's shoulder, which is itself not very high; and though they looked so small, they were fully developed young women, though many of them were under twenty. They wore no hats, and for the most part, unlike their gorgeous sisters of the boulevard _café_s, they were dressed plainly, wearing black or colored waists and skirts. But ah!--and here the unapproachable instinct-skill of the French-woman shows itself,--on these same waists and skirts were placed here and there, but always just where they ought to be, bows and ribbons; and it was they that worked the miracle of grace and style. And the girls had a certain beauty, a beauty peculiar to their class,--not exactly beauty, but pleasing features, healthy color, and, best of all and explaining all, an archness of expression, a touch of sauciness, that did for their faces what the bows and ribbons did for their gowns.

Near us a large door opened into the garden of the Moulin; it was filled with trees and benches and tables, and amidst the dark foliage glowed colored Chinese lanterns, which sifted a soft light upon the revellers assembled beneath them in the cool evening air. On one side of the garden stretched Paris far down and away, and on the other side blazed the Moulin de la Galette through the windows.

A waltz was now being danced. Strange to say, it was the one dismal feature of the evening, and that was because the French do not know how to dance it, "reversing" being unknown. And there was an odd variety of ways in which the men held their partners and the dancers each other. Some grasped each other tightly about the waist with both arms, or similarly about the necks or shoulders, and looked straight into each other's face without a smile or an occasional word. It was all done in deadly earnest, as a serious work. It was in the quadrille that the fun came, when the girls varied the usual order by pointing their toes toward the chandeliers with a swish of white skirts that made the by- standers cry, "Encore, Marcelle!" The men, yearning for a share of the applause, cut up all sorts of antics and capers, using their arms and legs with incredible agility, making grotesque faces, and wearing hideous false noses and piratical moustaches.

Securing a partner for a dance was the easiest thing possible. Any girl was eligible,--simply the asking, the assent, and away they went.

Bishop's pencil kept moving rapidly as he caught fleeting notes of faces, dresses, attitudes--everything--for his unfinished piece at the studio. A number of promenaders, attracted by his sketching, stopped to watch him. That dance was now finished, and the dancers separated wherever they stopped, and turned away to seek their separate friends; there was no waste of time in escorting the girls to seats, for that is not fashionable at Montmartre. The girls came flocking about Bishop, curious over his work, and completely shut out his view. "Oh!" exclaimed one saucy petite blonde, "let me see my portrait! I saw you sketching me during the dance."

"_Et moi,--moi aussi!_" cried the others, until Bishop, overwhelmed, surrendered his book for the inspection of bright, eager eyes.

"Has not monsieur a cigarette?" archly asked a girl with a decided nez retroussé. "_Oui_," I answered, handing her a packet, from which with exquisite, unconscious daintiness she selected one. The whole bevy then made a similar request, and we were soon enveloped in a blue haze.

"_Vous ferez mon portrait, n'est-ce-pas?_" begged a dark-eyed beauty of Bishop, in a smooth, pleasant voice. She had a striking appearance. A mass of rebellious black hair strove persistently to fall over her oval face, and when she would neglect to push it back her eyes, dark and melancholy, shone through its tangle with a singular wild lustre. Her skin was dark, almost swarthy, but it was touched with a fine rosy glow of health and youth. Her features were perfect; the nose was slightly romanesque, the chin firm, the lips red and sensuous. When she drew our attention with her request she was standing before us in a rigid, half- defiant, half-commanding posture; but when she quickly added, "I will pose for you,--see?" and sat down beside me, opposite Bishop, her striking native grace asserted itself, for from a statue of bronze she suddenly became all warmth and softness, every line in her perfect, lithe figure showing her eagerness, and eloquent with coaxing.

It was clear that Bishop was deeply impressed by the striking picture that she made; it was her beautiful wild head that fascinated him most.

"No, I am first," insisted a little vixen, hard-featured and determined. "_Jamais de la vie!" "C'est moi!_" protested others, with such fire that I feared there would be trouble. The turmoil had the effect of withdrawing Bishop's attention momentarily from the beautiful tigress beside me. He smiled in bewilderment. He would be happy to draw them all, but---- At last he pacified them by proposing to take them in turn, provided they would be patient and not bother him. To this they poutingly agreed; and Bishop, paying no more attention to the girl beside me, rapidly dashed off sketch after sketch of the other girls. Exclamations of surprise, delight, or indignation greeted each of the portraits as it was passed round. Bishop was seeking "character," and as he was to retain the portraits, he made no efforts at flattery.

All this time the dark-eyed one had sat in perfect silence and stillness beside me, watching Bishop in wonder. She had forgotten her hair, and was gazing through it with more than her eyes as his pencil worked rapidly. I studied her as well as I could as she sat all heedless of my existence. Her lips slightly curved at the corners into a faint suggestion of a smile, but as Bishop's work kept on and the other girls monopolized him, the lips gradually hardened. The shadow of her chin fell upon her smooth throat, not darkening it too much for me to observe that significant movements within it indicated a struggle with her self- control. Bishop was now sketching a girl, the others having run off to dance; they would return in their order. The girl beside me said to me, in a low voice, without looking at me,--"_Monsieur est Anglais?_"

"No," I answered.

"Ah! Américain?"

"Yes."

"And your friend?" nodding toward Bishop. "American also."

"Is he----" but she suddenly checked herself with odd abruptness, and then quickly asked, with a shallow pretence of eager interest, "Is America far from Paris?" And so she continued to quiz me rather vacantly concerning a great country of whose whereabouts she had not the slightest idea. Then she was silent, and I imagined that she was gathering herself for some supreme effort. Suddenly she turned her marvellous eyes full toward me, swept the wild hair from her face, looked almost fiercely at me a moment, and, rigid from head to foot, asked, half angrily, and then held her breath for the answer,--"Is he married?"

The question was asked so suddenly and so strangely, and with so commanding a manner, that I had not a moment to consider the wisdom of lying.

"No," I answered.

She sank back into her chair with a deep breath, all softness and grace again, and her wild hair fell back over her face.

She had lost all interest in the ball. While her companions were enjoying themselves in the dance, she sat motionless and silent beside me, watching Bishop. An uncomfortable feeling had taken possession of me. Presently I abruptly asked her why she did not dance.

She started. "Dance?" she replied. She looked over the hall, and an expression of scorn and disgust came into her face. "Not with that espèce de voyous," she vehemently added; and then she turned to watch Bishop again.

I now noticed for the first time that a group of the human vampires, standing apart at a little distance, were watching us closely and talking in low tones among themselves. My attention had been drawn to them by a defiant look that the girl had shot at them. One of them was particularly repulsive. He was rather larger and stronger than the others. His garb was that of his species,--tight trousers, a négligé shirt, and a rakish cap being its distinguishing articles. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his head thrust forward. He had the low, brutal face of his kind. It was now pale with rage.

I asked the girl what her name was.

"Hélène," she answered, simply.

Her other name?

Oh, just Hélène. Sometimes it was Hélène Crespin, for Crespin was her lover's name. All this with perfect frankness.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"_C'est lui avec la casquette_," she answered, indicating the brute whom I have just described, but I had expected that. "I hate him now!" she vehemently added.

No, she had neither father nor mother; had no recollection of parents. Sometimes she worked in a printing shop in the Rue Victor Massé when extra hands were needed.

After the girl who had been posing was dismissed another took her place; then another, and another, and others; and still others were waiting. The girl beside me had been watching these proceedings with increasing impatience. Some of the girls were so delighted that they threw their arms round Bishop's neck and kissed him. Others called him endearing names. At last it was evident that the dark girl could bear it no longer. She had been growing harder and harder, more and more restless. I continued to watch her narrowly,--she had forgotten my existence. Gradually the natural rich color in her cheeks deepened, her eyes blazed through the tangled hair, her lips were set. Suddenly, after a girl had been more demonstrative than the others, she rose and confronted Bishop. All this time he had not even looked at her, and that, while making me uneasy, had made her furious.

We three were alone. True, we were observed by many, for invasions by foreigners were very rare at the Moulin de la Galette, and we were objects of interest on that account; and the sketching by Bishop had sent our fame throughout the hall.

In a low, quiet voice the girl said to Bishop, as he looked up at her wonderingly,--"You promised to draw mine long ago."

I had never seen my friend more embarrassed than he was at that moment. He stumbled over his excuses, and then asked her to pose to suit her fancy. He did it very gently, and the effect was magical. She sank into her chair and assumed the indolently graceful pose that she had unconsciously taken when she first seated herself. Bishop gazed at her in silence a long time before he began the sketch; and then he worked with a sure and rapid hand. After it was finished he handed it to her. Instantly she was transfigured. She stared at the picture in wonder and delight, her lips parted, her chest hardly moving from her nearly suppressed breathing.

"Do I look like that?" she asked, suspiciously. Indeed, it was an exquisite little piece of work, for Bishop had idealized the girl and made a beautiful portrait.

"Did you not see me draw it while looking at you?" he replied, somewhat disingenuously.

"Will you give it to me?" she asked, eagerly.

"Certainly."

"And will you sign your name to it?"

Bishop cheerfully complied. Then she took it, kissed it, and pressed it to her bosom; and then, leaning forward, and speaking with a richness and depth of voice that she had not betrayed before, and in the deepest earnestness, said,--"_Je vous aime!_"

Bishop, staggered by this forthright declaration of affection, blushed violently and looked very foolish. But he rallied and assured her that her love was reciprocated, for who, he asked, could resist so beautiful a face, so warm a heart? If he had only known, if I could only have told him! The girl sank back in her chair with a quizzical, doubting smile that showed perfect white teeth and changed to bright dimples the suggestion of a smile that fluttered at her mouth-corners. She carefully folded the sketch and daintily tucked it away in her bosom.