Part 9
Antony did not think much of Lorrimer in those days, nor Lorrimer of him, for all they were such good friends. And neither of them thought much of Little Billee, whose pinnacle (of pure unadulterated fame) is now the highest of all--the highest probably that can be for a mere painter of pictures!
And what is so nice about Lorrimer, now that he is a graybeard, an academician, an accomplished man of the world and society, is that he admires Antony's genius more than he can say--and reads Mr. Rudyard Kipling's delightful stories as well as Dante's "Inferno"--and can listen with delight to the lovely songs of Signor Tosti, who has not precisely founded himself on Handel--can even scream with laughter at a comic song--even a nigger melody--so, at least, that it but be sung in well-bred and distinguished company--for Lorrimer is no bohemian.
"Shoo, fly! don'tcher bother me! For I belong to the Comp'ny G!"
Both these famous men are happily (and most beautifully) married--grandfathers, for all I know--and "move in the very best society" (Lorrimer always, I'm told; Antony now and then); "la haute," as it used to be called in French bohemia--meaning dukes and lords and even royalties, I suppose, and those who love them and whom they love.
That _is_ the best society, isn't it? At all events, we are assured it used to be; but that must have been before the present scribe (a meek and somewhat innocent outsider) had been privileged to see it with his own little eye.
And when they happen to meet there (Antony and Lorrimer, I mean), I don't expect they rush very wildly into each other's arms, or talk very fluently about old times. Nor do I suppose their wives are very intimate. None of our wives are. Not even Taffy's and the Laird's.
Oh, Orestes! Oh, Pylades!
Oh, ye impecunious, unpinnacled young inseparables of eighteen, nineteen, twenty, even twenty-five, who share each other's thoughts and purses, and wear each other's clothes, and swear each other's oaths, and smoke each other's pipes, and respect each other's lights o' love, and keep each other's secrets, and tell each other's jokes, and pawn each other's watches and merrymake together on the proceeds, and sit all night by each other's bedsides in sickness, and comfort each other in sorrow and disappointment with silent, manly sympathy--"wait till you get to forty year!"
Wait even till each or either of you gets himself a little pinnacle of his own--be it ever so humble!
Nay, wait till either or each of you gets himself a wife!
History goes on repeating itself, and so do novels, and this is a platitude, and there's nothing new under the sun.
May too cecee (as the idiomatic Laird would say, in the language he adores)--may too cecee ay nee eecee nee láh!
* * * * *
Then there was Dodor, the handsome young dragon de la garde--a full private, if you please, with a beardless face, and damask-rosy cheeks, and a small waist, and narrow feet like a lady's, and who, strange to say, spoke English just like an Englishman.
And his friend Gontran, _alias_ l'Zouzou--a corporal in the Zouaves.
Both of these worthies had met Taffy in the Crimea, and frequented the studios in the quartier latin, where they adored (and were adored by) the grisettes and models, especially Trilby.
Both of them were distinguished for being the worst subjects (_les plus mauvais sujets_) of their respective regiments; yet both were special favorites not only with their fellow-rankers, but with those in command, from their colonels downward.
Both were in the habit of being promoted to the rank of corporal or brigadier, and degraded to the rank of private next day for general misconduct, the result of a too exuberant delight in their promotion.
Neither of them knew fear, envy, malice, temper, or low spirits; ever said or did an ill-natured thing; ever even thought one; ever had an enemy but himself. Both had the best or the worst manners going, according to their company, whose manners they reflected; they were true chameleons!
Both were always ready to share their last ten-sou piece (not that they ever seemed to have one) with each other or anybody else, or anybody else's last ten-sou piece with you; to offer you a friend's cigar; to invite you to dine with any friend they had; to fight with you, or for you, at a moment's notice. And they made up for all the anxiety, tribulation, shame, and sorrow they caused at home by the endless fun and amusement they gave to all outside.
It was a pretty dance they led; but our three friends of the Place St. Anatole (who hadn't got to pay the pipers) loved them both, especially Dodor.
One fine Sunday afternoon Little Billee found himself studying life and character in that most delightful and festive scene la Fête de St. Cloud, and met Dodor and l'Zouzou there, who hailed him with delight, saying:
"Nous allons joliment jubiler, nom d'une pipe!" and insisted on his joining in their amusements and paying for them--roundabouts, swings, the giant, the dwarf, the strong man, the fat woman--to whom they made love and were taken too seriously, and turned out--the menagerie of wild beasts, whom they teased and aggravated till the police had to interfere. Also _al fresco_ dances, where their cancan step was of the wildest and most unbridled character, till a sous-officier or a gendarme came in sight, and then they danced quite mincingly and demurely, _en maître d'école_, as they called it, to the huge delight of an immense and ever-increasing crowd, and the disgust of all truly respectable men.
They also insisted on Little Billee's walking between them, arm in arm, and talking to them in English whenever they saw coming towards them a respectable English family with daughters. It was the dragoon's delight to get himself stared at by fair daughters of Albion for speaking as good English as themselves--a rare accomplishment in a French trooper--and Zouzou's happiness to be thought English too, though the only English he knew was the phrase "I will not! I will not!" which he had picked up in the Crimea, and repeated over and over again when he came within ear-shot of a pretty English girl.
Little Billee was not happy in these circumstances. He was no snob. But he was a respectably brought-up young Briton of the higher middle class, and it was not quite pleasant for him to be seen (by fair countrywomen of his own) walking arm in arm on a Sunday afternoon with a couple of French private soldiers, and uncommonly rowdy ones at that.
Later, they came back to Paris together on the top of an omnibus, among a very proletarian crowd, and there the two facetious warriors immediately made themselves pleasant all round and became very popular, especially with the women and children; but not, I regret to say, through the propriety, refinement, and discretion of their behavior. Little Billee resolved that he would not go a-pleasuring with them any more.
However, they stuck to him through thick and thin, and insisted on escorting him all the way back to the quartier latin, by the Pont de la Concorde and the Rue de Lille in the Faubourg St. Germain.
Little Billee loved the Faubourg St. Germain, especially the Rue de Lille. He was fond of gazing at the magnificent old mansions, the "hôtels" of the old French noblesse, or rather the outside walls thereof, the grand sculptured portals with the armorial bearings and the splendid old historic names above them--Hôtel de This, Hôtel de That, Rohan-Chabot, Montmorency, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, La Tour d'Auvergne.
He would forget himself in romantic dreams of past and forgotten French chivalry which these glorious names called up; for he knew a little of French history, loving to read Froissart and Saint-Simon and the genial Brantôme.
Halting opposite one of the finest and oldest of all these gateways, his especial favorite, labelled "Hôtel de la Rochemartel" in letters of faded gold over a ducal coronet and a huge escutcheon of stone, he began to descant upon its architectural beauties and noble proportions to l'Zouzou.
"_Parbleu!_" said l'Zouzou, "_connu_, _farceur!_ why, I was _born_ there, on the 6th of March, 1834, at 5.30 in the morning. Lucky day for France--_hein_?"
"Born there? what do you mean--in the porter's lodge?"
At this juncture the two great gates rolled back, a liveried Suisse appeared, and an open carriage and pair came out, and in it were two elderly ladies and a younger one.
To Little Billee's indignation, the two incorrigible warriors made the military salute, and the three ladies bowed stiffly and gravely.
And then (to Little Billee's horror this time) one of them happened to look back, and Zouzou actually kissed his hand to her.
"Do you _know_ that lady?" asked Little Billee, very sternly.
"_Parbleu! si je la connais!_ Why, it's my mother! Isn't she nice? She's rather cross with me just now."
"Your _mother_! Why, what do you mean? What on earth would your mother be doing in that big carriage and at that big house?"
"_Parbleu, farceur!_ She lives there!"
"_Lives_ there! Why, who and what is she, your mother?"
"The Duchesse de la Rochemartel, _parbleu!_ and that's my sister; and that's my aunt, Princess de Chevagné-Bauffremont! She's the '_patronne_' of that _chic_ equipage. She's a millionaire, my aunt Chevagné!"
"Well, I never! What's _your_ name, then?"
"Oh, _my_ name! Hang it--let me see! Well--Gontran-Xavier--François--Marie--Joseph d'Amaury--Brissac de Roncesvaulx de la Rochemartel-Boisségur, at your service!"
"Quite correct!" said Dodor; "_l'enfant dit vrai!_"
"Well--I--never! And what's _your_ name, Dodor?"
"Oh! I'm only a humble individual, and answer to the one-horse name of Théodore Rigolot de Lafarce. But Zouzou's an awful swell, you know--his brother's the Duke!"
Little Billee was no snob. But he was a respectably brought-up young Briton of the higher middle class, and these revelations, which he could not but believe, astounded him so that he could hardly speak. Much as he flattered himself that he scorned the bloated aristocracy, titles are titles--even French titles!--and when it comes to dukes and princesses who live in houses like the Hôtel de la Rochemartel ...!
It's enough to take a respectably brought-up young Briton's breath away!
When he saw Taffy that evening, he exclaimed: "I say, Zouzou's mother's a duchess!"
"Yes--the Duchesse de la Rochemartel-Boisségur."
"You never told me!"
"You never asked me. It's one of the greatest names in France. They're very poor, I believe."
"Poor! You should see the house they live in!"
"I've been there, to dinner; and the dinner wasn't very good. They let a great part of it, and live mostly in the country. The Duke is Zouzou's brother; very unlike Zouzou; he's consumptive and unmarried, and the most respectable man in Paris. Zouzou will be the Duke some day."
"And Dodor--he's a swell, too, I suppose--he says he's _de_ something or other!"
"Yes--Rigolot de Lafarce. I've no doubt he descends from the Crusaders, too; the name seems to favor it, anyhow; and such lots of them do in this country. His mother was English, and bore the worthy name of Brown. He was at school in England; that's why he speaks English so well--and behaves so badly, perhaps! He's got a very beautiful sister, married to a man in the 60th Rifles--Jack Reeve, a son of Lord Reevely's; a selfish sort of chap. I don't suppose he gets on very well with his brother-in-law. Poor Dodor! His sister's about the only living thing he cares for--except Zouzou."
* * * * *
I wonder if the bland and genial Monsieur Théodore--"notre Sieur Théodore"--now junior partner in the great haberdashery firm of "Passefil et Rigolot," on the Boulevard des Capucines, and a pillar of the English chapel in the Rue Marbœuf, is very hard on his employés and employées if they are a little late at their counters on a Monday morning?
I wonder if that stuck-up, stingy, stodgy, communard-shooting, church-going, time-serving, place-hunting, pious-eyed, pompous old prig, martinet, and philistine, Monsieur le Maréchal-Duc de la Rochemartel-Boisségur, ever tells Madame la Maréchale-Duchesse (_née_ Hunks, of Chicago) how once upon a time Dodor and he--
We will tell no tales out of school.
The present scribe is no snob. He is a respectably brought-up old Briton of the higher middle-class--at least, he flatters himself so. And he writes for just such old philistines as himself, who date from a time when titles were not thought so cheap as to-day. Alas! all reverence for all that is high and time-honored and beautiful seems at a discount.
So he has kept his blackguard ducal Zouave for the bouquet of this little show--the final _bonne bouche_ in his bohemian _menu_--that he may make it palatable to those who only look upon the good old quartier latin (now no more to speak of) as a very low, common, vulgar quarter indeed, deservedly swept away, where misters the students (shocking bounders and cads) had nothing better to do, day and night, than mount up to a horrid place called the thatched house--_la chaumière_--
"Pour y danser le cancan Ou le Robert Macaire-- Toujours--toujours--toujours-- La nuit comme le jour ... Et youp! youp! youp! Tra la la la la ... la la la!"
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
Christmas was drawing near.
There were days when the whole quartier latin would veil its iniquities under fogs almost worthy of the Thames Valley between London Bridge and Westminster, and out of the studio window the prospect was a dreary blank. No morgue! no towers of Notre Dame! not even the chimney-pots over the way--not even the little mediæval toy turret at the corner of the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, Little Billee's delight!
The stove had to be crammed till its sides grew a dull deep red before one's fingers could hold a brush or squeeze a bladder; one had to box or fence at nine in the morning, that one might recover from the cold bath, and get warm for the rest of the day!
Taffy and the Laird grew pensive and dreamy, childlike and bland; and when they talked it was generally about Christmas at home in merry England and the distant land of cakes, and how good it was to be there at such a time--hunting, shooting, curling, and endless carouse!
It was Ho! for the jolly West Riding, and Hey! for the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee, till they grew quite homesick, and wanted to start by the very next train.
They didn't do anything so foolish. They wrote over to friends in London for the biggest turkey, the biggest plum-pudding, that could be got for love or money, with mince-pies, and holly and mistletoe, and sturdy, short, thick English sausages, half a Stilton cheese, and a sirloin of beef--two sirloins, in case one should not be enough.
For they meant to have a Homeric feast in the studio on Christmas Day--Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee--and invite all the delightful chums I have been trying to describe; and that is just why I tried to describe them--Durien, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Carnegie, Petrolicoconose, l'Zouzou, and Dodor!
The cooking and waiting should be done by Trilby, her friend Angèle Boisse, M. et Mme. Vinard, and such little Vinards as could be trusted with glass and crockery and mince-pies; and if that was not enough, they would also cook themselves and wait upon each other.
When dinner should be over, supper was to follow with scarcely any interval to speak of; and to partake of this other guests should be bidden--Svengali and Gecko, and perhaps one or two more. No ladies!
For, as the unsusceptible Laird expressed it, in the language of a gillie he had once met at a servants' dance in a Highland country-house, "Them wimmen spiles the ball!"
Elaborate cards of invitation were sent out, in the designing and ornamentation of which the Laird and Taffy exhausted all their fancy (Little Billee had no time).
Wines and spirits and English beers were procured at great cost from M. E. Delevingne's, in the Rue St. Honoré, and liqueurs of every description--chartreuse, curaçoa, ratafia de cassis, and anisette; no expense was spared.
Also, truffled galantines of turkey, tongues, hams, rillettes de Tours, pâtés de foie gras, "fromage d'Italie" (which has nothing to do with cheese), saucissons d'Arles et de Lyon, with and without garlic, cold jellies peppery and salt--everything that French charcutiers and their wives can make out of French pigs, or any other animal whatever, beast, bird, or fowl (even cats and rats), for the supper; and sweet jellies, and cakes, and sweetmeats, and confections of all kinds, from the famous pastry-cook at the corner of the Rue Castiglione.
Mouths went watering all day long in joyful anticipation. They water somewhat sadly now at the mere remembrance of these delicious things--the mere immediate sight or scent of which in these degenerate latter days would no longer avail to promote any such delectable secretion. Hélas! ahimè! ach weh! ay de mi! eheu! οἱμοι--in point of fact, _alas_!
That is the very exclamation I wanted.
Christmas Eve came round. The pieces of resistance and plum-pudding and mince-pies had not yet arrived from London--but there was plenty of time.
Les trois Angliches dined at le père Trin's, as usual, and played billiards and dominos at the Café du Luxembourg, and possessed their souls in patience till it was time to go and hear the midnight mass at the Madeleine, where Roucouly, the great barytone of the Opéra Comique, was retained to sing Adam's famous Noël.
The whole quartier seemed alive with the réveillon. It was a clear, frosty night, with a splendid moon just past the full, and most exhilarating was the walk along the quays on the Rive Gauche, over the Pont de la Concorde and across the Place thereof, and up the thronged Rue de la Madeleine to the massive Parthenaic place of worship that always has such a pagan, worldly look of smug and prosperous modernity.
They struggled manfully, and found standing and kneeling room among that fervent crowd, and heard the impressive service with mixed feelings, as became true Britons of very advanced liberal and religious opinions; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one may be sure).
But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beautiful music, and in mere sensuous _attendrissement_ they were quickly in unison with all the rest.
For as the clock struck twelve out pealed the organ, and up rose the finest voice in France:
"Minuit, Chrétiens! c'est l'heure solennelle Où l'Homme-Dieu descendit parmi nous!"
And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little Billee and submerged him; swept him off his little legs, swept him out of his little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love--love of his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that is and ever was and ever will be--a very large order indeed, even for Little Billee.
And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love to one figure especially beloved beyond all the rest--one figure erect on high with arms outstretched to him, in more than common fellowship of need; not the sorrowful figure crowned with thorns, for it was in the likeness of a woman; but never that of the Virgin Mother of Our Lord.
It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif all but lost amid the scum of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby weak and mortal like himself, and in woful want of pardon! and in her gray dovelike eyes he saw the shining of so great a love that he was abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his forever, come what would or could.
"Peuple, debout! Chante ta délivrance! _Noël! Noël! Voici le Rédempteur!_"
So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big, deep, metallic barytone bass--above the organ, above the incense, above everything else in the world--till the very universe seemed to shake with the rolling thunder of that great message of love and forgiveness!
Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to magnify and exaggerate all things under the subtle stimulus of sound, and the singing human voice had especially strange power to penetrate into his inmost depths--even the voice of man!
And what voice but the deepest and gravest and grandest there is can give worthy utterance to such a message as that, the epitome, the abstract, the very essence of all collective humanity's wisdom at its best!
Little Billee reached the Hôtel Corneille that night in a very exalted frame of mind indeed, the loftiest, lowliest mood of all.
Now see what sport we are of trivial, base, ignoble earthly things!
Sitting on the door-step and smoking two cigars at once he found Ribot, one of his fellow-lodgers, whose room was just under his own. Ribot was so tipsy that he could not ring. But he could still sing, and did so at the top of his voice. It was not the Noël of Adam that he sang. He had not spent his réveillon in any church.
With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got the bacchanalian into his room and lit his candle for him, and, disengaging himself from his maudlin embraces, left him to wallow in solitude.
As he lay awake in his bed, trying to recall the deep and high emotions of the evening, he heard the tipsy hog below tumbling about his room and still trying to sing his senseless ditty:
"Allons, Glycère! Rougis mon verre Du jus divin dont mon cœur est toujours jaloux ... Et puis à table, Bacchante aimable! Enivrons-nous (hic) Les g-glougloux sont des rendezvous!"...
Then the song ceased for a while, and soon there were other sounds, as on a Channel steamer. Glougloux indeed!
Then the fear arose in Little Billee's mind lest the drunken beast should set fire to his bedroom curtains. All heavenly visions were chased away for the night....
Our hero, half-crazed with fear, disgust, and irritation, lay wide awake, his nostrils on the watch for the smell of burning chintz or muslin, and wondered how an educated man--for Ribot was a law-student--could ever make such a filthy beast of himself as that! It was a scandal--a disgrace; it was not to be borne; there should be no forgiveness for such as Ribot--not even on Christmas Day! He would complain to Madame Paul, the patronne; he would have Ribot turned out into the street; he would leave the hotel himself the very next morning! At last he fell asleep, thinking of all he would do; and thus, ridiculously and ignominiously for Little Billee, ended the réveillon.
Next morning he complained to Madame Paul; and though he did not give her warning, nor even insist on the expulsion of Ribot (who, as he heard with a hard heart, was "bien malade ce matin"), he expressed himself very severely on the conduct of that gentleman, and on the dangers from fire that might arise from a tipsy man being trusted alone in a small bedroom with chintz curtains and a lighted candle. If it hadn't been for himself, he told her, Ribot would have slept on the door-step, and serve him right! He was really grand in his virtuous indignation, in spite of his imperfect French; and Madame Paul was deeply contrite for her peccant lodger, and profuse in her apologies; and Little Billee began his twenty-first Christmas Day like a Pharisee, thanking his star that he was not as Ribot!
Part Fourth
"Félicité passée Qui ne peux revenir, Tourment de ma pensée, Que n'ay-je, en te perdant, perdu le souvenir!"
Mid-day had struck. The expected hamper had not turned up in the Place St. Anatole des Arts.