Flecker's magic

Spike Flecker, who was going to be a great painter, walked slowly along the boulevards, his uncovered red head bowed to the cold drizzle that now succeeded several days of rain....

"See the _Montsouris_ bus there?" Yes, he saw it. "Close your eyes." He obeyed. "Now open them!" With her forefinger she was slowly describing a circle in the air. "Watch that b...

Walking slowly along the tall iron fence of the Luxembourg Gardens he scratched his red head and said words to himself. He did not remember until he stood before the door of his...

The _salle à manger_ had once been used as a shop and its street wall was a broad window and a glass door, both curtained thinly with ruffled white. There was a dark triangle wh...

He went to the _Café de Lilas_ and again sat at a table out in front. He wanted to see the witch approach, walking quickly on her clicking heels like a little white goat. She di...

When with repeated drinks the dimensions of the room became vast--when the priestly face of Rosie and the equine face of Belash swam in and out of his vision like big fish in a...

Berthe woke him bringing a great bowl of chocolate, two golden _croissants_ and a _brioche_. She pulled out the little cupboard in which the _pot au chambre_ lived, placed the t...

He began to paint the pear tree and a woman in a yellow dress sitting on a bench. Thin sunlight poured over leaves and blossoms and fabric. The intense color set going a complic...

The poet put a suspicious question with a glance of his dark eyes. He shrugged and after a pause, in which they were separated and thought their own secret thoughts, he went on...

He did not like going into his room, dreading that window, but once in bed he slept almost immediately and did not waken till morning. Thus strengthened with rest he embarked on...

In a steep, narrow alley Spike stopped, exhausted, and leaned against a spindly tree that stood solitary by the curb. Nearby a woman in a ragged brown shawl tended a two-wheeled...

Now on the fourth day--Friday--he could not even pretend to continue the normal routine of meals and friendly talk and painting. At some moment in the next forty-eight hours, he...

Had you before this time asked Flecker if he wanted to become famous, he might have replied that he pursued art for its own sake, but he really thought he wanted fame very much.

His meditations had not made him averse to food. It would be pleasant to get into communication with the kind of reality that could be chewed with the teeth. Spike reflected as...

Before the _Boul' Mich'_ entrance of the _Jardins de Luxembourg_, he stood thinking,--tall and thin in his old corduroys, his orange hair bare to the breeze. Under the trees it...

He went out from the _pension_ and walked down narrow streets, a feeling of nightmare touching him all over. At corners women stepped out of shadows and greeted him, calling him...

Again he set himself. This time he said aloud, "I wish for one mil--" and there was a muffled knock at his door. It was the fat boy from Luxembourg who could not sleep and wante...

He strove with such intense effort to halt his turning thoughts that he became feverish. His intelligence swiftly shaped decisions, but greed smashed them. "More, more, more!" W...

Spike awoke and his breakfast tray was on the table beside his bed. Then he was alive. Then he had slept. Then this was Saturday morning. His chair stood on all four legs as if...

When the thirty dollars had been changed and the _patron_ given his due, Spike stood for a moment at the zinc-covered bar. Rosie Rosenberg and Belash passed the window and nodde...

"An old woman spoke to me in a restaurant," said Spike, "and again in the Luxembourg Gardens. She said, 'Wish for happiness.' She had on a black hat and she was a witch!" He loo...

Trying to explain why he couldn't decide, Spike told a little of what had happened during the five days. As the girl listened her dark eyes did not leave his face. She seemed to...

Spike covered her hand with his in an impulsive gesture of contrition. For a moment the touch of her hand made his heart beat so furiously he could not speak.

"For generations we had fared constantly worse. It was not too well with us on the eve of the French Revolution; when the industrial revolution got its stride we perished as men...

She gnawed her knuckles, thinking. "Well, you know," she began again, "there is no such thing as a real thing in the world, don't you? You know that everything--a frying pan, a...

"My people had fled in terror from the scientific world, thinking it was all-powerful, and complete!" went on the witch, getting back to the main stream of her confession, satis...

I did not know what kind of an answer she wanted, so I had to think it out. "I do not love mankind, but I have loved a man. I don't have to think about mankind."

"He has imagination," the witch whispered. "Many big words are intimate realities to him. He has capacity for a greater hunger than you and me. In him live powerful resentments....

Flecker had listened to the amazing tale silent but for an occasional exclamation. The music of her deep clear voice, no less than the tale, filled him with wonder. When she had...

"When I told you I would turn the bus over, I signaled to the old witch with my handkerchief.... I was as surprised as you were," said Marie. "The driver climbed off and held hi...

"'The tea will be ready in a minute,' said the witch, yawning. 'Flecker has a curious little triangular room in a _pension_ on the _rue d'Assas_.' She began telling me a lot of...

"The first men landed," continued the witch, "where great rocks were strewn beside a steaming sea. They sky was red. Emerging from standardized comfort volcano smoke made them c...

The witch's room was dark now. There was no sound but the creak of her stubby pen. Sometimes she watched the page, sometimes she looked at me, or at the ceiling, her hand going...

"... up the drain pipe," Marie assured him. "She is a wonderful climber--holds on with her claws and walks up the wall on her limber feet. She would hang from your window sill l...

"I sell hats," Marie said, "in a _boutique_ on the _rue d'Antin_--the second shop from the avenue, an exclusive little place. But I haven't worked for three weeks. Business was...

"'Perhaps I am not a flapper. But I am not decrepit. I can still get around. Ha, ha, ha, ha!' Her laugh scares me. It is make-believe. She never feels like laughing.

Spike did not rise. He held his head down and looked up at the witch from under his brows. Her gray old face was lined more deeply than usual. The rims of her lashless eyes were...

"How can you say that? Are we or are we not talking about him? We have opinions and memories of him. You must admit there is more of him left than of most men."

Flecker had quailed when first the witch began to talk, but now he was more sure of himself. He saw why he had not seriously considered the miracle of the Eiffel Tower. It was n...

"Well, I didn't think we could, really...." In a moment of silence his courage grew. "Look!" he said, "at 3:35 a train leaves from the _Gare de Seaux_ and before half-past four...

The train moved through its tunnel no faster than a man can walk. The tiny lamp burned at the center of a yellow halo. Coal smoke came through all the crevices of window frames...

They didn't even know where they were! It seemed to be no place. A small yellow shed, a shabby phaeton, already rolling away, and all around the smooth hills, a great silence, u...

The white road turned from the church, flowed by a regiment of peaked cottages, and found the open again. Meadow and grain field sank in a silent wave to a broad valley and rose...

The "_bosquet_" of the little roadside restaurant proved to be an untidy backyard, enclosed on one side by a row of whitewashed sheds and separated on two sides from a wheatfiel...