Zut, and Other Parisians

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-Cœur, 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

MONSIEUR ARMAND MICHEL – seated before his newly installed Titian – was in the act of saying to himself that if its acquisition could not, with entire accuracy, be viewed as an unqualified bargain, it had been, at least, an indisputable stroke of diplomacy, when his complacent meditation was interrupted by the entrance of Arsène. It was the first time that Monsieur Michel had seen his new servant in his official capacity, and he was not ill-pleased. Arsène was in flawless evening dress, in marked contrast to the objectionably flamboyant costume in which, on the preceding evening, he had made application for the position of valet-maître d'hôtel, left vacant by the fall from grace of Monsieur Michel's former factotum. That costume had come near to being his undoing. The fastidious Armand had regarded with an offended eye the brilliant green cravat, the unspeakable checked suit, and the painfully pointed chrome-yellow shoes in which the applicant for his approval was arrayed, and more than once, in the course of conversation, was on the point of putting a peremptory end to the negotiations by a crushing comment on would-be servants who dressed like café chantant comedians. But the reference had outweighed the costume. Monsieur Michel did not remember ever to have read more unqualified commendation. Arsène Sigard had been for two years in the service of the Comte de Chambour, whose square pink marble hôtel on the avenue de Malakoff is accounted, in this degenerate age, one of the sights of Paris; and this of itself, was more than a little. The Comte did not keep his eyes in his pockets, by any manner of means, when it came to the affairs of his household, and apparently there was nothing too good for him to say about Arsène. Here, on pale blue note-paper, and surmounted by the de Chambour crest, it was set forth that the bearer was sober, honest, clean, willing, capable, quiet, intelligent, and respectful. And discreet. When the Comte de Chambour gave his testimony on this last point it meant that you were getting the opinion of an expert. Monsieur Michel refolded the reference, tapped it three times upon the palm of his left hand, and engaged the bearer without further ado.

Now, as Arsène went quietly about the salon, drawing the curtains and clearing away the card table, which remained as mute witness to Monsieur Michel's ruling passion, he was the beau idéal of a gentleman's manservant, – unobtrusive in manner and movement, clean-shaven and clear-eyed, adapting himself without need of instruction to the details of his new surroundings. A less complacent person than Armand might have been aware that, while he was taking stock of Arsène, Arsène was taking stock, with equal particularity, of him. And there was an unpleasant slyness in his black eyes, a something akin to alertness in his thin nostrils, which moved like those of a rabbit, and seemed to accomplish more than their normal share of conveying to their owner's intelligence an impression of exterior things. Also, had Monsieur Michel but observed it, his new servant walked just a trifle too softly, and his hands were just a trifle too white and slender. Moreover, he had a habit of smiling to himself when his back was turned, which is an undesirable thing in anybody, and approaches the ominous in a valet-maître d'hôtel. But Monsieur Michel was far too much of an aristocrat to have any doubt of his power to overawe and impress his inferiors, or to see in the newcomer's excessive inconspicuity anything more than a commendable recognition of monsieur's commanding presence. So, when Arsène completed his work and had shut the door noiselessly behind him, his master rubbed his hands and said "Ter-rès bien!" in a low voice, this being his superlative expression of satisfaction. Had his glance been able to penetrate his salon door, it would have met, in the antichambre, with the astounding spectacle of his new servant in the act of tossing monsieur's silk hat into the air, and catching it, with extreme dexterity, on the bridge of his nose. Unfortunately, the other side of the door is something which, like the future and the bank-accounts of our debtors, it is not given us to see. So Monsieur Michel repeated his "Ter-rès bien!" and fell again to contemplating his Titian.

Yes, undoubtedly, it had been a great stroke of diplomacy. The young Marchese degli Abbraccioli was not conspicuous for his command of ready money, but his father had left him the finest private collection of paintings in Rome, and this, in consequence of chronic financial stress, was gradually passing from the walls of his palazzo in the via Cavour into the possession of an appreciative but none too extravagant government. It had been an inspiration, this proposal of Monsieur Michel's to settle his claim upon the Marchese for his overwhelming losses at baccarat by taking over one of the two Titians which flanked the chimney-piece in his study. The young Italian had assented eagerly, and had supplemented his acquiescence with a proposal to dispose of the pendant for somewhat more material remuneration than canceled reconnaissances. But Armand Michel had undertaken it before, this delicate task of getting objets d'art over the Italian frontier – yes, and been caught in the act, too, and forced to disgorge. For the moment, it was enough to charge himself with one picture, on the given conditions, without risking hard cash in the experiment. Later – well, later, one would see. And so, a rivederla, mio caro marchese.

Monsieur Michel fairly hugged himself as he thought of his success. Mon Dieu, quelle génie, that false bottom to his trunk! He had come safely through them all, the imbecile inspectors, and now his treasure hung fairly and finally upon his wall, smiling at him out of its tapestry surroundings. It was épatant, truly, and moreover, all there was of the most calé. Only one small cloud of regret hung upon the broad blue firmament of his satisfaction – the other picture! It had been so easy. He might as well have had two as one. And now, without doubt, the imbecile Marchese would sell the pendant to the imbecile government, and that would be the end of it so far as private purchase was concerned. Monsieur Michel rose from his chair with a gesture of impatience, and, drawing the curtain back from the window, looked out lugubriously upon the March cheerlessness of the place Vendôme. Little by little, a most seductive plan formed itself in his mind. After all, why not? A couple of weeks at Monte Carlo, a week at Sorrento, and a fortnight at Rome, in which to win the Titian from the Marchese degli Abbraccioli, by baccarat if possible, or by banknotes should fortune prove unkind. It was the simplest thing in the world, and he would avoid the remainder of the wet weather and be back for the opening of Longchamp. And Monsieur Michel rubbed his hands and said "Ter-rès bien!" again, with much emphasis.

When, a week later, Arsène was informed of Monsieur's intention to leave him in sole charge of his apartment for a time, he received the intelligence with the dignified composure of one who feels himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him. The cook was to have the vacation for which she had been clamoring, that she might display to her relatives in Lille the elaborate wardrobe which was the result of her savings during three years in Monsieur Michel's employ. Perfectly. And the apartment was to be aired and dusted daily, as if monsieur himself were there. And visitors to be told that monsieur was returning in a month. And letters to be made to follow monsieur, to Monte Carlo at first, and then to Rome. But perfectly; it was completely understood. Arsène bowed a number of times in succession, and outwardly was as calm as a tall, candid-faced clock, being wound up to run for a specified time independent of supervision. But beneath that smooth and carefully oiled expanse of jet-black hair a whole colony of the most fantastic ideas suddenly aroused themselves and began to elbow each other about in a veritable tumult.

Monsieur Michel took his departure in a whirl of confusion, losing a quantity of indispensable articles with exclamations of despair, and finding them the next moment with cries of satisfaction. Eugénie, the cook, compactly laced into a traveling dress of blue silk, stood at the doorway to bid her master good-by, and was run into at each instant by the cabman or the concierge or Monsieur Michel himself, each of whom covered, at top speed, several kilometres of stair and hallway, in the stupendous task of transferring a trunk, a valise, a hat-box, a shawl-strap, and an umbrella from the apartment to the carriage below. On the surface of this uproar, the presence of Arsène swam as serenely as a swan on a maelstrom. He accompanied his master to the gare de Lyon, and the last object which met the anxious eyes of Monsieur Michel, peering out from one of the first-class carriages of the departing express, was his new servant, standing upon the platform, as unmoved by the events of the morning as if monsieur had been passing from the dining room to take coffee in the salon instead of from Paris to take breakfast in Marseille. The sight of him was intensely soothing to the fevered spirit of Monsieur Michel, on whom the details of such a departure produced much the same effect as do cakes of soap when tossed into the mouth of an active geyser.

"He is calm," he said to himself, rubbing his hands. "He is very calm, and he will not lose his head while I am gone. Ter-rès bien!"

But the calm of Arsène was the calm of thin ice over swiftly rushing waters. As the polished buffers of the last carriage swung out of sight around the curve with a curiously furtive effect, like the eyes of an alarmed animal, slipping backward into its burrow, he clenched the fingers of his right hand, and slipping his thumb nail under the edge of his upper teeth, drew it forward with a sharp click. At the same time he said something to his vanished master in the second person singular, which is far from being the address of affection on the lips of a valet-maître d'hôtel.

Wheeling suddenly after this singular manifestation, Monsieur Sigard found himself the object of close and seemingly amused scrutiny on the part of an individual standing directly behind him. There was something so extremely disconcerting in this gentleman's unexpected proximity, and in his very evident enjoyment of the situation, that Arsène was upon the point of turning abruptly away, when the other addressed him, speaking the colloquial French of their class, with the slightest possible hint of foreign accent.

"Bah, vieux! Is it that I do not know what they are, the patrons? Oh, lalà!"

"Avec ça! There are some who have it, an astounding audacity!" said Arsène to the air over the stranger's head.

"Farceur!" replied the stranger, to the air over Arsène's. And then —

"There are two parrakeets that have need of plucking across the way," he added, reflectively.

"There are two empty sacks here to put the feathers in," answered Arsène, with alacrity; and ten minutes later, oblivious to the chill damp of the March morning, Monsieur Sigard and his new-found acquaintance, seated at a little table in front of a near-by wine-shop, were preparing in company the smoky-green mixture of absinthe and water which Paris slang has dubbed a parrakeet. On the part of Arsène the operation was performed with elaborate solicitude, and as he poured a tiny stream of water over the lump of sugar on the flat spoon balanced deftly across the glass, he held his head tipped sidewise and his left eye closed, in the manner of a contemplative fowl, and was oblivious to all but the delectable business of the moment.

But his companion, while apparently deeply engaged in the preparation of his own beverage, was far from being wholly preoccupied thereby. He was a man shorter by an inch or two than Monsieur Michel's maître d'hôtel, dressed in the most inconspicuous fashion, and with an air of avoiding any emphasis of voice or gesture which would be apt to attract more than casual attention to the circumstance of his existence. There was something about him vaguely suggestive of a chameleon, an instant harmonizing of his appearance and manner with any background whatsoever against which he chanced to find himself placed, and a curious clouding of his eyes when unexpectedly they were met by those of another, which lent him an immediate air of profound stupidity. No doubt his long practice in this habit of self-obliteration made him doubly appreciative of Arsène's little outburst of ill-feeling on the platform of the gare de Lyon. A man who would do that in public – well, he had much to learn!

Just now, however, this gentleman's eyes were very bright, though they had dwindled to mere slits; and he followed every movement of the unconscious Arsène with short, swift glances from beneath his drooping lids, as, bit by bit, the lumps of sugar melted under the steady drip of the trickling water, and the opalescent mixture mounted toward the brims. He knew but two varieties of absinthe drinker, this observant individual, – the one who progressed, under its influence, from cheerful candor to shrewdest insight into the motives of others, and most skilful evasion of their toils; the other whom, by easy stages, it led from obstinate reserve to the extreme of careless garrulity. At this moment he was on the alert for symptoms.

Arsène looked up suddenly as the last morsel of his sugar melted, and, lifting his glass, dipped it before the eyes of his new friend.

"To your health, – Monsieur – ?" he said, in courteous interrogation.

"Fresque," said the other.

"Bon! And I, Monsieur Fresque, am Sigard, Arsène Sigard, maître d'hôtel, at your service, of the type who has just taken himself off, down there."

And he indicated the imposing pile of the gare de Lyon with his thumb, and then, closing his eyes, took a long sip of his absinthe, and replacing the glass upon the table, plunged his hands into his pockets and stared off gloomily toward the Seine.

"Poof!" he said, "but I am content that he is gone. What a filthiness, a rich man – what?"

"Not to be denied," agreed Monsieur Fresque. "There is not a foreign sou's worth of delicacy in the whole lot!"

"Mazette! I believe thee," answered the other, much pleased. Fresque's thin lips relaxed the veriest trifle at the familiarity, and he lit a cigarette and gazed vacantly into space.

"But what dost thou expect?" he observed, with calm philosophy.

It appeared that what Arsène expected was that honest folk should not work from seven to ten, in an ignoble box of a pantry, on boots, and silver, and what not, he demanded of him, name of a pipe! and dust, and sweep, and serve at table, good heaven! and practice a species of disgusting politeness to a type of old engraving like Monsieur Armand Michel. And all, oh, mon Dieu! for the crushing sum of twenty dollars a month, did he comprehend? while the animal in question was sowing his yellow buttons by fistfuls. Mazette! Evidently, he himself was not an eagle. He did not demand the Louvre to live in, for example, nor the existence lalala of Emile Loubet – what? but it was not amusing, he assured him, to be in the employ of the great revolting one in question. Ah, non!