Chapter 6
Now this was Barty all over--all through life. He always gave himself away with a liberality quite uncalled for--so he ought to have some allowances made for that reckless and impulsive indiscretion which caused him to be so popular in general society, but got him into so many awkward scrapes in after-life, and made him such mean enemies, and gave his friends so much anxiety and distress.
(And here I think it right to apologize for so much translating of such a well-known language as French; I feel quite like another Ollendorf--who must have been a German, by-the-way--but M. Laferte's grammar and accent would sometimes have puzzled Ollendorf himself!)
* * * * *
Towards the close of September, M. Laferte took it into his head to make a tour of provincial visits _en famille_. He had never done such a thing before, and I really believe it was all to show off Barty to his friends and relations.
It was the happiest time I ever had, and shines out by itself in that already so unforgettably delightful vacation.
We went in a large charabancs drawn by two stout horses, starting at six in the morning, and driving right through the Forest of la Tremblaye; and just ahead of us, to show us the way, M. Laferte driving himself in an old cabriolet, with Josselin (from whom he refused to be parted) by his side, singing or talking, according to order, or cracking jokes; we could hear the big laugh of Polyphemus!
We travelled very leisurely; I forget whether we ever changed horses or not--but we got over a good deal of ground. We put up at the country houses of friends and relations of the Lafertes; and visited old historical castles and mediaeval ruins--Chateaudun and others--and fished in beautiful pellucid tributaries of the Loire--shot over "des chiens anglais"--danced half the night with charming people--wandered in lovely parks and woods, and beautiful old formal gardens with fishponds, terraces, statues, marble fountains; charmilles, pelouses, quinconces; and all the flowers and all the fruits of France! And the sun shone every day and all day long--and in one's dreams all night.
And the peasants in that happy country of the Loire spoke the most beautiful French, and had the most beautiful manners in the world. They're famous for it.
It all seems like a fairy tale.
If being made much of, and petted and patted and admired and wondered at, make up the sum of human bliss, Barty came in for as full a share of felicity during that festive week as should last an ordinary mortal for a twelvemonth. _Figaro qua, Figaro la_, from morning till night in three departments of France!
But he didn't seem to care very much about it all; he would have been far happier singing and tumbling and romancing away to his charbonniers by the pond in the Forest of la Tremblaye. He declared he was never quite himself unless he could feel the north for at least an hour or two every day, and all night long in his sleep--and that he should never feel the north again--that it was gone forever; that he had drunk it all away at that fatal breakfast--and it made him lonely to wake up in the middle of the night and not know which way he lay! "depayse," as he called it--"desoriente--perdu!"
And laughing, he would add, "Ayez pitie d'un pauvre orphelin!"
* * * * *
Then back to Le Gue des Aulnes. And one evening, after a good supper at Grandmaman Laferte's, the diligence de Paris came jingling and rumbling through the main street of La Tremblaye, flashing right and left its two big lamps, red and blue. And we three boys, after the most grateful and affectionate farewells, packed ourselves into the coupe, which had been retained for us, and rumbled back to Paris through the night.
There was quite a crowd to see us off. Not only Lafertes, but others--all sorts and conditions of men, women, and children--and among them three or four of Barty's charcoal-burning friends; one of whom, an old man with magnificent black eyes and an immense beard, that would have been white if he hadn't been a charcoal-burner, kissed Barty on both cheeks, and gave him a huge bag full of some kind of forest berry that is good to eat; also a young cuckoo (which Barty restored to liberty an hour later); also a dormouse and a large green lizard; also, in a little pasteboard box, a gigantic pale green caterpillar four inches long and thicker than your thumb, with a row of shiny blue stars in relief all along each side of its back--the most beautiful thing of the kind you ever saw.
"Pioche bien ta geometrie, mon bon petit Josselin! c'est la plus belle science au monde, crois-moi!" said M. Laferte to Barty, and gave him the hug of a grizzly-bear; and to me he gave a terrific hand-squeeze, and a beautiful double-barrelled gun by Lefaucheux, for which I felt too supremely grateful to find suitable thanks. I have it now, but I have long given up killing things with it.
I had grown immensely fond of this colossal old "bourru bienfaisant," as he was called in La Tremblaye, and believe that all his moroseness and brutality were put on, to hide one of the warmest, simplest, and tenderest hearts in the world.
Before dawn Barty woke up with such a start that he woke me:
"Enfin! ca y est! quelle chance!" he exclaimed.
"Quoi, quoi, quoi?" said I, quacking like a duck.
"Le nord--c'est revenu--it's just ahead of us--a little to the left!"
We were nearing Paris.
And thus ended the proudest and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account--_une bonne fortune_, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when I got back to school.
It was at "Les Laiteries," or "Les Poteries," or "Les Crucheries," or some such place, the charming abode of Monsieur et Madame Pelisson--only their name wasn't Pelisson, or anything like it. At dinner I sat next to a Miss ----, who was very tall and wore blond side ringlets. I think she must have been the English governess.
We talked very much together, in English; and after dinner we walked in the garden together by starlight arm in arm, and she was so kind and genial to me in English that I felt quite chivalrous and romantic, and ready to do doughty deeds for her sake.
Then, at M. Pelisson's request, all the company assembled in a group for evening prayer, under a spreading chestnut-tree on the lawn: the prayer sounded very much like the morning or evening prayer at Brossard's, except that the Almighty was addressed as "toi" instead of "vous"; it began:
"Notre Pere qui es aux cieux--toi dont le regard scrutateur penetre jusque dans les replis les plus profonds de nos coeurs"--and ended, "Ainsi soit-il!"
The night was very dark, and I stood close to Miss ----, who stood as it seemed with her hands somewhere behind her back. I was so grateful to her for having talked to me so nicely, and so fond of her for being English, that the impulse seized me to steal my hand into hers--and her hand met mine with a gentle squeeze which I returned; but soon the pressure of her hand increased, and by the time M. le Cure had got to "au nom du Pere" the pressure of her hand had become an agony--a thing to make one shriek!
"Ainsi soit-il!" said M. le Cure, and the little group broke up, and Miss ---- walked quietly indoors with her arm around Madame Pelisson's waist, and without even wishing me good-night--and my hand was being squeezed worse than ever.
"Ah ha! Lequel de nous deux est vole, petit coquin?" hissed an angry male voice in my ear--(which of us two is sold, you little rascal?).
And I found my hand in that of Monsieur Pelisson, whose name was something else--and I couldn't make it out, nor why he was so angry. It has dawned upon me since that each of us took the other's hand by Mistake for that of the English governess!
All this is beastly and cynical and French, and I apologize for it--but it's true.
* * * * *
October!
It was a black Monday for me when school began again after that ideal vacation. The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crisped and sere. But anyhow I was still _en quatrieme_, and Barty was in it too--and we sat next to each other in "L'etude des grands."
There was only one etude now; only half the boys came back, and the pavillon des petits was shut up, study, class-rooms, dormitories, and all--except that two masters slept there still.
Eight or ten small boys were put in a small school-room in the same house as ours, and had a small dormitory to themselves, with M. Bonzig to superintend them.
I made up my mind that I would no longer be a _cancre_ and a _cretin_, but work hard and do my little best, so that I might keep up with Barty and pass into the _troisieme_ with him, and then into _Rhetorique_ (seconde), and then into _Philosophie_ (premiere)--that we might do our humanities and take our degree together--our "_Bachot_," which is short for _Baccalaureat-es-lettres_. Most Especially did I love Monsieur Durosier's class of French Literature--for which Merovee always rang the bell himself.
My mother and sister were still at Ste.-Adresse, Havre, with my father; so I spent my first Sunday that term at the Archibald Rohans', in the Rue du Bac.
I had often seen them at Brossard's, when they came to see Barty, but had never been at their house before.
They were very charming people.
Lord Archibald was dressing when we got there that Sunday morning, and we sat with him while he shaved--in an immense dressing-room where there were half a dozen towel-horses with about thirty pairs of newly ironed trousers on them instead of towels, and quite thirty pairs of shiny boots on trees were ranged along the wall. James, an impeccable English valet, waited on "his lordship," and never spoke unless spoken to.
"Hullo, Barty! Who's your friend?"
"Bob Maurice, Uncle Archie."
And Uncle Archie shook hands with me most cordially.
"And how's the north pole this morning?"
"Nicely, thanks, Uncle Archie."
Lord Archibald was a very tall and handsome man, about fifty--very droll and full of anecdote; he had stories to tell about everything in the room.
For instance, how Major Welsh of the 10th Hussars had given him that pair of Wellingtons, which fitted him better than any boots Hoby ever made him to measure; they were too tight for poor Welsh, who was a head shorter than himself.
How Kerlewis made him that frock-coat fifteen years ago, and it wasn't threadbare yet, and fitted him as well as ever--for he hadn't changed his weight for thirty years, etc.
How that pair of braces had been made by "my lady" out of a pair of garters she wore on the day they were married.
And then he told us how to keep trousers from bagging at the knees, and how cloth coats should be ironed, and how often--and how to fold an umbrella.
It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps these little anecdotes may not be so amusing to the general reader as they were to me when he told them, so I won't tell any more. Indeed, I have often noticed that things look sometimes rather dull in print that were so surprisingly witty when said in spontaneous talk a great many years ago!
Then we went to breakfast with my lady and Daphne, their charming little daughter--Barty's sister, as he called her--"m'amour"--and who spoke both French and English equally well.
But we didn't breakfast at once, ravenous as we boys were, for Lady Archibald took a sudden dislike to Lord A.'s cravat, which, it seems, he had never worn before. It was in brown satin, and Lady A. declared that Loulou (so she called him) never looked "_en beaute_" with a brown cravat; and there was quite a little quarrel between husband and wife on the subject--so that he had to go back to his dressing-room and put on a blue one.
At breakfast he talked about French soldiers of the line, and their marching kit (as it would be called now), quite earnestly, and, as it seemed to me, very sensibly--though he went through little mimicries that made his wife scream with laughter, and me too; and in the middle of breakfast Barty sang "Le Chant du Depart" as well as he could for laughing:
"La victoire en chantant nous ouvre la carriere! La liberte-e gui-i-de nos pas" ...
while Lord A. went through an expressive pantomime of an overladen foot-soldier up and down the room, in time to the music. The only person who didn't laugh was James--which I thought ungenial.
Then Lady A. had _her_ innings, and sang "Rule Britannia, Britannia rule de vaves"--and declared it was far more ridiculous really than the "Chant du Depart," and she made it seem so, for she went through a pantomime too. She was a most delightful person, and spoke English quite well when she chose; and seemed as fond of Barty as if he were her own and only son--and so did Lord Archibald. She would say:
"Quel dommage qu'on ne peut pas avoir des crompettes [crumpets]! Barty les aime tant! n'est-ce pas, mon chou, tu aimes bien les crompettes? voici venir du buttered toast--c'est toujours ca!"
And, "Mon Dieu, comme il a bonne mine, ce cher Barty--n'est-ce pas, mon amour, que tu as bonne mine? regarde-toi dans la glace."
And, "Si nous allions a l'Hippodrome cette apres-midi voir la belle ecuyere Madame Richard? Barty adore les jolies femmes, comme son oncle! n'est-ce pas, mechant petit Barty, que tu adores les jolies femmes? et tu n'as jamais vu Madame Richard? Tu m'en diras des nouvelles! et vous, mon ami [this to me], est-ce que vous adorez aussi les jolies femmes?"
"O oui," says Daphne, "allons voir M'ame Richard; it'll be _such_ fun! oh, bully!"
So after breakfast we went for a walk, and to a cafe on the Quai d'Orsay, and then to the Hippodrome, and saw the beautiful ecuyere in graceful feats of la haute ecole, and lost our hearts--especially Lord Archibald, though him she knew; for she kissed her hand to him, and he his to her.
Then we dined at the Palais Royal, and afterwards went to the Cafe des Aveugles, an underground coffee-house near the Cafe de la Rotonde, and where blind men made instrumental music; and we had a capital evening.
I have met in my time more intellectual people, perhaps, than the Archibald Rohans--but never people more amiable, or with kinder, simpler manners, or who made one feel more quickly and thoroughly at home--and the more I got to know them, the more I grew to like them; and their fondness for each other and Daphne, and for Barty too, was quite touching; as was his for them. So the winter sped happily till February, when a sad thing happened.
I had spent Sunday with my mother and sister, who now lived on the ground-floor of 108 Champs Elysees.
I slept there that Sunday night, and walked back to school next morning. To my surprise, as I got to a large field through which a diagonal footpath led to Pere Jaurion's loge, I saw five or six boys sitting on the terrace parapet with their legs dangling outside. They should have been in class, by rights. They watched me cross the field, but made no sign.
"What on earth _can_ be the matter?" thought I.
The cordon was pulled, and I came on a group of boys all stiff and silent.
"Qu'est-ce que vous avez donc, tous?" I asked.
"Le Pere Brossard est mort!" said De Villars.
Poor M. Brossard had died of apoplexy on the previous afternoon. He had run to catch the Passy omnibus directly after lunch, and had fallen down in a fit and died immediately.
"Il est tombe du haut mal"--as they expressed it.
His son Merovee and his daughter Madame Germain were distracted. The whole of that day was spent by the boys in a strange, unnatural state of _desoeuvrement_ and suppressed excitement for which no outlet was possible. The meals, especially, were all but unbearable. One was ashamed of having an appetite, and yet one had--almost keener than usual, if I may judge by myself--and for some undiscovered reason the food was better than on other Mondays!
Next morning we all went up in sorrowful procession to kiss our poor dear head-master's cold forehead as he lay dead in his bed, with sprigs of boxwood on his pillow, and above his head a jar of holy water with which we sprinkled him. He looked very serene and majestic, but it was a harrowing ceremony. Merovee stood by with swollen eyes and deathly pale--incarnate grief.
On Wednesday afternoon M. Brossard was buried in the Cimetiere de Passy, a tremendous crowd following the hearse; the boys and masters just behind Merovee and M. Germain, the chief male mourners. The women walked in another separate procession behind.
Beranger and Alphonse Karr were present among the notabilities, and speeches were made over his open grave, for he was a very distinguished man.
And, tragical to relate, that evening in the study Barty and I fell out, and it led to a stand-up fight next day.
There was no preparation that evening; he and I sat side by side reading out of a book by Chateaubriand--either _Atala_, or _Rene_ or _Les Natchez_, I forget which. I have never seen either since.
The study was hushed; M. Dumollard was _de service_ as _maitre d'etudes_, although there was no attempt to do anything but sadly read improving books.
If I remember aright, Rene, a very sentimental young Frenchman, who had loved the wrong person not wisely, but too well (a very wrong person indeed, in his case), emigrated to North America, and there he met a beautiful Indian maiden, one Atala, of the Natchez tribe, who had rosy heels and was charming, and whose entire skin was probably a warm dark red, although this is not insisted upon. She also had a brother, whose name was Outogamiz.
Well, Rene loved Atala, Atala loved Rene, and they were married; and Outogamiz went through some ceremony besides, which made him blood brother and bosom friend to Rene--a bond which involved certain obligatory rites and duties and self-sacrifices.
Atala died and was buried. Rene died and was buried also; and every day, as in duty bound, poor Outogamiz went and pricked a vein and bled over Rene's tomb, till he died himself of exhaustion before he was many weeks older. I quote entirely from memory.
This simple story was told in very touching and beautiful language, by no means telegraphese, and Barty and I were deeply affected by it.
"I say, Bob!" Barty whispered to me, with a break in his voice, "some day I'll marry your sister, and we'll all go off to America together, and she'll die, and _I_'ll die, and you shall bleed yourself to death on my tomb!"
"No," said I, after a moment's thought. "No--look here! _I_'ll marry _your_ sister, and _I_'ll die, and _you_ shall bleed over _my_ tomb!"
Then, after a pause:
"I haven't got a sister, as you know quite well--and if I had she wouldn't be for _you_!" says Barty.
"Why not?"
"Because you're not good-looking enough!" says Barty.
At this, just for fun, I gave him a nudge in the wind with my elbow--and he gave me a "twisted pinch" on the arm--and I kicked him on the ankle, but so much harder than I intended that it hurt him, and he gave me a tremendous box on the ear, and we set to fighting like a couple of wild-cats, without even getting up, to the scandal of the whole study and the indignant disgust of M. Dumollard, who separated us, and read us a pretty lecture:
"Voila bien les Anglais!--rien n'est sacre pour eux, pas meme la mort! rien que les chiens et les chevaux." (Nothing, not even death, is sacred to Englishmen--nothing but dogs and horses.)
When we went up to bed the head-boy of the school--a first-rate boy called d'Orthez, and Berquin (another first-rate boy), who had each a bedroom to himself, came into the dormitory and took up the quarrel, and discussed what should be done. Both of us were English--ergo, both of us ought to box away the insult with our fists; so "they set a combat us between, to fecht it in the dawing"--that is, just after breakfast, in the school-room.
I went to bed very unhappy, and so, I think, did Barty.
Next morning at six, just after the morning prayer, M. Merovee came into the school-room and made us a most straightforward, manly, and affecting speech; in which he told us he meant to keep on the school, and thanked us, boys and masters, for our sympathy.
We were all moved to our very depths--and sat at our work solemn and sorrowful all through that lamp-lit hour and a half; we hardly dared to cough, and never looked up from our desks.
Then 7.30--ding-dang-dong and breakfast. Thursday--bread-and-butter morning!
I felt hungry and greedy and very sad, and disinclined to fight. Barty and I had sat turned away from each other, and made no attempt at reconciliation.
We all went to the refectoire: it was raining fast. I made my ball of salt and butter, and put it in a hole in my hunk of bread, and ran back to the study, where I locked these treasures in my desk.
The study soon filled with boys: no masters ever came there during that half-hour; they generally smoked and read their newspapers in the gymnastic ground, or else in their own rooms when it was wet outside.
D'Orthez and Berquin moved one or two desks and forms out of the way so as make a ring--l'arene, as they called it--with comfortable seats all round. Small boys stood on forms and window-sills eating their bread-and-butter with a tremendous relish.
"Dites donc, vous autres," says Bonneville, the wit of the school, who was in very high spirits; "it's like the Roman Empire during the decadence--'_panem et circenses_!'"
"What's that, _circenses_? what does it mean?" says Rapaud, with his mouth full.
"Why, _butter_, you idiot! Didn't you know _that_?" says Bonneville.
Barty and I stood opposite each other; at his sides as seconds were d'Orthez and Berquin; at mine, Jolivet trois (the only Jolivet now left in the school) and big du Tertre-Jouan (the young marquis who wasn't Bonneville).
We began to spar at each other in as knowing and English a way as we knew how--keeping a very respectful distance indeed, and trying to bear ourselves as scientifically as we could, with a keen expression of the eye.
When I looked into Barty's face I felt that nothing on earth would ever make me hit such a face as that--whatever he might do to mine. My blood wasn't up; besides, I was a coarse-grained, thick-set, bullet-headed little chap with no nerves to speak of, and didn't mind punishment the least bit. No more did Barty, for that matter, though he was the most highly wrought creature that ever lived.
At length they all got impatient, and d'Orthez said:
"Allez donc, godems--ce n'est pas un quadrille! Nous n'sommes pas a La Salle Valentino!"
And Barty was pushed from behind so roughly that he came at me, all his science to the winds and slogging like a French boy; and I, quite without meaning to, in the hurry, hit out just as he fell over me, and we both rolled together over Jolivet's foot--Barty on top (he was taller, though not heavier, than I); and I saw the blood flow from his nose down his lip and chin, and some of it fell on my blouse.
Says Barty to me, in English, as we lay struggling on the dusty floor:
"Look here, it's no good. I _can't_ fight to-day; poor Merovee, you know. Let's make it up!"
"All right!" says I. So up we got and shook hands, Barty saying, with mock dignity:
"Messieurs, le sang a coule; l'honneur britannique est sauf;" and the combat was over.
"Cristi! J'ai joliment faim!" says Barty, mopping his nose with his handkerchief. "I left my crust on the bench outside the refectoire. I wish one of you fellows would get it for me."
"Rapaud finished your crust [ta miche] while you were fighting," says Jolivet. "I saw him."
Says Rapaud: "Ah, Dame, it was getting prettily wet, your crust, and I was prettily hungry too; and I thought you didn't want it, naturally."