CHAPTER IV

THROUGH THE COUNTRY FAIR

The camping-party and the Grojeans were doing the fair. At the foot of the platform, before the circus door, an open-mouthed circle listened to the girl-clown dressed as Pierrette. All around, under the burning sun, tents had been set up, painted in bright colors. Groaning trombones proclaimed the wrestlers and the bearded woman. Other mountebanks farther on attracted the public toward their own side-shows. To the notes of an orchestrion, wooden horses turned rigidly against a cotton-print background, spangled with mirrors. Cries and laughter were heard above all the rumbling of the drums. Far and wide rose the discordant noise, especially that of the market for domestic animals, where the high “do” of squealing pigs quite mastered the muffled bass of the oxen.

Everywhere there was something to see. But the Pierrette was so pretty that the public disdained the rest and thronged around her, fascinated by her air of good-fellowship, and her young, fresh laughter.

“Now’s the time! Now’s the time!” the Pierrette cried, while, behind her on the platform, circus-riders and clowns, and the master in person, Signor Perbaccho, listened gravely to her. “Come in! Come in! Let us show you an animal that has been well trained—but not without difficulty, for he is stupid enough to make soup of smoked beetles!

“Oh, you needn’t think it just happened!” the Pierrette ran on, making gestures with her stick. “To begin with, such animals exist only in Paris—Paris on the Seine, you understand; a big village where all the pebbles are diamonds and the trees are gold, but you don’t dig potatoes there! To live there your loafers have to become sculptors and painters and musicians. Their heads are as empty as their stomachs! Mesdames et messieurs, I am going to show you one of those animals. Don’t throw him anything, I beseech you—no bread-crusts, no cabbage-leaves; he ate yesterday! Attention! Here he comes! Come hither, my fly-killer! Come when you are called.”

There were bursts of laughter as the Pierrette stretched out her arm and seized a man by the ear, whirling him around and bringing him, ashamed enough, to face the public. She might have been a marquise disguised as a soubrette, playing in comedy with a clumsy rustic. The man turned red as a tomato.

“Have you made your bread-winner shine to-day? Did you scrub it with pumice powder? Answer!” said the Pierrette.

“Yes!” grunted the man, shaking his head like a bear.

“Let’s see!”

The man took off his hat, showing a skull of dazzling whiteness, shining above his hairy brown face like a piece of crockery on a cocoanut.

“Bow to the honorable company!” said the Pierrette. “Not so low! if they see your skull that way, they’ll think your breeches are torn at the knee. Now, stand up! To work, old fly-killer!

“Mesdames et messieurs,” the Pierrette said, pretending to roll up her sleeves and get her stick ready, “it’s not so easy as that to kill flies—unless your breath has alcohol enough in it to make them fall in a fit! As for me, I have discovered the means, without drinking, to rid myself of the treacherous gluttonous flies! Do you want my recipe? Here it is. You take a bald-headed man, very delicately—there! like that!—you spread on a layer of molasses and bird-lime, and then flies and wasps, mosquitos and gnats, every insect with a sucker, will light down on the human fly-trap; and then,—then, mesdames,—I address my words to you!—you take a broomstick and hit hard where the molasses is thickest! There! like that! _Aïe donc! vlan! pan!_ till the flies are a jelly—_pan! pan!_—hit him again! that’s the way to kill flies and treat men as they deserve—with a broomstick—_et aïe donc_!”

“What! Suzanne and Poufaille!” exclaimed Phil, getting nearer the platform. The camping-party, followed by the Grojeans, joined him just as Poufaille, covered with molasses and shame, escaped from his executioner and dived back behind the canvas. Suzanne, full of excitement from her bastinade, stamped her feet, and with voice and gesture invited the public to come up and buy their places. High above the noise of the band her piercing voice called out the program:

“Riding of the _haute école_ by the celebrated Perbaccho! The dance of the sylphs by Mademoiselle Suzanne, pupil of the famous Helia! Hercules O’Poufaille, of the family of O’Poufailles! Come in! Come in!”

Phil was greatly astonished. He had not seen Poufaille since the evening when the latter, with his eyes starting from his head, had cast at him the terrible accusation—“You have stolen from me my share of glory!”

“So he’s made himself a Hercules of the fair,” thought Phil, “and he’s made his name Irish! What a fall for an _autochtone_!”

“Phil,” asked Ethel, who had stopped in front of the Pierrette, “wouldn’t you say it was Suzanne? And here on the poster is O’Poufaille—it must be M. Poufaille! Decidedly, Tout-Paris has given itself a rendezvous in the provinces!”

“What—do you know those people?” grand’mère asked of Ethel. “I suppose you saw them in some circus!”

“I saw them in Paris—at the Louvre and at Monsieur Phil’s studio. They are good, brave hearts. Suzanne has posed for me and so did the famous Helia, whose portrait Yvonne did.”

“Impossible!”

“Why, yes, grand’mère,” Yvonne said. “That head of a Madonna—the miniature which you keep on your prie-dieu, don’t you know?—Mlle. Helia posed for it.”

“A Madonna copied from devils like that?” gasped grand’mère, amazed at the Pierrette’s gesticulations on the platform. “What! you bring such people into your house! You are not afraid?”

“I?” answered Ethel; “no fear at all! I would give them the key of my desk! Mme. Grojean, only ask Monsieur Phil, who knows them better than I. Every one earns his living as he can. Each one has his trade—and God for us all!”

“When you go to see them—for I hope you are going to see them,” Ethel continued, speaking to Phil, “remember me to them, and you will oblige me much! If M. Poufaille still has a picture to sell, I will buy it. Poor M. Poufaille!” she added. “After all, he might have succeeded, who knows? It is all such a question of chance!”

Phil, in his heart, did not care much about seeing Poufaille again; what sort of a welcome was there in store for him? But he could not explain all that to Miss Rowrer; and, besides, her desires were orders for him—and then, he would come to Poufaille bearing the gifts of Artaxerxes; that would calm him, no doubt.

“I do not blush for my friends, Miss Rowrer,” Phil said. “I will go this instant. The good fellow will be very glad to have your order.”

“We shall see you later,” answered Ethel.

The camping-party continued its stroll through the fair in two distinct groups. Behind were grandma and grand’mère, talking familiarly together. The piping-time of peace had come with currant-syrup under the arbor by the riverside. Mme. Riçois, full of smiles, fat and dimpling, came and went like a diplomatic valise between the group ahead,—Ethel, Yvonne, and Will,—and the group behind, grandma and grand’mère. These two elegant groups formed a phalanx, bannered by parasols, in the midst of the crowd in blue blouses.

They went along the principal part of the fair, a sort of central alley, which the circus blocked at one end, whereas, at the other end, under dusty trees, the show of domestic animals was lined up. From all parts arose a continuous confusion of sounds, like the murmur of the sea.

“What a noise!” grand’mère exclaimed. She was accustomed to her silent house, between the deserted place and the garden with its clipped yew-trees. “But there’s no harm in passing by such a Jericho now and then—it disgusts you with noise for a year to come!”

Just then Mme. Riçois came up, breathing hard.

“Oh, no! It’s too funny! I never saw Yvonne amuse herself so much. Ah! how gay these young people are! Do you know what M. Rowrer has been telling us? He declares that the country, even on a fair-day like this, soothes his nerves. Miss Rowrer is of the same opinion; they are as merry as children.”

“Perhaps they are too merry,” grand’mère thought to herself. “What an idea of my daughter’s to stay at the house for her preserves, and to leave me alone to look after Yvonne. Really, she chose her time well; was it so necessary for Yvonne to come here and admire the fronts of the booths? Ah! nowadays young people never have their fill of pleasure!”

To calm her conscience, grand’mère said to herself that it was all right for once, but that it should not happen again. Mme. Riçois spoke the truth. They were amusing themselves very much there in front—a great deal too much for grand’mère. Will was as gay as a boy let loose from school.

In comparison with such a provincial fête, Chicago, as he remembered it, made on him the effect of a machine-shop full of the noise of steam-hammers. Taking out his watch, he thought how at that very hour he might have been at the Stock Exchange, worried with business, in the midst of frenzied outcries and distorted faces; whereas, here there were only smiles and gaiety. Every one seemed happy, even the poorest; and the tumult was that of good-fellowship. Joyous vine-dressers were buying baskets for their grapes. Farther along, waffles were frying. Here they were selling cooked sausages; and expansive mouths were emptying their glasses or biting into loaves of bread.

“Here are people,” Will said, “who know how to amuse themselves.”

“Is it a secret, monsieur?” asked Yvonne.

“To be content with what one has,” answered Will. “You have a French proverb about it: ‘_S’il n’y en a pas, il n’en faut pas_’ [‘What you can’t have, you don’t need’]—and that is right—don’t you think so, mademoiselle?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Yvonne; “you seem to know the French people better than I.”

The rare charm of Mlle. de Grojean, her innate simplicity and inherited refinement, seemed to Will like the perfect expression of all he loved in France. He, who was so taciturn, would have talked on for hours only to see the manner, at once coquettish and reserved, with which Yvonne listened to him.

“My impression of France is this,” said Will: “it is holiday every day, and the next day you begin again.”

“You see everything in rose-color, M. Rowrer,” Yvonne remarked.

“No,” said Ethel, who, in her walks around the camp, had often visited the poor—“no, it’s not all the time holiday for everybody.”

“I know that, too,” Will replied; “life is as hard here as anywhere else; but it is the only country where you can give yourself the illusion that it is easy.”

They had come to the end of the central alley. Followed by grand’mère and grandma, they had passed by the Pretty Shepherdess of the Alps—a woman of formidable proportions painted on canvas, in company with three white goats, not far from the booth of the bearded woman. Just there the group behind would have lost the forward group, if it had not been for Mme. Riçois, who elbowed her way with energy through the crowd, which, at this spot, pressed together like the current in a narrow strait. An immense lottery-wheel was turning with a noise like the wind.

The day drew on, and the peasants were already leading away their cattle. They went along in single file, in front of their yoked oxen, slow as a procession. The dust they raised settled on the trees in white powder.

“You may say what you please, Will,” Ethel continued; “it may be all very peaceable if you compare it with the Stock Exchange, but it’s not so compared with Camp Rosemont.”

“We shall go to see you soon,” said Mlle. Yvonne; “you know that every one is talking about it in the town. They tell wonders of it!”

“I am sorry you cannot come to stay with us, Yvonne. I so wish you had been there the other day. I got up an open-air lunch for the village children; and the way they played and laughed! We wound up everything by dancing a great round. Sometimes autos come; and you’d almost think you were at a gymkhana of the Bois de Boulogne. Then I’ve begun my water-colors again. If you would come, Yvonne, we’d make Suzanne pose in her costume as a Pierrette.”

“_Ce diable!_ That’s what grand’mère would say. She’d never be willing!”

“But we should be with you, you know—no ugly man—”

“With an exception for me, I hope?” Will put in.

“And if Suzanne or Helia should pose, after all, what harm could there be?” continued Ethel. “I know very well there are prejudices,—and don’t let’s be too severe on them; prejudice is the counterfeit brother of good sense; hump-backed and with horns, sometimes even without pity. Think of Helia, who wears a more than royal or imperial mantle—beauty! It is impossible that so much beauty should not go along with virtue also; and yet, no!—_un diable_, Mme. de Grojean would say!”

“Ah!—in such a profession!” said Yvonne.

“Ah!” said Ethel; “if Helia were an actress or a singer, she would wear crowns and recite high-sounding verses; and the poets would give her prestige in real life. But she has neither diamonds nor jewels; with her full complement of arms, she is only a Venus de Milo in a silk maillot!”

“You are jesting, Ethel,” said Will. “You are not going to compare gymnastics with dramatic art?”

“Why not? Do you know anything more beautiful than a beautiful gesture? What comedy, what drama can moralize us more than beauty which makes us blush for our own ugliness, and for our poor limbs, like consumptive chickens or stuffed turkeys! It is the training-school of the will and of energy.”

“If she were beautiful as Venus,” Will retorted, “I’d never choose for a wife an acrobat, offering me her heart with a triple high leap.”

“Of course,” said Ethel, “and you would be right; each one in his own sphere. That is one of the conditions of happiness, and society with us has intangible laws which only the unclassed and the _blasé_ venture to break. We do not live in the East, where slaves become queens,—not even in Morgania, a country of icons and superstition; in such countries anything is natural, the only rule being the good pleasure of the master. After all, it is one prejudice instead of another!”

Phil now came to find them. He had recognized them, from a distance, in the crowd, by the shimmering of their parasols. He recounted to Ethel his interview with Poufaille. He looked delighted; everything must have passed off well.

“There are prejudices everywhere,” Ethel went on. “Yourself, Yvonne—do you never stand out against prejudice? I will take Monsieur Phil for witness.”

“In what, please?” Yvonne asked.

“For one example, in walking with us among hundreds of men,—those fearful men of whom you spoke with such terror in Phil’s studio; don’t you remember?”

“Oh,” said Yvonne, looking around her indifferently, “these good country people in their blue blouses? It was not that I meant, Miss Ethel.”

“Then men in blue blouses are not men?” Ethel answered, laughing. “It’s like women in maillots,—they don’t count! What do you think, Phil?”