Part 11

They had started later than was usual, and already the daylight had begun to dim, and the west to turn from red to saffron, and from saffron to fawn. Directly below them lay a maze of steep and narrow streets, shelving toward the boulevard de Rochechouart; and far further, to the southwest, the place de l'Opéra was breaking into the alternate deep red and glaring white of electric advertising signs, the lettering of which could not be distinguished from where they stood, but which painted the faint haze of evening with swiftly changing contrasts of color.

Suddenly Marcelle began to speak, her voice eloquent with a strange, new music.

"Papa Labesse, dost thou comprehend what all this says to us, this wonderful city upon which we look each night, thou and I? From here--what? A bewilderment of lights, a sea of roofs, a murmur of faintly heard cries. But what does it mean? Surely, it is the voice of the mother of us all, of Paris, the great, the beautiful--of a woman, Papa Labesse: that finally, which thou canst never comprehend, pauvre Papa Labesse!--a woman who says but one word--love! Papa Labesse--L'amour, l'amour, l'amour!--again, and again, and again, l'amour!"

There was a long silence. Then, almost timidly, Papa Labesse laid his hand on hers.

"But thou dost not love, my little one,--thou?" he said.

Marcelle turned suddenly.

"Si, I love!" she answered.

Above the tapering, distant shaft of the Tour Eiffel a tiny cloud caught the last ray of the departed sun, blazed crimson for an instant, and then, as suddenly, gloomed to slate-gray.

"Que Dieu te bénisse!" said Papa Labesse, solemnly.

"It is all so wonderful," continued Marcelle after a moment, "and yet I have never seemed to understand it till to-day,--this great, sweet voice of Paris. It is indeed as if she was the mother of us all, Papa Labesse, and was spreading out her arms, and calling us all to come to her heart. And for each of us she has something good--something better than ever we have imagined for ourselves, or wished to have; and yet, in whatever form, it is really the same thing always--l'amour, Papa Labesse, l'amour!"

Out of the strain of the past half hour a great sob was suddenly wrung from Papa Labesse. He took the girl's radiant face between his knotted hands and looked long into her eyes without speaking.

"Tell me, my pigeon," he said, finally, "is it--is it the young Fremier?"

Marcelle flung both arms about his neck, as she had done on the day when he had given her the little white prayerbook. He felt her lips, warm and moist, against his wrinkled ear, and when she spoke, her voice was like the sound of two leaves grazing each other at the touch of a light breeze.

"Oui!" she said.

When Marcelle went away with Bombiste Fremier, all the quartier babbled. Fat fishwives and dairywomen stopped at each others' doors, and said, wisely, with their heads together and hands on hips, that they had always known how it would be. Since the first, whatever Bombiste wanted, that Bombiste was sure to have--what? Did not Madame Rollin remember how, when a mere baby, he had cried for the little brass dish which hung in front of his father's salle de coiffure, until, actually, Fremier père had taken it down and given it to him to cut his first tooth on? Assuredly, Madame Rollin recalled this astounding incident, and not only that, but the fact that she herself had spoken to Madame Fremier, warning her that the result of such folly would be the unhappiness of some one. But they were all alike, the Fremier. They made no excuses and took no advice.

There were others who recalled the days when La Trompette was the belle of the quartier, and as respectable as the best of them. But there, what wouldst thou? Bombiste had wanted her, so there was nothing to be done. And the debate invariably ended with a bit of flattery for Bombiste. It was a beau garçon, after all, name of a good name, with such eyes! And a tongue, bon Dieu, to draw the cork from a bottle! For there are many mysteries of human society, but the greatest of these is the good word of the other women for the man.

Curiously enough, Bombiste's most eloquent partisan was La Trompette herself. Her first appearance at Le Cheval Blanc, after Fremier's desertion of her, was the signal for the outburst of ironic condolence.

"Eh! La Trompette, he has planted thee--yes? So the cord is cut, little one--hein? Did he give thee a reference, at least?"

To these, and many similar compliments, La Trompette returned nothing beyond a tolerant smile, or--

"One shall see, my children!" she cried, in her shrill voice. "It is not the first time, you know. Variety, one has need of that in life. Perhaps we do not know each other, that story and I! Wait a little. In six weeks we shall be here in company as before, and the little one it will be who is planted. But I remain. And she who laughs last--what? But, above all, not a word against Bombiste, unless you have need of the wherewithal to make broken heads. It is a brave gars, do you understand, and one who has often enough paid your drinks, types of good-for-nothings!"

And she planted herself at a table amidst a burst of laughter and applause (for loyalty is greatly esteemed on the boulevard Rochechouart), and proceeded to collect interest, in the form of repeated glasses of cognac, on the past generosities of Bombiste Fremier.

But the eternal feminine had its part in the make-up of La Trompette, and so it was that one evening, just at nightfall, she presented herself at the door of Papa Labesse's little shop. He was always at home now, poor Papa Labesse, for the growing church of Sacré-Coeur had never once seen him emerging, breathless but smiling, from the little rue St. Rustique, since the day when Marcelle disappeared. He stopped his simple toil at the same hour still, but, instead of stepping out briskly upon the long, curving incline of the rue Lepic, he would seat himself in his doorway, and, oftentimes forgetting to light the pipe which he had filled, stare out wistfully across the street, to where a trim little laundress stood, busily ironing shirts, in the window of the shop that had formerly been the dairy of Madame Clapot.

He looked up as La Trompette drew up before his door, and a slight frown wrinkled for an instant above his patient blue eyes, from which all the singular intensity seemed gone.

"Thou hast a strange air of solitude, Papa Labesse," began La Trompette, affecting a tone of solicitude.

Papa Labesse made no reply.

"And Marcelle," said the woman,--"she is always with Bombiste? Poor little one! The end is so sure! Is there one who knows him better than I? Ah, non! It is always the same story,--a pair of bright eyes, a good figure, and v'là! But, without fail, he comes back to me, ce sacré coureur!"

She glanced up and down the street with an air of complete unconcern, and then her eyes came back to Papa Labesse with a vindictive snap.

"Happily," she added, "he will have taught her a way of earning white pieces in abundance. She is not the first, thy Marcelle. They are sprinkled from here to La Villette, the gonzesses who know the name of Bombiste Fremier. Wouldst thou prove it? Walk, then, from the place Pigalle to the place de la Rotonde to-night at twelve!" And La Trompette laughed.

Papa Labesse rose suddenly to his full height.

"God damn you!" he said. And this was no oath, but rather a prayer.

Toward the end of July Papa Labesse resumed his pilgrimages to the summit of the Butte. He had aged visibly in six weeks, and he walked no longer with the brisk and cheerful step which had bespoken his youthfulness of spirit, but shuffled his feet, and often stumbled over trifling obstacles. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, and if he heard the greetings of those along his way, for whom formerly he had always had a hearty word, he made no reply. It is doubtful whether, had he been suddenly asked, he could have told his exact whereabouts: it was rather instinct than absolute intention which sent him shuffling up to his old coign of vantage. His eyes took no note of his immediate surroundings, but looked far beyond, with an expression that was half question, half entreaty. It was only when he had come to the edge of the bluff that he seemed to awaken into something resembling the man he had been. Then, his lean, gnarled hands gripped the wattles with a kind of convulsive eagerness, and, for a little, the old blue spark gleamed under his lids, and his eyes swept the great city feverishly, as if they would pluck out her secret from her by mere force of will. He no longer dwelt upon the churches and the public buildings, but traced with his glance the line of the great boulevards, des Batignolles, de Clichy, and de Rochechouart, and their tributary streets; and often he remained at his post until nearly midnight, motionless, silent, watching, watching, watching, with his eyes fixed upon the distant red glare from the giant revolving wings of the brilliantly lighted Moulin Rouge.

What he saw, what he heard, during those long hours of vigil no one ever knew: what he thought he barely knew himself. The entire intensity of his failing strength was concentrated upon one endeavor. Hour after hour he sent a voice without sound out, over, and down into the labyrinth of streets beneath him, into the dance-halls, the wine-shops, the café-concerts, wooing, pleading, beseeching. It was as if, minute by minute, he wove a great net of tenderest entreaty and persuasion, fitting it cunningly into each nook and cranny of the city below, and then, at the end, with one mighty effort of his will, drew the whole fabric up and into his heart, hoping against hope that, mysteriously, some one pleading thought of his might have caught her and swept her back to his arms. It was a struggle, silent but to the death, between Papa Labesse and the great siren city, for the possession of a soul.

And, as if, indeed, that eager voice without words of his entreaty had, somehow, been able to reach and win her, Marcelle came back. It was at the hour just following sunset, the hour they had loved to pass together, and superbly still and clear. To the west, over the wide, green sweep of the Bois de Boulogne, a great multitude of little puffs of cloud lay piled up against a turquoise sky, and these were constantly changing from tint to opalescent tint, as shafts of crimson and saffron sunlight moved among them from below the horizon. Above, where the turquoise dulled to steel, the stars were already nicking the sky, one by one; and, one by one, the lights of the boulevard, red, white, and yellow, flashed into being in reply.

As it was the dinner hour, the summit of the Butte was deserted save for the figure of Papa Labesse, silhouetted against the sky, as Marcelle emerged from the rue St. Rustique, came slowly across the open space before the church, and stood at his side. She was very pale, with the transparent, leaden pallor which comes only at the end, and her face seemed little more than two great, stunned eyes. Her clothes, in the last stage of what had been tawdry finery, were unspeakably more slovenly than mere rags. It was but eight weeks since they had stood on the same spot together, but this so brief period had wrought in each the havoc of a decade.

For a time neither spoke. Papa Labesse had looked up briefly as she reached his side, and then, as she swayed and seemed about to fall, had put an arm about her and drawn her close to him. So they stood watching, while Paris winked and sparkled into the starry splendor of her summer night. Finally,--

"I knew thou wouldst come, my pigeon," said Papa Labesse. "For a time I was desolate, is it not so?--and sat alone in the shop below there, and thought of nothing. But then I remembered how that thou didst love this place, and so I have come each night to wait for thee, because I knew thou wouldst return. And now thou art here. It is well, my little white pigeon, it is very well."

A keener ear than his would have caught the unmistakable warning that underlay her voice when she replied. It lacked not only hope, but life itself. It was the voice of one long dead.

"I did not think to find thee here, Papa Labesse--it has been so long since then. I came to see it all once again--to hear the voice of the great city that sings of love. And then, when at last comes the night, I would throw myself down from here, even into the very heart of her, for I am hers, and she has made me like herself."

She seemed to feel the unvoiced question which quivered on the lips of Papa Labesse, and continued, presently,--

"He never married me. Not that I cared for that. I loved him, thou seest, and when one loves one thinks not of little things. No, I was happy so. But now--last week he left me. He has gone back to La Trompette. He gave me a hundred sous. I think he was sorry to go."

A faint smile touched the corners of her lips.

"Pauvre Bombiste!" she added. "It is one who does not know his own heart!"

And this again is unknowable mystery,--the gentle word of _the_ woman for the man!

"He is mowing on the fortifs this week," went on Marcelle, wistfully echoing her lover's slang, "and La Trompette is with him. I saw them but to-day, from the porte de Clichy. So, since they are together, for me it is finished. I have come back to the Butte, Papa Labesse--come back to die. For now there is none to receive me, save Paris. She will take me, thou knowest, she who has made me like herself."

That was all. There was no word, now at the end, of Bombiste Fremier, except that he did not know his own heart,--no word of the days without food, the long nights of following him from wineshop to wineshop, perhaps to be refused at last the wretched shelter of his little room; no word of curses, blows, and insults worse than either.

When she was silent again Papa Labesse drew her gently away from the brink of the bluff.

"My pigeon," he said, "there is one to receive thee. Thou wilt come to the little shop--pas?--and rest there upon my bed. For I have no need of sleep, I. And in the morning thou wilt be strong again, and well. Come, my pigeon!"

And silently, hand in hand, they retraced the familiar way, down the long, curving incline of the rue Lepic, and the door of the little joiner's shop closed behind them.

Marcelle died at daybreak, going out softly like a lamp that dims and dims, and then flares once into brilliance before all is dark. Papa Labesse was on his knees beside the narrow bed, when she woke from the stupor into which she had fallen, and raised herself upright, her face shining with a great light. The old man, himself unconscious that the end had come, lifted his eyes eagerly to hers.

"My little white pigeon," he said tremulously, "thou findest thyself better, is it not so?"

But the knowledge of him had passed utterly from Marcelle. For a moment she was silent, looking at the wall of the tiny room, as she had looked in the old days at the great city, spread like a map at the foot of the Butte Montmartre. Then she sank back upon the pillow and crossed her hands upon her breast.

"Paris!" she said. "Paris, toi qui chantes de l'amour!"

And then, very faintly, "Bombi!"

It was her pet name for Fremier, but Papa Labesse did not understand.

Half an hour later, he came out into the growing light of the dawn, and looked vacantly up and down the short stretch of the rue Veron as if uncertain what direction he desired to take. It was not yet five o'clock, but already the quartier was astir. As Papa Labesse hesitated in the doorway, a band of laborers passed the corner, laughing, on their way to their work in the Rochechouart section of the Métropolitain. The little assistant was taking down the shutters of the laundry across the way, and on every side was the sound of opening doors and windows, and voices suddenly raised in greeting or comment upon the weather. Madame Rollin lumbered by, carrying a bundle of clothes on her way to the public lavoir.

"Hé! bonjour, Papa Labesse!" she cried in passing. "A fine morning--what?"

Papa Labesse turned suddenly, clamped the padlock on his door, and was presently shuffling along the avenue de Clichy. As he went, the city awoke around him to full activity, but he noted his surroundings even less than he had been wont to do of late, on his climbs to the Butte. The return of Marcelle had quickened him, but for a moment only. Now he was again, as it were, a mere automaton, going forward without volition, or purpose, or perception, on, on, on, whither and why he knew not.

After a time he was conscious of a great weariness. The noisy clamor of the crowds on the avenue, marketing and bargaining in the new sunlight, seemed unaccountably to have given place to quiet; and looking about him, Papa Labesse learned from a little signboard that he was passing through the porte de Clichy. The octroi officials looked curiously at the shuffling, stooping figure as he went by, and one of them laughed.

"As full as an egg, the grandfather!" he said.

Turning to the left, Papa Labesse toiled up upon the slope of the fortifications, stumbled on for a little, and, finally, as his exhaustion gained upon him, flung himself, face down, upon the grass. He had passed the need of sleep long since, but he lay quite motionless for a long time, with his chin on his hands. Directly before him, seen more clearly from the elevation upon which he lay, was the dingy suburb of Clichy, and, to the left, its still dingier neighbor, Levallois-Perret, studded, both of them, with gaunt sheds of blackened wood, and ghastly factories and storehouses of cheap brick, their endless windows, in close-set rows, giving them the appearance of rusted waffle-irons, and their tall chimneys slabbering slow coils of smoke. In the immediate foreground, a man with a scythe was lazily cutting the long grass on the outward slope of the fortifications.

Presently Papa Labesse began to talk to himself. His eyes were very bright, and as he spoke they jumped nimbly from shed to shed, from factory to factory, of the dispiriting scene before him.

"But what are those?" he began, scowling at two high chimneys standing side by side. "Tiens! Sainte Clotilde! But the evening is clear then, par exemple, that one sees so far and so well. It is all so wonderful--but I have never understood it till now. Ah! Saint Etienne-du-Mont! That I know, since the dome of the Panthéon is quite near. Sapristi! What is that? L'amour, Papa Labesse, l'amour,--that which, finally, thou canst never understand, poor Papa Labesse! Tiens! Notre Dame! Ah, ça! A woman like herself, what?--like Paris that sings of love! My pigeon!"

So, for an hour, the thin stream of jumbled phrases slipped from his dry lips. He talked softly,--no one could have heard him at two paces,--but the babble never ceased.

At seven o'clock a woman carrying a basket appeared upon the fortifications from the direction of the gate, and, pausing at the top of the slope, looked down upon the mower.

"Hé! Allô--labago! Bom-biste!" she cried. The man turned. There was no such thing as not being able to hear La Trompette.

And suddenly Papa Labesse held his peace.

Bombiste came up the slope with a long leisurely stride, flung his scythe upon the grass, and placing his arm around La Trompette's neck, kissed her loudly on both cheeks.

"Name of God!" he said. "But I have thirst!"

They seated themselves side by side and close together, with their backs to Papa Labesse, some fifty metres distant, and La Trompette opened her basket. Presently Bombiste lowered his left elbow and raised his right in the act of drawing a cork, and then raised his left again and took a long draught from the bottle. At the same moment Papa Labesse swung round a quarter circle to the right, as if upon a pivot, and began to crawl very slowly forward.

"Chouette!" said Bombiste to La Trompette, biting a great mouthful from a slice of rye bread and cheese, "c'est du suisse!"

"Thou deservest water and a raw turnip!" replied the woman, assuming a tone of angry reproach. "If it were not I, thou knowest, long since thou wouldst have been put ashore, heart of an artichoke--va!"

"I am like that," observed Bombiste, with regret. "But what wouldst thou, name of God! They come, they go: but at the end it is always thou."

The woman made no reply, and Papa Labesse, two metres away, laid his gnarled brown fingers on the handle of Bombiste's discarded scythe.

Bombiste capped his philosophy with a second long draught of wine, and then, taking a stupendous bite of bread and cheese, glanced slyly at his companion out of the corners of his eyes. She was gazing straight before her, her teeth nicking the edge of her lower lip.

"What hast thou?" mumbled the man, with his mouth full.

"She was very pretty," answered La Trompette, "and she loved thee, that garce. But thou art going to tell me that it is finished forever!--That never, never," she went on, clenching her hands, "wilt thou see her again! Else I plant thee, and thou canst earn thine own white pieces,--mackerel!"

Bombiste leaned over and placed his face beside hers.

"Is it not enough?" he said in his softest voice. "Voyons bien! What is she to me, this Marcelle? Fichtre! I planted her last week, thou knowest. B'en, quoi? Thou knowest the blue gown? It is that which sweeps the Boul' Roch' at present! But that is not for long. Perhaps the Morgue--more likely St. Lazare. Art thou not content?" And he pressed his cheek to the woman's and moved his head up and down slowly, caressing her.

Papa Labesse rose slowly to his feet, and stretched his lean arms to their full length. The sun winked for the fraction of a second on the downward swirling scythe, and then all was still, save for the dull thud, thudding of two round objects rolling down the uneven slope of sod. In a moment even this sound ceased.

Papa Labesse revolved slowly upon his heels, pausing as his blue eyes, wide and vacant, fell upon the distant walls of Sacré-Coeur, swimming, cream-white and high in air, between him and the sun. Then he pitched softly forward upon the grass.

In the Absence of Monsieur