The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol Part 26

"This sacred edifice," Aristide began, in his best cicerone manner, "was built, after a cla.s.sic model, by the great Napoleon, as a Temple of Fame. It was afterwards used as a church. You will observe--and, if you care to, you can count, as a conscientious American lady did last week--the fifty-six Corinthian columns. You will see they are Corinthian by the acanthus leaves on the capitals. For the vulgar, who have no architectural knowledge, I have _memoria technica_ for the instant recognition of the three orders--Cabbages, Corinthian; horns, Ionic; anything else, Doric. We will now mount the steps and inspect the interior."

He was das.h.i.+ng off in his eager fas.h.i.+on, when Mr. Ducksmith laid a detaining hand on his arm.

"No," said he, solemnly. "I disapprove of Popish interiors. Take us to the next place."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE POINTED OUT THE MARVELS OF KUBLA KHAN'S PLEASURE-DOME TO A COUPLE OF GUINEA-PIGS]

He entered the waiting victoria. His wife meekly followed.

"I suppose the Louvre is the next place?" said Aristide.

"I leave it to you," said Mr. Ducksmith.

Aristide gave the order to the cabman and took the little seat in the cab facing his employers. On the way down the Rue Royale and the Rue de Rivoli he pointed out the various buildings of interest--Maxim's, the Cercle Royal, the Ministere de la Marine, the Hotel Continental. Two expressionless faces, two pairs of unresponsive eyes, met his merry glance. He might as well have pointed out the marvels of Kubla Khan's pleasure-dome to a couple of guinea-pigs.

The cab stopped at the entrance to the galleries of the Louvre. They entered and walked up the great staircase on the turn of which the Winged Victory stands, with the wind of G.o.d in her vesture, proclaiming to each beholder the deathless, ever-soaring, ever-conquering spirit of man, and heralding the immortal glories of the souls, wind-swept likewise by the wind of G.o.d, that are enshrined in the treasure-houses beyond.

"There!" said Aristide.

"Umph! No head," said Mr. Ducksmith, pa.s.sing it by with scarcely a glance.

"Would it cost very much to get a new one?" asked Mrs. Ducksmith, timidly. She was three or four paces behind her spouse.

"It would cost the blood and tears and laughter of the human race," said Aristide.

("That was devilish good, wasn't it?" remarked Aristide, when telling me this story. He always took care not to hide his light under the least possibility of a bushel.)

The Ducksmiths looked at him in their lackl.u.s.tre way, and allowed themselves to be guided into the picture-galleries, vaguely hearing Aristide's comments, scarcely glancing at the pictures, and manifesting no sign of interest in anything whatever. From the Louvre they drove to Notre Dame, where the same thing happened. The venerable pile, standing imperishable amid the vicissitudes of centuries (the phrase was that of the director of the Agence Pujol), stirred in their bosoms no perceptible emotion. Mr. Ducksmith grunted and declined to enter; Mrs. Ducksmith said nothing.

As with pictures and cathedrals, so it was with their food at lunch.

Beyond a solemn statement to the effect that in their quality of practised travellers they made a point of eating the food and drinking the wine of the country, Mr. Ducksmith did not allude to the meal. At any rate, thought Aristide, they don't clamour for underdone chops and tea. So far they were human. Nor did they maintain an awful silence during the repast. On the contrary, Mr. Ducksmith loved to talk--in a dismal, pompous way--chiefly of British politics. His method of discourse was to place himself in the position of those in authority and to declare what he would do in any given circ.u.mstances. Now, unless the interlocutor adopts the same method and declares what _he_ would do, conversation is apt to become one-sided. Aristide, having no notion of a policy should he find himself exercising the functions of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, cheerfully tried to change the ground of debate.

"What would you do, Mr. Ducksmith, if you were King of England?"

"I should try to rule the realm like a Christian statesman," replied Mr.

Ducksmith.

"I should have a devil of a time!" said Aristide.

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Ducksmith.

"I should have a--ah, I see--_pardon_. I should----" He looked from one paralyzing face to the other, and threw out his arms. "_Parbleu!_"

said he, "I should decapitate your Mrs. Grundy, and make it compulsory for bishops to dance once a week in Trafalgar Square. _Tiens!_ I would have it a capital offence for any English cook to prepare hashed mutton without a license, and I would banish all the bakers of the kingdom to Siberia--ah! your English bread, which you have to eat stale so as to avoid a horrible death!--and I would open two hundred thousand _cafes_--_mon Dieu!_ how thirsty I have been there!--and I would make every English work-girl do her hair properly, and I would ordain that everybody should laugh three times a day, under pain of imprisonment for life."

"I am afraid, Mr. Pujol," remarked Mr. Ducksmith, seriously, "you would not be acting as a const.i.tutional monarch. There is such a thing as the British Const.i.tution, which foreigners are bound to admire, even though they may not understand."

"To be a king must be a great responsibility," said Mrs. Ducksmith.

"Madame," said Aristide, "you have uttered a profound truth." And to himself he murmured, though he should not have done so, "_Nom de Dieu!

Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_"

After lunch they drove to Versailles, which they inspected in the same apathetic fas.h.i.+on; then they returned to the hotel, where they established themselves for the rest of the day in the airless salon, Mr.

Ducksmith reading English newspapers and his wife knitting a grey woollen sock.

"_Mon vieux!_" said Aristide to Bocardon, "they are people of a nightmare. They are automata endowed with the faculty of digestion. _Ce sont des gens invraisemblables._"

Paris providing them, apparently, with no entertainment, they started, after a couple of days, _Aristide duce et auspice Pujol_, on their railway tour through France, to Aristide a pilgrimage of unimaginable depression. They began with Chartres, continued with the Chateaux of the Loire, and began to work their way south. Nothing that Aristide could do roused them from their apathy. They were exasperatingly docile, made few complaints, got up, entrained, detrained, fed, excursioned, slept, just as they were bidden. But they looked at nothing, enjoyed nothing (save perhaps English newspapers and knitting), and uttered nothing by way of criticism or appreciation when Aristide attempted to review the wonders through which they had pa.s.sed. They did not care to know the history, authentic or Pujolic, of any place they visited; they were impressed by no scene of grandeur, no corner of exquisite beauty. To go on and on, in a dull, non-sentient way, so long as they were spared all forethought, all trouble, all afterthought, seemed to be their ideal of travel.

Sometimes Aristide, after a fruitless effort to capture their interest, would hold his head, wondering whether he or the Ducksmith couple were insane. It was a dragon-fly personally conducting two moles through a rose-garden.

Once only, during the early part of their journey, did a gleam of joyousness pierce the dull glaze of Mr. Ducksmith's eyes. He had procured from the bookstall of a station a pile of English newspapers, and was reading them in the train, while his wife knitted the interminable sock. Suddenly he folded a _Daily Telegraph_, and handed it over to Aristide so that he should see nothing but a half-page advertis.e.m.e.nt. The great capitals leaped to Aristide's eyes:--

"DUCKSMITH'S DELICATE JAMS."

"I am _the_ Ducksmith," said he. "I started and built up the business.

When I found that I could retire, I turned it into a limited liability company, and now I am free and rich and able to enjoy the advantages of foreign travel."

Mrs. Ducksmith started, sighed, and dropped a st.i.tch.

"Did you also make pickles?" asked Aristide.

"I did manufacture pickles, but I made my name in jam. In the trade you will find it an honoured one."

"It is that in every nursery in Europe," Aristide declared, with polite hyperbole.

"I have done my best to deserve my reputation," said Mr. Ducksmith, as impervious to flattery as to impressions of beauty.

"_Pecare!_" said Aristide to himself, "how can I galvanize these corpses?"

As the soulless days went by this problem grew to be Aristide's main solicitude. He felt strangled, choked, borne down by an intolerable weight. What could he do to stir their vitality? Should he fire off pistols behind them, just to see them jump? But would they jump? Would not Mr. Ducksmith merely turn his rabbit-eyes, set in their bloodhound sockets, vacantly on him, and a.s.sume that the detonations were part of the tour's programme? Could he not fill him up with conflicting alcohols, and see what inebriety would do for him? But Mr. Ducksmith declined insidious potations. He drank only at meal-times, and sparingly. Aristide prayed that some Thas might come along, cast her spell upon him, and induce him to wink. He himself was powerless. His raciest stories fell on dull ears; none of his jokes called forth a smile. At last, having taken them to nearly all the historic chateaux of Touraine, without eliciting one cry of admiration, he gave Mr. Ducksmith up in despair and devoted his attention to the lady.

Mrs. Ducksmith parted her smooth black hair in the middle and fastened it in a k.n.o.b at the back of her head. Her clothes were good and new, but some desolate dressmaker had contrived to invest them with an air of hopeless dowdiness. At her bosom she wore a great brooch, containing intertwined locks of a grandfather and grandmother long since defunct.

Her mind was as drearily equipped as her person. She had a vague idea that they were travelling in France; but if Aristide had told her that it was j.a.pan she would have meekly accepted the information. She had no opinions. Still she was a woman, and Aristide, firm in his conviction that when it comes to love-making all women are the same, proceeded forthwith to make love to her.

"Madame," said he, one morning--she was knitting in the vestibule of the Hotel du Faisan at Tours, Mr. Ducksmith being engaged, as usual, in the salon with his newspapers--"how much more charming that beautiful grey dress would be if it had a spot of colour."

His audacious hand placed a deep crimson rose against her corsage, and he stood away at arm's length, his head on one side, judging the effect.

"Magnificent! If madame would only do me the honour to wear it."

Mrs. Ducksmith took the flower hesitatingly.

"I'm afraid my husband does not like colour," she said.

"He must be taught," cried Aristide. "You must teach him. I must teach him. Let us begin at once. Here is a pin."

He held the pin delicately between finger and thumb, and controlled her with his roguish eyes. She took the pin and fixed the rose to her dress.

"I don't know what Mr. Ducksmith will say."