CHAPTER II.

THE STORY OF FANTOFF AND BASTICHE.

They went back to the atelier, and Toto, who had not breakfasted, got together some wine and bread and cold stewed beef. Gaillard sat down to table also, to keep him company. Then the poet ventured into the bedroom to talk to the sick girl and cheer her up.

Célestin was lying on her side, facing the door, with very bright eyes and flushed cheeks. On the wall over the bed hung a colored print of our Lord Jesus carrying a lamb; she had brought it with her from her room near the Rue de Babylone. An orange lay on the quilt, one of six brought by Garnier that morning; she had eaten the other five and swallowed the pulp, an act which would have caused a physician to shudder. On a rush-bottomed chair near by lay the lozenges given to her by Mme. Liard,—redoubtable lozenges, according to the label on the box,—also the sugar candy of Garnier.

Gaillard sat down beside the bed; he took the sick girl’s hand, and, stroking it like a mother, called her his _pauvre petite_ Célestin. She quite touched his heart—her sickness, her pitiable air of helplessness; the orange on the quilt, and the picture of the Lord Jesus watching over her.

She had been in great pain all the morning,—a cruel pain, like a hot-iron, in her right lung,—but she was better of the pain now and the cough; she told him so in a mutter, and then asked for a fairy tale.

Toto looked in, munching a biscuit; he nodded his head as if satisfied and withdrew, whilst Gaillard in a fit of genius improvised a fairy tale. It was about a green giant called Fantoff. He was quite green, his hair was grass, and his feet were like roots uprooted in some terrible upheaval; his fingers were like carrots, and he turned brown every autumn with the leaves, the larks in spring mistaking his head for a field built on it; so that in this happy season of the year wherever he walked larks sang above him, and whenever he scratched his head a dozen nests were destroyed. At this Célestin, with Dodor in her mind, said “No, no.” So the poet passed on to the cat Mizar and the dwarf Blizzard, whom the giant had, one day in a fit of idleness, carved from a forked carrot; and Célestin, remembering Garnier’s tulip, believed that this might possibly be true.

Blizzard, forgetful of the debt of creation, dared to fall in love with the lady beloved by Fantoff, whose name was Primavera, and whose abode was the Castle of Flowers. A hundred thousand tulips defended this castle from behind a holly hedge. They were divided into five armies—red, white, yellow, chocolate, and striped; and Célestin in a half-dream beheld the valiant host whilst Gaillard rambled on.

The gardener generalissimo of this army was blind,—he had been blinded by the beauty of Primavera,—and one day as he was wheeling back to the castle a barrow full of roses, who had gone out to fight the camellias and had been badly beaten. Blizzard the dwarf slipped into it under the roses, intent on gaining an entrance to the castle at all hazards, there to declare his love. What happened? Simply this: Algebar, the bird of Paradise, flapped its sapphire wings and shrieked out, “Beware! A carrot is trying to enter the Castle of Flowers. Beware, beware!” and before the faithful bird could call it thrice the door opened, and out came Bastiche, the porter.

Bastiche was a giant, who had once been a clothes basket; he was seven hundred feet high, and creaked as he walked. Primavera in a fit of foolishness had endowed him with life, and as he stood on the castle steps he opened his lid and shut it again. He also quite forgot the warning of Algebar, for at that moment rose up from behind the holly hedge the great green head of Fantoff, the larks singing above it merrily.

Fantoff, be it observed, was quite unconscious of the scheme of Blizzard. He had determined to raid the castle that day on his own account, just as Blizzard had determined to sneak in. Well, listen. There stood Fantoff in all his glory. The tulips shuddered at the sight, and the blind gardener put down his barrow, for he felt in some manner that something was about to happen; and there stood Bastiche, creaking with anger, whilst little Blizzard in the barrow shook the dead roses with laughter. Fantoff and Bastiche stared at each other, Fantoff with derision, Bastiche with envy and hate, whilst Algebar flew through the garden and screamed.

Bastiche, then, as if oblivious of the presence of a foe, gazed up at the clouds and sniffed, and asked the sky where could the smell of manure be coming from; whilst Fantoff inquired of the tulips whether this was the washing-day at the castle? This allusion to his birth quite upset the calm of Bastiche, who descended the steps, opened the garden gate, and like a fool left the protection of the tulip army and holly hedge.

Then, on the plain before the Castle of Flowers, ensued a battle such as never before was witnessed in Fairyland. The mushrooms formed a ring seven miles in diameter, and in this ring the heroes struggled; the sound filled the air for many miles, mixed with the sounds of many things hastening to see the fight. At the end of an hour the plain was strewn with unwashed clothes, and the battle was with Fantoff. He tore the lid off Bastiche, and, not content with this, what must he do but insert his great green head into the yawning opening, to tear the heart of his enemy out with his teeth. But Bastiche had no heart, and here lies one of the morals of the story. For Fantoff had no knowledge of anatomy and he did not know the impossibility of slaying a man without a heart—a critic for instance, or a Bastiche. What did he do? Burrowing deeper and deeper to find his heart, he got his shoulders implicated in the creaking body of Bastiche, and burrowing deeper still he was implicated to the loins.

“He creaks,” cried Fantoff, “so he is still alive!” and went deeper till he was in to the knees. Then he found that he could not get out, for Bastiche had in death taken upon him the revenge of a clothes basket. The fairies tried to pull him out, and also the cat Mizar, but it was of no avail; so they wheeled him away, and the cat Mizar followed to the grave.

In the Castle of Flowers the Lady Primavera turned from watching the fight and its miserable conclusion; she saw an object at her feet. It was Blizzard the dwarf; he had left the barrow during the fight, and, entering the castle by the scullery door, sneaked upstairs, and now upon one knee was declaring his love; and she returned his passion, it seems. But their bliss was of short duration. For one day, chancing to fall asleep in the kitchen, the cook, who was short of vegetables, cut him up and put him in the pot, and the Lady Primavera ate him in her soup, and so there was an end of Blizzard.

For Fantoff read genius; Primavera, fame; Bastiche, the spiteful critics; Blizzard, the popular author, whose books sell by the ton; Mizar, the faithful few. The story also as told by Gaillard had several immoral meanings quite Greek to Célestin. It was, in fact, the work of Papillard, for the downfall of De Nani had thawed that humorist in his cell.

“That is all,” said Gaillard. “To-morrow, if you are better, I will tell you of the adventures of the cat Mizar, and of all that happened when he saw his reflection in the looking-glass of the wizard Fantoum. Fantoum had a blue face; he was half-brother to Fantoff, and his enemy was the giant Boum-Boum, whose children under the spell of the wizard were turned into drums before the age of twenty; that is to say, the boys—the girls turned into drumsticks. I will tell you a story each day, my little Célestin, and then we will print them all in a pretty volume bound in butterfly-blue vellum, and call them ‘Tales Told to Célestin.’ With the money from its sale we will buy a cottage at Montmorency and keep bees; we will support ourselves on bees and fairy tales. And now I must say adieu, and run away until to-morrow.”

“Ah, Montmorency!” murmured Célestin, as Gaillard’s high collar and frock-coat vanished and the door closed on them, leaving her alone.

Toto gave the poet his check, imploring him to wait a little longer and keep him company.

But Gaillard had now the check in his pocket, and the vision of Pleasure was kicking her skirts before his eyes, a box of cigars in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other. So he took the opportunity of Garnier’s entrance to make his exit, swearing to return on the morrow at noon, and ran down the Rue de Perpignan, making for the right side of the Seine just as a thirsty animal makes for water.

Then Garnier, like the poet, came in to see the patient; his pockets were bulging with things, and he held in his hands a square paper parcel; it was a little picture he had painted for Célestin—a droll little picture of a Cupid with a cold, an ominous little picture, perhaps, for, as Gaillard truly said, who can tell what a cold may turn to?