The Real Latin Quarter Part 9

"Dis donc, garcon!" interrupted the taller of the two girls, "un cafe glace pour moi."

"Et moi," answered her companion gayly, "Je prends une limonade!"

"Here! Hold on!" thundered good-humoredly the man from Denver; "git 'em a good drink. Rye, garsong! yes, that's it--whiskey--I see you're on, and two. Deux!" he explains, holding up two fat fingers, "all straight, friend--two whiskeys with seltzer on the side--see? Now go roll your hoop and git back with 'em."

"Oh, non, monsieur!" cried the two Parisiennes in one breath; "whiskey!

jamais! ca pique et c'est trop fort."

At this juncture the flower woman arrived with a basketful of red roses.

"Voulez-vous des fleurs, messieurs et mesdames?" she asked politely.

"Certainly," cried the Steel King; "here, Maud and Mamie, take the lot,"

and he handed the two girls the entire contents of the basket. The taller buried her face for a moment in the red Jaqueminots and drank in their fragrance. When she looked up, two big tears trickled down to the corners of her pretty mouth. In a moment more she was smiling! The smaller girl gave a little cry of delight and shook her roses above her head as three other girls pa.s.sed. Ten minutes later the two possessed but a single rose apiece--they had generously given all the rest away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (portrait of woman)]

The "copper twins" had been oblivious of all this. They had been hanging over the low bal.u.s.trade, engaged in a heart-to-heart talk with two pretty Quartier brunettes. It seemed to be really a case of love at first sight, carried on somewhat under difficulties, for the "copper twins" could not speak a word of French, and the English of the two chic brunettes was limited to "Oh, yes!" "Vary well!" "Good morning," "Good evening," and "I love you." The four held hands over the low railing, until the "copper twins" fairly steamed in talk; warmed by the sun of gaiety and wet by several rounds of Highland dew, they grew sad and earnest, and got up and stepped all over the Steel King and the man from Denver, and the two Parisiennes' daintily slippered feet, in squeezing out past the group of round tables back of the bal.u.s.trade, and down on to the polished floor--where they are speedily lost to view in the maze of dancers, gliding into the whirl with the two brunettes. When the waltz is over they stroll out with them into the garden, and order wine, and talk of changing their steamer date.

The good American, with his spotless collar and his well-cut clothes, with his frankness and whole-souled generosity, is a study to the modern grisette. He seems strangely attractive to her, in contrast with a certain type of Frenchman, that is selfish, unfaithful, and mean--that jealousy makes uncompanionable and sometimes cruel. She will tell you that these pale, black-eyed, and black-bearded boulevardiers are all alike--lazy and selfish; so unlike many of the sterling, good fellows of the Quarter--Frenchmen of a different stamp, and there are many of these--rare, good Bohemians, with hearts and natures as big as all out-doors--"bons garcons," which is only another way of saying "gentlemen."

As you tramp along back to your quarters some rainy night you find many of the streets leading from the boulevards silent and badly lighted, except for some flickering lantern on the corner of a long block which sends the shadows scurrying across your path. You pa.s.s a student perhaps and a girl, hurrying home--a fiacre for a short distance is a luxury in the Quarter. Now you hear the click-clock of an approaching cab, the cocher half asleep on his box. The hood of the fiacre is up, sheltering the two inside from the rain. As the voiture rumbles by near a street-light, you catch a glimpse of a pink silk petticoat within and a pair of dainty, white kid shoes--and the glint of an officer's sword.

Farther on, you pa.s.s a silent gendarme m.u.f.fled in his night cloak; a few doors farther on in a small cafe, a bourgeois couple, who have arrived on a late train no doubt to spend a month with relatives in Paris, are having a warming tipple before proceeding farther in the drizzling rain.

They have, of course, invited the cocher to drink with them. They have brought all their pets and nearly all their household goods--two dogs, three bird-cages, their tiny occupants protected from the damp air by several folds of newspaper; a cat in a stout paper box with air holes, and two trunks, well tied with rope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (street market)]

"Ah, yes, it has been a long journey!" sighs the wife. Her husband corroborates her, as they explain to the patronne of the cafe and to the cocher that they left their village at midday. Anything over two hours on the chemin-de-fer is considered a journey by these good French people!

As you continue on to your studio, you catch a glimpse of the lights of the Boulevard Montparna.s.se. Next a cab with a green light rattles by; then a ponderous two-wheeled cart lumbers along, piled high with red carrots as neatly arranged as cigars in a box--the driver asleep on his seat near his swinging lantern--and the big Normandy horses taking the way. It is late, for these carts are on their route to the early morning market--one of the great Halles. The tired waiters are putting up the shutters of the smaller cafes and stacking up the chairs. Now a c.o.c.k crows l.u.s.tily in some neighboring yard; the majority at least of the Latin Quarter has turned in for the night. A moment later you reach your gate, feel instinctively for your matches. In the darkness of the court a friendly cat rubs her head contentedly against your leg. It is the yellow one that sleeps in the furniture factory, and you pick her up and carry her to your studio, where, a moment later, she is crunching gratefully the remnant of the beau maquereau left from your dejeuner--for charity begins at home.

CHAPTER X

EXILED

Scores of men, celebrated in art and in literature, have, for a longer or shorter period of their lives, been bohemians of the Latin Quarter.

And yet these years spent in cafes and in studios have not turned them out into the world a devil-me-care lot of dreamers. They have all marched and sung along the "Boul' Miche"; danced at the "Bullier"; starved, struggled, and lived in the romance of its life. It has all been a part of their education, and a very important part too, in the development of their several geniuses, a development which in later life has placed them at the head of their professions. These years of camaraderie--of a life free from all conventionalities, in daily touch with everything about them, and untrammeled by public censure or the petty views of prudish or narrow minds, have left them free to cut a straight swath merrily toward the goal of their ideals, surrounded all the while by an atmosphere of art and good-fellows.h.i.+p that permeates the very air they breathe.

If a man can work at all, he can work here, for between the working-hours he finds a life so charming, that once having lived it he returns to it again and again, as to an old love.

How many are the romances of this student Quarter! How many hearts have been broken or made glad! How many brave spirits have suffered and worked on and suffered again, and at last won fame! How many have failed! We who come with a fresh eye know nothing of all that has pa.s.sed within these quaint streets--only those who have lived in and through it know its full story.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MUSeE CLUNY]

Pochard has seen it; so has the little old woman who once danced at the opera; so have old Bibi La Puree, and Alphonse, the gray-haired garcon, and Mere Gaillard, the flower-woman. They have seen the gay boulevards and the cafes and generations of grisettes, from the true grisette of years gone by, in her dainty white cap and simple dress turned low at the throat, to the tailor-made grisette of to-day.

Yet the eyes of the little old woman still dance; they have not grown tired of this ever-changing kaleidoscope of human nature, this paradise of the free, where many would rather struggle on half starved than live a life of luxury elsewhere.

And the students are equally quixotic. I knew one once who lived in an air-castle of his own building--a tall, serious fellow, a sculptor, who always went tramping about in a robe resembling a monk's cowl, with his bare feet incased in coa.r.s.e sandals; only his art redeemed these eccentricities, for he produced in steel and ivory the most exquisite statuettes. One at the Salon was the sensation of the day--a knight in full armor, scarcely half a foot in height, holding in his arms a nymph in flesh-tinted ivory, whose gentle face, upturned, gazed sweetly into the stern features behind the uplifted vizor; and all so exquisitely carved, so alive, so human, that one could almost feel the tender heart of this fair lady beating against the cold steel breastplate.

Another "bon garcon"--a painter whose enthusiasm for his art knew no bounds--craved to produce a masterpiece. This dreamer could be seen daily ferreting around the Quarter for a studio always bigger than the one he had. At last he found one that exactly fitted the requirements of his vivid imagination--a studio with a ceiling thirty feet high, with windows like the scenic ones next to the stage entrances of the theaters. Here at last he could give full play to his brush--no subject seemed too big for him to tackle; he would move in a canvas as big as a back flat to a third act, and commence on a "Fall of Babylon" or a "Carnage of Rome" with a nerve that was sublime! The choking dust of the arena--the insatiable fury of the tigers--the cowering of hundreds of unfortunate captives--and the cruel mult.i.tude above, seated in the vast circle of the hippodrome--all these did not daunt his zeal.

Once he persuaded a venerable old abbe to pose for his portrait. The old gentleman came patiently to his studio and posed for ten days, at the end of which time the abbe gazed at the result and said things which I dare not repeat--for our enthusiast had so far only painted his clothes; the face was still in its primary drawing.

"The face I shall do in time," the enthusiast a.s.sured the reverend man excitedly; "it is the effect of the rich color of your robe I wished to get. And may I ask your holiness to be patient a day longer while I put in your boots?"

"No, sir!" thundered the irate abbe. "Does monsieur think I am not a very busy man?"

Then softening a little, he said, with a smile:

"I won't come any more, my friend. I'll send my boots around to-morrow by my boy."

But the longest red-letter day has its ending, and time and tide beckon one with the brutality of an impatient jailer.

On my studio table is a well-stuffed envelope containing the doc.u.ments relative to my impending exile--a stamped card of my identification, bearing the number of my cell, a plan of the slave-s.h.i.+p, and six red tags for my baggage.

The three pretty daughters of old Pere Valois know of my approaching departure, and say cheering things to me as I pa.s.s the concierge's window.

Pere Valois stands at the gate and stops me with: "Is it true, monsieur, you are going Sat.u.r.day?"

"Yes," I answer; "unfortunately, it is quite true."

The old man sighs and replies: "I once had to leave Paris myself"; looking at me as if he were speaking to an old resident. "My regiment was ordered to the colonies. It was hard, monsieur, but I did my duty."

The morning of my sailing has arrived. The patron of the tobacco-shop, and madame his good wife, and the wine merchant, and the baker along the little street with its cobblestone-bed, have all wished me "bon voyage,"

accompanied with many handshakings. It is getting late and Pere Valois has gone to hunt for a cab--a "galerie," as it is called, with a place for trunks on top. Twenty minutes go by, but no "galerie" is in sight.

The three daughters of Pere Valois run in different directions to find one, while I throw the remaining odds and ends in the studio into my valise. At last there is a sound of grating wheels below on the gravel court. The "galerie" has arrived--with the smallest of the three daughters inside, all out of breath from her run and terribly excited.

There are the trunks and the valises and the bicycle in its crate to get down. Two soldiers, who have been calling on two of the daughters, come up to the studio and kindly offer their a.s.sistance. There is no time to lose, and in single file the procession starts down the atelier stairs, headed by Pere Valois, who has just returned from his fruitless search considerably winded, and the three girls, the two red-trousered soldiers and myself tugging away at the rest of the baggage.

It is not often one departs with the a.s.sistance of three pretty femmes de menage, a jolly old concierge, and a portion of the army of the French Republic. With many suggestions from my good friends and an a.s.suring wave of the hand from the aged cocher, my luggage is roped and chained to the top of the rickety, little old cab, which sways and squeaks with the sudden weight, while the poor, small horse, upon whom has been devolved the task of making the 11.35 train, Gare St. Lazare, changes his position wearily from one leg to the other. He is evidently thinking out the distance, and has decided upon his gait.

"Bon voyage!" cry the three girls and Pere Valois and the two soldiers, as the last trunk is chained on.

The dingy vehicle groans its way slowly out of the court. Just as it reaches the last gate it stops.

"What's the matter?" I ask, poking my head out of the window.

"Monsieur," says the aged cocher, "it is an impossibility! I regret very much to say that your bicycle will not pa.s.s through the gate."

A dozen heads in the windows above offer suggestions. I climb out and take a look; there are at least four inches to spare on either side in pa.s.sing through the iron posts.

"Ah!" cries my cocher enthusiastically, "monsieur is right, happily for us!"

He cracks his whip, the little horse gathers itself together--a moment of careful driving and we are through and into the street and rumbling away, amid cheers from the windows above. As I glance over my traps, I see a small bunch of roses tucked in the corner of my roll of rugs with an engraved card attached. "From Mademoiselle Ernestine Valois," it reads, and on the other side is written, in a small, fine hand, "Bon voyage."