CHAPTER II.

THE SORROWS OF GAILLARD.

A week passed, making in all ten days of the new life, and still the novelty of it had not palled; but five hundred francs of the three thousand were gone. Where were they gone to? Toto scratched his head. Célestin helped him in his accounts, casting her beautiful eyes up as if for her angels to help her; but they were very bad mathematicians, these angels, though perfect milliners.

Garnier, in his big way, had declared to the studio that Toto was the best of good fellows when one got to know him. Jolly had pricked his ears at this, and instantly borrowed twenty-five francs from the new man, to send to his brother in the country; several others had done likewise, but this only accounted for eighty francs or so. True, they had paid the restaurateur and the washwoman; and they had gone the Sunday before to the Buttes Chaumont, so they finished making up their accounts with a kiss, and declared they must be more careful in the future.

“I will sell some hats,” said Célestin, “and, oh, I know: we will get a money-box. It is wonderful, a money-box. Dodor has quite a fortune since I started his. Money seems to grow in a money-box. Kiss me again, Désiré.”

Sometimes Toto thought of the world he had left. What were they all doing? Sometimes he felt slightly uneasy at the great absence of Gaillard. The poet had promised to call in three or four days, and, lo! ten had passed. His friends thought him in Corsica, but what was his mother doing? He had entered into a compromise with her not to bother him, and Helen Powers had promised to use her influence that he might be left alone to follow his art. Still, he felt nervous that some day Mme. la Princesse might break her word and arrive on the scene. She did not know his address, it is true; but, still, she had a way of finding things out.

He had worked fairly hard during these ten days, all things considered, and Garnier had dropped in to visit them now and then, bringing presents of sweets for Célestin.

Toto in the eyes of Garnier seemed a very enviable person. His father had a shop, and all shopkeepers, in the eyes of Garnier, were desperately rich; besides, the little _ménage_ in the Rue de Perpignan did his heart good. The lovers seemed so young and innocent, their way of life so ideal, and their conversation so charming, especially Célestin’s.

It was on the twelfth day that Gaillard burst in upon them. Célestin was out marketing, Toto was at home smoking cigarettes, for it was the day Melmenotte came round,—that is to say, Saturday,—and Toto had taken a dislike to the great painter: he was not a gentleman.

Gaillard had a debauched air, and three books under his arm; and Toto, who had somehow been very much in the blues, felt an unholy joy at the sight of the poet.

“_Pantin_ is out,” said Gaillard, collapsing into a chair and flinging all his books on the floor. He produced a heavy and respectable-looking journal from his back pocket and cast it to the painter.

Toto scarcely glanced at it.

“Where have you been all this time?”

“Ah, my God! you may well ask me that. I have been at the beck and call of Pelisson. It is cruel; I have done all the work, and De Nani is getting all the praise; everyone is talking of De Nani—his jokes, his witticisms, his women, his wealth. And the old fool has not three ideas in his head, nor three sous in his pocket; no woman would look at him twice, and he never made a _bonmot_ in his life. My ‘Fall of the Damned’ came out the day before yesterday; no one is speaking of it, everyone is talking of De Nani. He has killed my little book, he and _Pantin_. It is all Pelisson’s fault. He is only using De Nani as an advertisement. Struve was right: this old man is a goat; he smells like one, faugh! and he paints his face. Struve is the only man of sense of the lot. I always said so. Give me an absinthe, Toto; my nerves are gone.”

“But how did Pelisson get his paper out so quickly?” asked Toto, helping the poet to a glass of vermouth, and feeling a dim sort of pleasure at his trouble.

“He has been working like a mole for months. You know the _Trumpet_; it came to grief last month; he has bought the plant and offices for a song. They are situated near the offices of the _Figaro_ in the Rue Drouot. Oh, you should see that villain of a De Nani; he has bought a white hat, or got it on credit. He dines every day with Pelisson in a _cabinet particulier_ at the Anglaise. No one is admitted, for fear they would find out the fraud, and the fact that he has no brains. Pelisson makes him drunk and sends him off in a cab to Auteuil, and then goes about telling people all the quaint things he has said. He is absorbing all Pelisson’s money. Pierre has never a sou now to lend to a friend, and one can’t dine with him, for he dines alone with De Nani. Conceive my feelings: this old beast has killed my book, cut off my supplies, and to crown all, wherever I go I hear nothing but De Nani, De Nani, De Nani! My God, I will go mad! Give me another vermouth.”

“What are those books?” asked Toto, handing the glass.

“Those? They are insult added to an injury—books for review, and such books! See here Fourrier’s ‘Social Economy’; I am to write a trenchant quarter-column review of it, and abuse it, for that will please the bourgeoisie. I know nothing of social economy, so how can I abuse it? I could praise it, for then Fourrier, whoever he is, would not reply; besides, one can praise a book with one’s eyes shut—bah! See here, a brochure on the American sugar trust. _Mon Dieu!_ does Pelisson take me for a grocer? And here, again, a drama called ‘Henri Quatre,’ by some silly beast called Chauveau; all the lines limp, it is written in five-footed hexameters; and I am to praise it with discretion. With discretion, mind you! I wrote him a little poem for his abominable _Pantin_; it was called ‘Carmine-Rouge.’ You know I scarcely ever touch color in poetry; but I made an exception for once. He would not publish it; it was indecent, forsooth, and would bring the blush to the cheek of the bourgeoisie. Between the bourgeoisie on one hand and De Nani on the other, I feel as if I were in a terrible nightmare.”

“Have you heard anyone speak of me?”

“No one; they think you are in Corsica. But I have seen Mme. la Princesse; she sent for me to inquire after your health, and how you were progressing.”

“And you said——”

“Oh, I said ‘Admirably’; it was the best thing to say. I promised to call again and inform her of your progress; she entreated me to implore you not to discard your woolen vests. There was also a message about an overcoat, which I have forgotten; it was either to wear one or not wear one, but I cannot tell which: you know a mother’s ways. Toto, I feel hungry; have you anything to eat in this atelier of yours?”

Toto got together some bread and butter, half a cold tongue, and a bottle of wine. Gaillard turned up his nose at the feast provided for him, but began to eat.

“Toto, how much longer are you going to remain in this wretched Rue de Perpignan? Everywhere I go the cry is ‘Where is Toto?’ or ‘When will Toto be back?’”

“Why, you said a moment ago nobody asked for me.”

“Neither do they, but they speak of you, nevertheless; they do not ask for you because they imagine you in Corsica, but they mourn your absence.”

“Oh, bother them—let them mourn!” said Toto in a gruff voice, chewing his cigarette in an irritable manner.

“And how is Art going on?” asked Gaillard, casting his eyes about as if he were looking for her.

“All right; don’t bother me. I’m sick of talking art; tell me, How is Struve?”

“Struve is very well, though he declares that De Nani makes him sick.”

He finished the wine in the bottle, and proceeded to the question of a loan.

“But,” said Toto in horror, “you surely have not spent all that three thousand francs I gave you?”

Gaillard laughed harshly.

“Do I ever spend money? I spend my life paying it out, it seems to me; but how much do I spend on myself, how much have I for pleasure? Not a denier. I assure you, Toto, if I have three francs in my pocket people seem to smell it. No sooner had I got home the other day than Mme. Plon appeared with a bill, which I had imagined paid. Then Brevoart attached me for seven hundred and fifty. It was my fault for dealing with a German tailor; he got an order against me, and would have attached my royalties had I not paid. People think you are in Corsica, and so they make raids on me—then there is Angélique.”

“But, see here: I am very hard up myself. You know I determined to do on three thousand; well, I have spent over five hundred in a fortnight.”

“Only five hundred!”

“But think what that means; if I go on at this rate, in a couple of months I shall have nothing.”

“Toto,” said Gaillard earnestly, “I speak to you as a friend: Why pursue this course? Were I an enemy of yours I would urge you on, and then, when you came to grief, laugh at your sufferings. I am your friend, and I say stop. You are a fine artist, and for that very reason you must fail in this course. Genius was never intended to buffet with the world, to pay rent and fight with tradespeople; it is always allied to a fine nature, and I predict the most horrible sufferings for you should you continue this fictitious and insane battle with the world. It is only the duffers and the dullards who succeed in this game; they have blunt noses, and they do not feel blows. Look at De Nani, a miserable wreck without an idea, of whom all Paris is talking. Look at me. Could I tell you one-half the hardships I have undergone in my struggle for art, you would stop your ears. Well, then, I say desist; you can only live once: why make a hell of life? Come back to us; you have made an experiment in life. It is like a curious philosophical experiment that dirties one’s hands; well, then, let us wash our hands, and turn down our cuffs again.”

“Even if I wanted to stop this life, which I do not,” said Toto, playing with Gaillard’s bait, “I couldn’t—sooner do anything than that.”

“Nobody knows; it’s a matter between you and your conscience; _I_ will never speak. You come back from Corsica in a hurry; well, what of that? it is a whim, and admirably in keeping with your character. Do, for Heaven’s sake, Toto, consider your position; and mine, for I feel that I am in some sort responsible for this act of yours, but I have been at least discreet, and, as I said before, nobody knows.”

“My mother knows.”

“What is a mother, if not a confidante of our little eccentricities?”

“And the American girl knows.”

“What! that American girl—would you give her a second thought? _Mon Dieu!_ this is very funny. Oh, _mon Dieu!_ this will kill me. An American pork butcheress; you told me yourself she was a pork butcheress. You are afraid of the jeers of this tripe-seller’s daughter. I passed to-day three American women in green veils; they were promenading the Rue St. Honoré, and screaming through their noses; they had alpenstocks, or at least little sticks, adorned with horn handles and branded ‘Rigi Kulm,’ ‘Rigi Scheideck.’ They had ascended the Rigi, and were announcing the fact to the Rue St. Honoré; that is your American woman. They had faces like dollars, and for people like these you would inconvenience yourself.”

“I tell you I don’t want to go back. I am perfectly happy, perfectly contented. Don’t talk any more about it. And I wish you would not call me Toto.”

Gaillard turned the conversation to his own immediate wants, and the process of extraction was resumed till he had salved five hundred francs from this derelict, promising upon his honor to pay it back in three weeks. And scarcely had the money changed hands than Célestin entered, her arms full of parcels, and accompanied by Garnier. He had met her shopping, and accompanied her home, it being Saturday.

Then the poet took his departure, chuckling to himself about Garnier and the obvious worship of the big Provençal for the pretty Célestin; but for all that, he felt desperately uneasy about Toto. This foolishness might linger on for months like typhoid, and the best part of the year was coming on. At Christmas Toto had talked of hiring a steam yacht for the summer, and now this wretched Célestin and this vile art craze had spoiled it all. He could have wept as he walked hurriedly down the Rue de Perpignan looking for a cab to bear him to civilization, and after an absinthe, which acted on his trouble as stimulants on an abscess, heightening the inflammation and bringing it to a head, he sought Struve out in his rooms.

Struve was working in his shirt-sleeves at that book of his which made such a sensation a year later, “The Saint in Art.”

“I am very uneasy about Toto.”

“What’s wrong with him? Has he been butted by a moufflon?”

“Toto is not in Corsica; Toto is in Paris.”

“Oh, he’s come back, is he?”

“Do attend to me, Struve. Toto is in an attic.”

“What is he doing in an attic?”

“He is painting pictures.”

“Has he gone mad?”

“No, he is not mad; but I fear he will make a very great fool of himself.”

“I always said he would do that,” granted Struve, examining attentively a tiny colored picture of St. Cecilia that was destined to adorn “The Saint in Art.”

“I fear, if he is not stopped, he will make a very great mess of himself. He has taken only three thousand francs of his patrimony, and he swears that if he does not succeed on it he will cut his throat.”

“You don’t mean to say he has gone on with that foolishness?” asked Struve, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands in his pockets.

“I do indeed. It is a great piece of madness; but what is to be done?”

“Leave him alone.”

“But he will starve to death.”

“A little starvation will do him a lot of good; he has too much kick in him. The man is tired of playing the devil. He has tried everything, and now he is trying work. He will be back in a fortnight, a greater devil than ever. I like Toto. He is such a fool; but it’s rather a pity. You see, he is a moon, and he wants to be a sun. He is tired of shining by the reflected glory of his fortune, and he wants to shine by his own light. He hasn’t any to shine by, and there you are.”

“He has certainly no genius, but he is a very facile painter.”

“Facile rubbish! He can’t paint.”

“Do you not think, Otto, if you were to call upon him, and speak to him, and explain——”

“_Gott im Himmel!_ what do you think my time is made for? Here am I behindhand with my book, and Flammarion like a caged tiger waiting for it. Go and tell his mother, go and tell his aunt, go to the devil, go anywhere, but don’t bother me about it. I have no time to be running after Totos; I am not a wet-nurse. Go and get a perambulator and wheel him home. How is _Pantin_?”

“_Pantin_ is very well. Has not Pelisson offered you the art criticisms?”

“Yes; but I am too busy to be bothered by _Pantins_.”

“You are right. Pelisson makes a rotten editor; he gives out books for review as if they were clothes for wash. And De Nani——”

“I know; he is an old fool. But do leave me now, like a good fellow,” lisped Struve. “My head is so full of saints, it has no room for De Nanis.”

Gaillard went off in a huff, but at the entresol returned to borrow a few cigarettes, for Struve’s cigarettes were a dream.

“I forgot to tell you,” said Gaillard as he lighted one, “not to say a word to anyone about Toto and his attic; he made me swear to tell no one.”

“Then why did you tell me, you infernal idiot!” cried Struve, half laughing, yet nearly weeping at all these interruptions to his work.

“I quite forgot,” said Gaillard, running off to confide his troubles to someone else, whilst the critic locked his door and bolted it.

The poet turned into the offices of _Pantin_ in the Rue Drouot.

Since the birth of the new journal Pelisson had been pestered with a rain of old friends whom he had not seen for years, and some of whom he had never seen before. They all wanted employment, or, failing that, a loan. Gaillard’s long-suffering creditors, hearing that he was on the staff, all appeared seeking for their money—a procession as infinite as the Leonids, and on a business as apparently futile. The unfortunate Pelisson had also to supervise his leader writers, write leaders himself, and, worst of all, select the subjects. For this purpose he had to keep one eye fixed steadily upon the whole world—that is to say, Paris. The other eye was fully occupied by De Nani, who had caught on most amazingly. Everyone was craving to see De Nani. They saw glimpses only of him, and that made them crave to see more. De Nani’s white hat loomed mysteriously above _Pantin_; his caustic and cutting witticisms circulated in salon and club. Quite a number of old gentlemen took to wearing white hats and making cutting remarks about their wives, and in the Rue St. Honoré one might see De Nani waistcoats by the score. Kuhn’s window in the Rue de Rivoli exposed his portrait, the white hat tilted to one side above the fiendish old face. It was bought by the hundred, and Gaillard, like a periodic comet, turned up at this window daily to grit his teeth with anguish and envy and walk on with rage in his heart.

Pelisson was right. He had caught an old wether and belled it, and the crowd followed like the proverbial sheep. But the bell-wether required incessant watching; besides, De Nani during the last forty years had improved borrowing into one of the fine arts, and he was taking a thousand francs a day out of _Pantin_ in various legitimate and illegitimate ways. He tapped Pelisson, he tapped the staff, he had established a credit at three cafés, he tapped the proprietors. He came east every morning from Auteuil as an American farmer comes to his maple trees, or a physician to a hospital for dropsy. He patronized three tailors, and bundles of clothes were constantly being left at the offices of _Pantin_; in fact, he seemed to be laying in a store of clothes, not only for this life, but for the next.

“I wonder he does not get a coffin as well to complete the outfit,” said Gaillard once, viciously.

No doubt he would if he could have got a silver one to melt. He made up for his abstinence, however, in this respect by jewelry, scent, cosmetics, cigars, knickknacks. China mandarins, and varnished boots. It was not altogether his fault, for the tradesmen rushed upon him.

Pelisson did not much care what he got on credit, for he was editor only in name. If he lasted over the season it would be quite enough, for _Pantin_ would then be well rooted, and any fiasco of bankruptcy would only make _Pantin_ bloom the more. One might fancy that the bankruptcy of the editor would shake the paper in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, but the wise Pelisson knew better. “There is nothing,” said he, “that a tradesman enjoys more than seeing another tradesman let in.”

_Pantin_, be it observed, was now read, not only by the shopkeepers, but by the _beau monde_. Through its starch people observed a secret spirit at work. Its heavy sledge-hammer articles were supposed to be molding a crown. The journal was evidently a hit at the existing state of things; it was also strangely well informed, and the Ministry felt somewhat as a master might feel who suspected his butler of being a rogue, but could not prove the fact.

Amidst De Nani’s other vagaries, affairs with women figured chief, so you may imagine Pierre Pelisson had his hands full, and no ears for Gaillard’s tale of tribulation about Toto. But De Nani had; he was sitting in a room adjoining the inner office, and heard the whole story—everything, in fact, but Toto’s address.