text:
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Rh has come to me for, but "It is a pity to rouse you," she says.

"And I will take charge of the house to-day, and light the fires and wash the dishes——"

"Na, oh, no; no, I couldna ask that of you, and you an author."

"It won't be the first time, mother, since I was an author."

"More like the fiftieth!" she says almost gleefully, so I have begun well, for to keep up her spirits is the great thing to-day.

Knock at the door. It is the baker. I take in the bread, looking so sternly at him that he dare not smile.

Knock at the door. It is the postman. (I hope he did not see that I had the lid of the kettle in my other hand.)

Furious knocking in a remote part. This means that the author is in the coal-cellar.

Anon I carry two breakfasts upstairs in triumph. I enter the bedroom like no mere humdrum son, but after the manner of the Glasgow waiter. I must say more about him. He had been my mother's one waiter, the only man-servant she ever came in contact with, and they had met in a Glasgow hotel which she was eager to see, having heard of the monstrous things, and conceived them to resemble country inns with another twelve bedrooms. I remember how she beamed—yet tried

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/322


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brightwell, Cecilia Lucy

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
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Rh to look as if it was quite an ordinary experience—when we alighted at the hotel door, but though she said nothing I soon read disappointment in her face. She knew how I was exulting in having her there, so would not say a word to damp me, but I craftily drew it out of her. No, she was very comfortable, and the house was grand beyond speech, but—but—where was he? he had not been very hearty. "He" was the landlord; she had expected him to receive us at the door and ask if we were in good health and how we had left the others, and then she would have asked him if his wife was well and how many children they had, after which we should have all sat down together to dinner. Two chambermaids came into her room and prepared it without a single word to her about her journey or on any other subject, and when they had gone, "They are two haughty misses," said my mother with spirit. But what she most resented was the waiter with his swagger black suit and short quick steps and the "towel" over his arm. Without so much as a "Welcome to Glasgow!" he showed us to our seats, not the smallest acknowledgment of our kindness in giving such munificent orders did we draw from him, he hovered around the table as if it would be unsafe to leave us with his knives and forks (he should have seen her knives and forks), when we spoke to each other he affected not to hear, we Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/323


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brigit


text:
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Rh might laugh, but this uppish fellow would not join in, we retired, crushed, and he had the final impudence to open the door for us. But though this hurt my mother at the time, the humour of our experiences filled her on reflection, and in her own house she would describe them with unction, sometimes to those who had been in many hotels, often to others who had been in none, and whoever were her listeners she made them laugh, though not always at the same thing.

So now when I enter the bedroom with the tray, on my arm is that badge of pride, the towel; and I approach with prim steps to inform Madam that breakfast is ready, and she puts on the society manner and addresses me as "Sir," and asks with cruel sarcasm for what purpose (except to boast) I carry the towel, and I say, "Is there anything more I can do for Madam?" and Madam replies that there is one more thing I can do, and that is, eat her breakfast for her. But of this I take no notice, for my object is to fire her with the spirit of the game, so that she eats unwittingly.

Now that I have washed up the breakfast things I should be at my writing, and I am anxious to be at it, as I have an idea in my head, which, if it is of any value, has almost certainly been put there by her. But dare I venture? I know that the house has not been properly set going yet, there are beds to make, the exterior of the teapot is fair, but Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/324


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Briggs, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brigham, Nicholas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bright, Henry (1814-1873)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bright, Henry Arthur


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bright, John (1619-1688)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bright, John (1783-1870)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bright, Richard


text:
Page:Sturla the Historian.djvu/10

 10 Flugumýri, where her young bridegroom lost his life. But there is nothing in his story to show that he takes a side. He follows the custom of the old Sagas, which is, to let the characters alone and never allow the showman to come forward with his explanations and opinions. This Icelandic habit is not dullness or want of sense. It is a kind of imagination, and it is shown in their way of narrating things so as to get the most vivid effect. You see a boat putting out from an island, or a party of men riding along the shore; you do not know whether they are friends or enemies until you go to find out. Two people of importance are talking business; a messenger comes to one of them and speaks with him apart; then he turns to his business again and you find that there is a change of some sort; the messenger has told him something of interest, and you see this in his face and his conduct before you get it explained. The vague fact growing clearer, that is the Icelandic rule of story-telling, the invariable plan; it would be a mannerism, if it were not so much alive. Mannerisms are lazy things, dodges for getting along easily without thought; but this Icelandic form is exacting and not easy; the right use of it means that the author is awake and interested.

It is impossible here to give any proper account of Sturla's Icelandic memoirs, and I shall not quote from his chronicle of slaughter and house-burnings. But there are other passages in his work besides those 'high facinorous things', as the Elizabethan poet might have called them; there are intervals of comedy.

There is a scene between Sighvat and his son, Sturla, which is very pleasant to think about; the father reading the son's character, playing on his vanity, and drawing him on gradually to a comic trap. The young man had

title: Page:Sturla the Historian.djvu/10


text:
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 Rh just come back in high spirits from a successful expedition, where he had beaten the other side. His father says to him: 'You have had a fight, I hear'. 'So we made out', says the son. 'It was a short squall', says Sighvat. 'Not so short, either'. 'You will be wanting to set up a new house somewhere', says Sighvat, 'and I have been thinking what will be good enough for you'. And then he goes on scheming great things for his son, who doesn't see the danger, but takes it all as his due, as if his father were showing a very proper appreciation of his merits. Sighvat plans out the household for him: 'You will want a bailiff and a housekeeper; a shepherd; a man to attend to the horses; another for the boats and for trading'. In each case he makes suggestions of the proper people to take office; the mischief being that he names people rather too good for the situation, beginning fairly low down and gradually rising to more and more dignified names, till it dawns upon his son that he is being chaffed. At last Sighvat proposes for his son's servants two of the greatest personages in the island; and the glorious young man flings out of the room in a passion. His father stays behind, well content.

All this was repeated and gave great amusement. The story was told to Lopt, the Bishop's son, who was immensely pleased with Sighvat's wit, and particularly with the way in which he had allotted the parts in his imaginary housekeeping; till he found that he himself had been put down for the charge of the horses. Then his language was strong: 'Devil take their fleering and jeering! They will find soon that people have other things to do besides currying their favour!'

It is in this sort of domestic comedy that the Icelandic stories are most different from other medieval books.

In the year 1262 came the submission of Iceland to

title: Page:Sturla the Historian.djvu/11


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bridges, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bridget


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bridgetower, George Augustus Polgreen


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braddock, Edward


text:
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Rh suppose some one were to look inside? What a pity I knocked over the flour-barrel! Can I hope that for once my mother will forget to inquire into these matters? Is my sister willing to let disorder reign until to-morrow? I determine to risk it. Perhaps I have been at work for half-an-hour when I hear movements overhead. One or other of them is wondering why the house is so quiet. I rattle the tongs, but even this does not satisfy them, so back into the desk go my papers, and now what you hear is not the scrape of a pen, but the rinsing of pots and pans, or I am making beds, and making them thoroughly, because after I am gone my mother will come (I know her) and look suspiciously beneath the coverlet.

The kitchen is now speckless, not an unwashed platter in sight, unless you look beneath the table. I feel that I have earned time for an hour's writing at last, and at it I go with vigour. One page, two pages, really I am making progress, when—was that a door opening? But I have my mother's light step on the brain, so I "yoke" again, and next moment she is beside me. She has not exactly left her room, she gives me to understand; but suddenly a conviction had come to her that I was writing without a warm mat at my feet. She carries one in her hands. Now that she is here, she remains for a time, and though she is in the armchair by the fire, where she sits bolt upright (she Rh

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text:
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Rh loved to have cushions on the unused chairs, but detested putting her back against them), and I am bent low over my desk, I know that contentment and pity are struggling for possession of her face: contentment wins when she surveys her room, pity when she looks at me. Every article of furniture, from the chairs that came into the world with me and have worn so much better, though I was new and they were second-hand, to the mantel-border of fashionable design which she sewed in her seventieth year, having picked up the stitch in half a lesson, has its story of fight and attainment for her, hence her satisfaction; but she sighs at sight of her son, dipping and tearing, and chewing the loathly pen.

"Oh, that weary writing!"

In vain do I tell her that writing is as pleasant to me as ever was the prospect of a tremendous day's ironing to her; that (to some, though not to me) new chapters are as easy to turn out as new bannocks. No, she maintains, for one bannock is the marrows of another, while chapters—and then, perhaps, her eyes twinkle, and says she saucily, "But, sal, you may be right, for sometimes your bannocks are as alike as mine!"

Or I may be roused from my writing by her cry that I am making strange faces again. It is my contemptible weakness that if I say a character smiled vacuously, I must smile vacuously; Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/326


text:
Zut and Other Parisians

Author’s Note
-
 * Rough translation of author’s note (from Google Language Tools):

Contents

 * Zut
 * Caffiard, Deus ex Machina
 * The Next Corner
 * The Only Son of His Mother
 * The Tuition of Dodo Chapuis
 * Le Pochard
 * A Latter-Day Lucifer
 * Poire!
 * Papa Labesse
 * In the Absence of Monsieur
 * Little Tapin

title: Zut and Other Parisians


text: Talk:Zut and Other Parisians

title: Talk:Zut and Other Parisians


text:
Zut and Other Parisians/Zut

Zut
Side by side, on the avenue de la Grande Armée, stand the épicerie of Jean-Baptiste Caille and the salle de coiffure of Hippolyte Sergeot, and between these two there is a great gulf fixed, the which has come to be through the acerbity of Alexandrine Caille (according to Espérance Sergeot), through the duplicity of Espérance Sergeot (according to Alexandrine Caille). But the veritable root of all evil is Zut, and Zut sits smiling in Jean-Baptiste’s doorway, and cares naught for anything in the world, save the sunlight and her midday meal.

When Hippolyte found himself in a position to purchase the salle de coiffure, he gave evidence of marked acumen by uniting himself in the holy — and — civil bonds of matrimony with the retiring patron’s daughter, whose dot ran into the coveted five figures, and whose heart, said Hippolyte, was as good as her face was pretty, which, even by the unprejudiced, was acknowledged to be forcible commendation. The installation of the new establishment was a nine days’ wonder in the quartier. It is a busy thoroughfare at its western end, is the avenue de la Grande Armée, crowded with bicyclists and with a multitude of creatures fearfully and wonderfully clad, who do incomprehensible things in connection with motor-carriages. Also there are big cafés in plenty, whose waiters must be smoothly shaven: and moreover, at the time when Hippolyte came into his own, the porte Maillot station of the Metropolitan had already pushed its entrée and sortie up through the soil, not a hundred metres from his door, where they stood like atrocious yellow tulips, art nouveau, breathing people out and in by thousands. There was no lack of possible custom. The problem was to turn possible into probable, and probable into permanent; and here the seven wits and the ten thousand francs of Espérance came prominently to the fore. She it was who sounded the progressive note, which is half the secret of success.

“Pour attirer les gens,” she said, with her arms akimbo, “il faut d’abord les épater.”

In her creed all that was worth doing at all was worth doing gloriously. So, under her guidance, Hippolyte journeyed from shop to shop in the faubourg St. Antoine, and spent hours of impassioned argument with carpenters and decorators. In the end, the salle de coiffure was glorified by fresh paint without and within, and by the addition of a long mirror in a gilt frame, and a complicated apparatus of gleaming nickel-plate, which went by the imposing title of appareil antiseptique, and the acquisition of which was duly proclaimed by a special placard that swung at right angles to the door. The shop was rechristened, too, and the black and white sign across its front which formerly bore the simple inscription “Kilbert, Coiffeur,” now blazoned abroad the vastly more impressive legend “Salon Malakoff.” The window shelves fairly groaned beneath their burden of soaps, toilet waters, and perfumery, a string of bright yellow sponges occupied each corner of the window, and, through the agency of white enamel letters on the pane itself, public attention was drawn to the apparently contradictory facts that English was spoken and “schampoing” given within. Then Hippolyte engaged two assistants, and clad them in white duck jackets, and his wife fabricated a new blouse of blue silk, and seated herself behind the desk with an engaging smile. The enterprise was fairly launched, and experience was not slow in proving the theories of Espérance to be well founded. The quartier was epate from the start, and took with enthusiasm the bait held forth. The affairs of the Salon Malakoff prospered prodigiously.

But there is a serpent in every Eden, and in that of the Sergeot this rôle was assumed by Alexandrine Caille. The worthy épicier himself was of too torpid a temperament to fall a victim to the gnawing tooth of envy, but in the soul of his wife the launch, and, what was worse, the immediate prosperity of the Salon Malakoff, bred dire resentment. Her own establishment had grown grimy with the passage of time, and the annual profits displayed a constant and disturbing tendency toward complete evaporation, since the coming of the big cafés, and the resultant subversion of custom to the wholesale dealers. This persistent narrowing of the former appreciable gap between purchase and selling price rankled in Alexandrine’s mind, but her misguided efforts to maintain the percentage of profit by recourse to inferior qualities only made bad worse, and, even as the Sergeot were steering the Salon Malakoff forth upon the waters of prosperity, there were nightly conferences in the household next door, at which impending ruin presided, and exasperation sounded the keynote of every sentence. The resplendent façade of Hippolyte’s establishment, the tide of custom which poured into and out of his door, the loudly expressed admiration of his ability and thrift, which greeted her ears on every side, and, finally, the sight of Espérance, fresh, smiling, and prosperous, behind her little counter, all these were as gall and worm- wood to Alexandrine, brooding over her accumulating debts and her decreasing earnings, among her dusty stacks of jars and boxes. Once she had called upon her neighbor, somewhat for courtesy’s sake, but more for curiosity’s, and since then the agreeable scent of violet and lilac perfumery dwelt always in her memory, and mirages of scrupulously polished nickel and glass hung always before her eyes. The air of her own shop was heavy with the pungent odors of raw vegetables, cheeses, and dried fish, and no brilliance redeemed the sardine and biscuit boxes which surrounded her. Life became a bitter thing to Alexandrine Caille, for if nothing is more gratifying than one’s own success, surely nothing is less so than that of one’s neighbor. Moreover, her visit had never been returned, and this again was fuel for her rage.

But the sharpest thorn in her flesh — and even in that of her phlegmatic husband — was the base desertion to the enemy’s camp of Abel Flique. In the days when Madame Caille was unmarried, and when her ninety kilos were fifty still, Abel had been youngest commis in the very shop over which she now held sway, and the most devoted suitor in all her train. Even after his prowess in the black days of ’71 had won him the attention of the civil authorities, and a grateful municipality had transformed the grocer-soldier into a guardian of law and order, he still hung upon the favor of his heart’s first love, and only gave up the struggle when Jean-Baptiste bore off the prize and enthroned her in state as presiding genius of his newly acquired épicerie. Later, an unwittingly kindly prefect had transferred Abel to the seventeenth arrondissement, and so the old friendship was picked up where it had been dropped, and the ruddy-faced agent found it both convenient and agreeable to drop in frequently at Madame Caille’s on his way home, and exchange a few words of reminiscence or banter for a box of sardines or a minute package of tea. But, with the deterioration in his old friends’ wares, and the almost simultaneous appearance of the Salon Malakoff, his loyalty wavered. Flique sampled the advantages of Hippolyte’s establishment, and, being won over thereby, returned again and again. His hearty laugh came to be heard almost daily in the salle de coiffure, and because he was a brave homme and a good customer, who did not stand upon a question of a few sous, but allowed Hippolyte to work his will, and trim and curl and perfume him to his heart’s content, there was always a welcome for him, and a smile from Madame Sergeot, and occasionally a little present of brillantine or perfumery, for friendship’s sake, and because it is well to have the good-will of the all-powerful police.

From her window Madame Caille observed the comings and goings of Abel with a resentful eye. It was rarely now that he glanced into the épicerie as he passed, and still more rarely that he greeted his former flame with a stiff nod. Once she had hailed him from the doorway, sardines in hand, but he had replied that he was pressed for time, and had passed rapidly on. Then indeed did blackness descend upon the soul of Alexandrine, and in her deepest consciousness she vowed to have revenge. Neither the occasion nor the method was as yet clear to her, but she pursed her lips ominously, and bided her time.

In the existence of Madame Caille there was one emphatic consolation for all misfortunes, the which was none other than Zut, a white angora cat of surpassing beauty and prodigious size. She had come into Alexandrine’s possession as a kitten, and, what with much eating and an inherent distaste for exercise, had attained her present proportions and her superb air of unconcern. It was from the latter that she derived her name, the which, in Parisian argot, at once means everything and nothing, but is chiefly taken to signify complete and magnificent indifference to all things mundane and material: and in the matter of indifference Zut was past-mistress. Even for Madame Caille herself, who fed her with the choicest morsels from her own plate, brushed her fine fur with excessive care, and addressed caressing remarks to her at minute intervals throughout the day, Zut manifested a lack of interest that amounted to contempt. As she basked in the warm sun at the shop door, the round face of her mistress beamed upon her from the little desk, and the voice of her mistress sent fulsome flattery winging toward her on the heavy air. Was she beautiful, mon Dieu! In effect, all that one could dream of the most beautiful! And her eyes, of a blue like the heaven, were they not wise and calm? Mon Dieu, yes! It was a cat among thousands, a mimi almost divine.

Jean-Baptiste, appealed to for confirmation of these statements, replied that it was so. There was no denying that this was a magnificent beast. And of a chic. And caressing — (which was exaggeration). And of an affection — (which was doubtful). And courageous — (which was wholly untrue.) Mazette, yes! A cat of cats! And was the boy to be the whole afternoon in delivering a cheese, he demanded of her? And Madame Caille would challenge him to ask her that — but it was a good, great beast all the same! — and so bury herself again in her accounts, until her attention was once more drawn to Zut, and fresh flattery poured forth. For all of this Zut cared less than nothing. In the midst of her mistress’s sweetest cajolery, she simply closed her sapphire eyes, with an inexpressibly eloquent air of weariness, or turned to the intricacies of her toilet, as who should say: “Continue. I am listening. But it is unimportant.”

But long familiarity with her disdain had deprived it of any sting, so far as Alexandrine was concerned. Passive indifference she could suffer. It was only when Zut proceeded to an active manifestation of ingratitude that she inflicted an irremediable wound. Returning from her marketing one morning, Madame Caille discovered her graceless favorite seated complacently in the doorway of the Salon Malakoff, and, in a paroxysm of indignation, bore down upon her, and snatched her to her breast.

“Unhappy one!” she cried, planting herself in full view of Espérance, and, while raining the letter of her reproach upon the truant, contriving to apply its spirit wholly to her neighbor. “What hast thou done? Is it that thou desertest me for strangers, who may destroy thee? Name of a name, hast thou no heart? They would steal thee from me — and above all, now! Well then, no! One shall see if such things are permitted! Vagabond!” And with this parting shot, which passed harmlessly over the head of the offender, and launched itself full at Madame Sergeot, the outraged épicière flounced back into her own domain, where, turning, she threatened the empty air with a passionate gesture.

“Vagabond!” she repeated. “Good-for-nothing! Is it not enough to have robbed me of my friends, that you must steal my child as well? We shall see!” — then, suddenly softening — “Thou art beautiful, and good, and wise. Mon Dieu, if I should lose thee, and above all, now!”

Now there existed a marked, if unvoiced, community of feeling between Espérance and her resentful neighbor, for the former’s passion for cats was more consuming even than the latter’s. She had long cherished the dream of possessing a white angora, and when, that morning, of her own accord, Zut stepped into the Salon Malakoff, she was received with demonstrations even warmer than those to which she had long since become accustomed. And, whether it was the novelty of her surroundings, or merely some unwonted instinct which made her unusually susceptible, her habitual indifference then and there gave place to animation, and her satisfaction was vented in her long, appreciative purr, wherewith it was not once a year that she vouchsafed to gladden her owner’s heart. Espérance hastened to prepare a saucer of milk, and, when this was exhausted, added a generous portion of fish, and Zut then made a tour of the shop, rubbing herself against the chair-legs, and receiving the homage of customers and duck-clad assistants alike. Flique, his ruddy face screwed into a mere knot of features, as Hippolyte worked violet hair-tonic into his brittle locks, was moved to satire by the apparition.

“Tiens! It is with the cat as with the clients. All the world forsakes the Caille.”

Strangely enough, the wrathful words of Alexandrine, as she snatched her darling from the doorway, awoke in the mind of Espérance her first suspicion of this smouldering resentment. Absorbed in the launching of her husband’s affairs, and constantly employed in the making of change and with the keeping of her simple accounts, she had had no time to bestow upon her neighbors, and, even had her attention been free, she could hardly have been expected to deduce the rancor of Madame Caille from the evidence at hand. But even if she had been able to ignore the significance of that furious outburst at her very door, its meaning had not been lost upon the others, and her own half-formed conviction was speedily confirmed.

“What has she?” cried Hippolyte, pausing in the final stage of his operations upon the highly perfumed Flique.

“Do I know?” replied his wife with a shrug. “She thinks I stole her cat — I!”

“Quite simply, she hates you,” put in Flique. “And why not? She is old, and fat, and her business is taking itself off, like that! You are young and” — with a bow, as he rose — “beautiful, and your affairs march to a marvel. She is jealous, c’est tout! It is a bad character, that.”

“But, mon Dieu!” —

“But what does that say to you? Let her go her way, she and her cat. Au r’voir, ’sieurs, ’dame.”

And, rattling a couple of sous into the little urn reserved for tips, the policeman took his departure, amid a chorus of “Merci, m’sieu’, au r’voir, m’sieu’,” from Hippolyte and his duck-clad aids.

But what he had said remained behind. All day Madame Sergeot pondered upon the incident of the morning and Abel Flique’s comments thereupon, seeking out some more plausible reason for this hitherto unsuspected enmity than the mere contrast between her material conditions and those of Madame Caille seemed to her to afford. For, to a natural placidity of temperament, which manifested itself in a reluctance to incur the displeasure of any one, had been lately added in Espérance a shrewd commercial instinct, which told her that the fortunes of the Salon Malakoff might readily be imperiled by an unfriendly tongue. In the quartier, gossip spread quickly and took deep root. It was quite imaginably within the power of Madame Caille to circulate such rumors of Sergeot dishonesty as should draw their lately won custom from them and leave but empty chairs and discontent where now all was prosperity and satisfaction.

Suddenly there came to her the memory of that visit which she had never returned. Mon Dieu! and was not that reason enough? She, the youngest patronne in the quartier, to ignore deliberately the friendly call of a neighbor! At least it was not too late to make amends. So, when business lagged a little in the late afternoon, Madame Sergeot slipped from her desk, and, after a furtive touch to her hair, went in next door to pour oil upon the troubled waters.

Madame Caille, throned at her counter, received her visitor with unexampled frigidity.

“Ah, it is you,” she said. “You have come to make some purchases, no doubt.”

“Eggs, madame,” answered her visitor, disconcerted, but tactfully accepting the hint.

“The best quality — or — ?” demanded Alexandrine, with the suggestion of a sneer.

“The best, evidently, madame. Six, if you please. Spring weather at last, it would seem.”

To this generality the other made no reply. Descending from her stool, she blew sharply into a small paper bag, thereby distending it into a miniature balloon, and began selecting the eggs from a basket, holding each one to the light, and then dusting it with exaggerated care before placing it in the bag. While she was thus employed Zut advanced from a secluded corner, and, stretching her fore legs slowly to their utmost length, greeted her acquaintance of the morning with a yawn. Finding in the cat an outlet for her embarrassment, Espérance made another effort to give the interview a friendly turn.

“He is beautiful, madame, your matou,” she said.

“It is a female,” replied Madame Caille, turning abruptly from the basket, “and she does not care for strangers.”

This second snub was not calculated to encourage neighborly overtures, but Madame Sergeot had felt herself to be in the wrong, and was not to be so readily repulsed.

“We do not see Monsieur Caille at the Salon Malakoff,” she continued.” We should be enchanted” —

“My husband shaves himself,” retorted Alexandrine, with renewed dignity.

“But his hair” — ventured Espérance.

“I cut it!” thundered her foe.

Here Madame Sergeot made a false move. She laughed. Then, in confusion, and striving, too late, to retrieve herself — “Pardon, madame,” she added, “but it seems droll to me, that. After all, ten sous is a sum so small” —

“All the world, unfortunately,” broke in Madame Caille, “has not the wherewithal to buy mirrors, and pay itself frescoes and appareils antiseptiques! The eggs are twenty-four sous — but we do not pride ourselves upon our eggs. Perhaps you had better seek them elsewhere for the future!”

For sole reply Madame Sergeot had recourse to her expressive shrug, and then laying two francs upon the counter, and gathering up the sous which Alexandrine rather hurled at than handed her, she took her way toward the door with all the dignity at her command. But Madame Caille, feeling her snub to have been insufficient, could not let her go without a final thrust.

“Perhaps your husband will be so amiable as to shampoo my cat!” she shouted. “She seems to like your ‘Salon’!”

But Espérance, while for concord’s sake inclined to tolerate all rudeness to herself, was not prepared to hear Hippolyte insulted, and so, wheeling at the doorway, flung all her resentment into two words.

“Mal élevée!”

“Gueuse!” screamed Alexandrine from the desk. And so they parted.

Now, even at this stage, an armed truce might still have been preserved, had Zut been content with the evil she had wrought, and not thought it incumbent upon her further to embitter a quarrel that was a very pretty quarrel as it stood. But, whether it was that the milk and fish of the Salon Malakoff lay sweeter upon her memory than any of the familiar dainties of the épicerie Caille, or that, by her unknowable feline instinct, she was irresistibly drawn toward the scent of violet and lilac brillantine, her first visit to the Sergeot was soon repeated, and from this visit other visits grew, until it was almost a daily occurrence for her to saunter slowly into the salle de coiffure, and there receive the food and homage which were rendered as her undisputed due. For, whatever was the bitterness of Espérance toward Madame Caille, no part thereof descended upon Zut. On the contrary, at each visit her heart was more drawn toward the sleek angora, and her desire but strengthened to possess her peer. But white angoras are a luxury, and an expensive one at that, and, however prosperous the Salon Malakoff might be, its proprietors were not as yet in a position to squander eighty francs upon a whim. So, until profits should mount higher, Madame Sergeot was forced to content herself with the voluntary visits of her neighbor’s pet.

Madame Caille did not yield her rights of sovereignty without a struggle. On the occasion of Zut’s third visit, she descended upon the Salon Malakoff, robed in wrath, and found the adored one contentedly feeding on fish in the very bosom of the family Sergeot. An appalling scene ensued.

“If,” she stormed, crimson of countenance, and threatening Espérance with her fist, “if you must entice my cat from her home, at least I will thank you not to give her food. I provide all that is necessary; and, for the rest, how do I know what is in that saucer?”

And she surveyed the duck-clad assistants and the astounded customers with tremendous scorn.

“You others,” she added, “I ask you, is it just? These people take my cat, and feed her — feed her with I know not what! It is overwhelming, unheard of — and, above all, now!”

But here the peaceful Hippolyte played trumps.

“It is the privilege of the vulgar,” he cried, advancing, razor in hand, “when they are at home, to insult their neighbors, but here — no! My wife has told me of you and of your sayings. Beware! or I shall arrange your affair for you! Go! you and your cat!”

And, by way of emphasis, he fairly kicked Zut into her astonished owner’s arms. He was magnificent, was Hippolyte!

This anecdote, duly elaborated, was poured into the ears of Abel Flique an hour later, and that evening he paid his first visit in many months to Madame Caille. She greeted him effusively, being willing to pardon all the past for the sake of regaining this powerful friend. But the glitter in the agent’s eye would have cowed a fiercer spirit than hers.

“You amuse yourself,” he said sternly, looking straight at her over the handful of raisins which she tendered him, “by wearying my friends. I counsel you to take care. One does not sell inferior eggs in Paris without hearing of it sooner or later. I know more than I have told, but not more than I can tell, if I choose.”

“Our ancient friendship” — faltered Alexandrine, touched in a vulnerable spot.

— “preserves you thus far,” added Flique, no less unmoved. “Beware how you abuse it!”

And so the calls of Zut were no longer disturbed.

But the rover spirit is progressive, and thus short visits became long visits, and finally the angora spent whole nights in the Salon Malakoff, where a box and a bit of carpet were provided for her. And one fateful morning the meaning of Madame Caille’s significant words “and above all, now!” was made clear.

The prosperity of Hippolyte’s establishment had grown apace, so that, on the morning in question, the three chairs were occupied, and yet other customers awaited their turn. The air was laden with violet and lilac. A stout chauffeur, in a leather suit, thickly coated with dust, was undergoing a shampoo at the hands of one of the duck-clad, and, under the skillfully plied razor of the other, the virgin down slid from the lips and chin of a slim and somewhat startled youth, while from a vaporizer Hippolyte played a fine spray of perfumed water upon the ruddy countenance of Abel Flique. It was an eloquent moment, eminently fitted for some dramatic incident, and that dramatic incident Zut supplied. She advanced slowly and with an air of conscious dignity from the corner where was her carpeted box, and in her mouth was a limp something, which, when deposited in the immediate centre of the Salon Malakoff, resolved itself into an angora kitten, as white as snow!

“Epatant!” said Flique, mopping his perfumed chin. And so it was.

There was an immediate investigation of Zut’s quarters, which revealed four other kittens, but each of these was marked with black or tan. It was the flower of the flock with which the proud mother had won her public.

“And they are all yours!” cried Flique, when the question of ownership arose. “Mon Dieu, yes! There was such a case not a month ago, in the eighth arrondissement a concierge of the avenue Hoche who made a contrary claim. But the courts decided against her. They are all yours, Madame Sergeot. My felicitations!”

Now, as we have said, Madame Sergeot was of a placid temperament which sought not strife. But the unprovoked insults of Madame Caille had struck deep, and, after all, she was but human.

So it was that, seated at her little desk, she composed the following masterpiece of satire:

It was Abel Flique who conveyed the above epistle, and Zut, and four of Zut’s kittens, to Alexandrine Caille, and, when that wrathful person would have rent him with tooth and nail, it was Abel Flique who laid his finger on his lip, and said, —

“Concern yourself with the superior kitten, madame, and I concern myself with the inferior eggs!”

To which Alexandrine made no reply. After Flique had taken his departure, she remained speechless for five consecutive minutes for the first time in the whole of her waking existence, gazing at the spot at her feet where sprawled the white angora, surrounded by her mottled offspring. Even when the first shock of her defeat had passed, she simply heaved a deep sigh, and uttered two words, —

“Oh, Zut!”

The which, in Parisian argot, at once means everything and nothing.

title: Zut and Other Parisians/Zut


text:
Zut and Other Parisians/Caffiard, Deus ex Machina

Caffiard: Deus Ex Machina
The studio was tucked away in the extreme upper northeast corner of 13 ter rue Visconti, higher even than that cinquième, dearly beloved of the impecunious, and of whoso, between stairs and street odors, chooses the lesser evil, and is more careful of lungs than legs. After the six long flights had been achieved, around a sharp corner and up a little winding stairway, was the door which bore the name of Pierre Vauquelin. Inside, after stumbling along a narrow hall, as black as Erebus, and floundering through a curtained doorway, one came abruptly into the studio, and, in all probability, fell headlong over a little rattan stool, or an easel, or a box of paints, and was picked up by the host, and dusted, and put to rights, and made much of, like a bumped child. Thus restored to equanimity one was better able to appreciate what Pierre called la Boîte.

The Box was a room eight metres in width by ten in length, with a skylight above, and a great, square window in the north wall, which latter sloped inward from floor to ceiling, by reason of the mansarde roof. Of what might be called furniture there was but little, a Norman cupboard of black wood, heavily carved, a long divan, contrived from various packing boxes and well-worn rugs, a large, square table, a half dozen chairs, three easels, and a repulsive little stove with an interminable pipe, which, with its many twists and turns, gave one the impression of a thick, black snake, that had, a moment before, been swaying about in the room, and had suddenly found a hole in the roof through which to thrust its head.

But of minor things the Box was full to overflowing. The Norman cupboard was crammed with an assortment of crockery, much of it sadly nicked and cracked, the divan was strewn with boxes of broken pastels, paint-brushes, and palettes coated with dried colors, the table littered with papers, sketches, and books, and every chair had its own particular trap for the unwary, in the form of thumb-tacks or a glass half full of cloudy water: and in the midst of this chaos, late on a certain mid-May afternoon, stood the painter himself, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his corduroy trousers, and his back turned upon the portrait upon which he had been at work. It was evident that something untoward was in the air, because Pierre, who always smoked, was not smoking, and Pierre, who never scowled, was scowling.

In the Quartier — that Quartier which alone, of them all, is spelt with a capital Q — there was, in ordinary, no gayer, more happy-go-lucky type than this same Pierre. He lived, as did a thousand of his kind, on eighty sous a day (there were those who lived on less, pardi!), and breakfasted, and dined, at that, — yes, and paid himself an absinthe at the Deux Magots at six o’clock, and a package of green cigarettes, into the bargain. For the rest of the time, he was understood to be working on a portrait in his studio, and, what is more surprising, often was. There was nothing remarkable about Pierre’s portraits, except that occasionally he sold one, and for money — for actual money, the astonishing animal! But if any part of the modest proceeds of such a transaction remained, after the rent had been paid and a new canvas purchased, it was not the caisse d’épargne which saw it, be sure of that! For Pierre lived always for the next twenty-four hours, and let the rest of time and eternity look out for themselves.

Yet he took his work seriously. That was the trouble. Even admitting that, thus far, his orders had come only from the more prosperous tradesmen of the Quartier, did that mean, par exemple, that they would not come in time from the millionaires of the sixteenth arrondissement? By no means, whatever, said Pierre. To be sure, he had never had the Salon in the palm of his hand, so to speak, but what of that? Jean-Paul himself would tell you that it was all favoritism! So Pierre toiled away at his portrait painting, and made a little competency, but, if the truth were told, no appreciable progress from year’s beginning to year’s end.

For once, however, his luck had played him false. The fat restaurateur, whose wife’s portrait he had finished that afternoon and carried at top speed, with the paint not yet dry, to the rue du Bac, was out of town on business, and would not return until the following evening; and that, so far as Pierre was concerned, was quite as bad as if he were not expected until the following year. Pierre’s total wealth amounted to one five-franc piece and three sous, and he had been relying upon the restaurateur’s four louis, to enable him to fulfill his promise to Mimi. For the next day was her fête, and they were to have breakfasted in the country, and taken a boat upon the Seine, and returned to dine under the trees. Not at Suresnes or St. Cloud, ah, non! Something better than that — the true country, sapristi! at Poissy, twenty-eight kilometres from Paris. All of which meant at least a louis, and, no doubt, more! And where, demanded Pierre of the great north window, where was a louis to be found?

For there was a tacit understanding among the comrades in the Quartier that there must be no borrowing and lending of money. It was a clause of their creed, which had been adopted in the early days of their companionship, for what was, clearly, the greatest general good, the chances being that no one of them would ever possess sufficient surplus capital either to accommodate another or to repay an accommodation. For a moment, to be sure, the thought had crossed Pierre’s mind, but he had rejected it instantly as impracticable. Aside from the unwritten compact, there was no one of them all who could have been of service, had he so willed. Even Jacques Courbet, who possessed a disposition which would have impelled him to chop off his right hand with the utmost cheerfulness, if thereby he could have gratified a friend, was worse than useless in this emergency. Had it been a matter of forty sous — but a louis! As well have asked him for the Vénus de Milo, and had done with it.

So it was that, with the premonition of Mimi’s disappointed eyes cutting great gaps in his tender heart, Pierre had four times shrugged his shoulders, and quoted to himself this favorite scrap of his remarkable philosophy, — “Oh, lala! All this will arrange itself!” and four times had paused, in the act of lighting a cigarette, and plunged again into the depths of despondent reverie. As he was on the point of again repeating this entirely futile operation, a distant clock struck six, and Pierre, remembering that Mimi must even now be waiting for him at the west door of St. Germain-des-Prés, clapped on his cap, and sallied forth into the gathering twilight.

It was apéritif hour at the Café des Deux Magots, and the long, leather-covered benches against the windows, and the double row of little marble-topped tables in front were rapidly filling, as Pierre and Mimi took their places, and ordered two Turins à l’eau. A group of American Beaux Arts men at their right were chattering in their uncouth tongue, with occasional scraps of Quartier slang, by way of local color, and now and again hailing a newcomer with exclamations, apparently of satisfaction, which began with “Hello!” The boulevard St. Germain was alive with people, walking past with the admirable lack of haste which distinguishes the Parisian, or waiting, in patient, voluble groups, for a chance to enter the constantly arriving and departing trams and omnibuses; and an unending succession of open cabs filed slowly along the curb, their drivers scanning the terrasse of the café for a possible fare. The air was full of that mingled odor of wet wood pavements and horse-chestnut blossoms, which is the outward, invisible sign of that most wonderful of inward and spiritual combinations — Paris and Spring! And, at the table directly behind Pierre and Mimi sat Caffiard.

There was nothing about Caffiard to suggest a deus ex machina, or anything else, for that matter, except a preposterously corpulent old gentleman with an amiable smile. But in nothing were appearances ever more deceitful than in Caffiard. For it was he, with his enormous double chin, and his general air of harmless fatuity, who edited the little colored sheet entitled La Blague, which sent half Paris into convulsions of merriment every Thursday morning, and he who knew every caricaturist in town, and was beloved of them all for the heartiness of his appreciation and the liberality of his payments. In the first regard he was but one of many Parisian editors: but in the second he stood without a peer. Caran d’Ache, Léandre, Willette, Forain, Hermann Paul, Abel Faivre — they rubbed their hands when they came out of Caffiard’s private office, and if the day chanced to be Saturday, there was something in their hands worth rubbing. A fine example, Caffiard!

Mimi’s black eyes sparkled like a squirrel’s as she watched Pierre over the rim of her tumbler of vermouth. She was far from being blind, Mimi, and already, though they had been together but six minutes, she had noted that unusual little pucker between his eyebrows, that sad little droop at the corners of his merry mouth. She told herself that Pierre had been overworking himself, that Pierre was tired, that Pierre needed cheering up. So Mimi, who was never tired, not even after ten hours in Madame Fraichel’s millinery establishment, secretly declared war upon the unusual little pucker and the sad little droop.

“Voyons donc, my Pierrot!” she said. “It is not a funeral to which we go to-morrow, at least! Thou must be gay, for we have much to talk of, thou knowest. One dines at La Boîte?”

“The dinner is there, such as it is,” replied Pierre gloomily.

“What it is now, is not the question,” said Mimi, with confidence, “but what I make of it — pas? And then there is to-morrow! Oh, lala, lalala! What a pleasure it will be, if only the good God gives us beautiful weather. Dis, donc, great thunder-cloud, dost thou know it, this Poissy?”

Pierre had begun a caricature on the back of the wine-card, glancing now and again at his model, an old man selling newspapers on the curb. He shook his head without replying.

“Eh, b’en, my little one, thou mayest believe me that it is of all places the most beautiful! One eats at the Esturgeon, on the Seine, — but on the Seine, with the water quite near, like that chair. He names himself Jarry, the proprietor, and it is a good type — fat and handsome. I adore him! Art thou jealous, species of thinness of a hundred nails? B’en, afterwards, one takes a boat, and goes, softly, softly, down the little arm of the Seine, and creeps under the willows, and, perhaps, fishes. But no, for it is the closed season. But one sings, eh? What does one sing? Voyons!”

She bent forward, and, in a little voice, like an elf’s, very thin and sweet, hummed a snatch of a song they both knew.

“C’est votre ami Pierrot qui vient vous voir: Bonsoir, madame la lune!

“And then,” she went on, as Pierre continued his sketch in silence, “and then, one disembarks at Villennes and has a Turin under the arbors of Bodin. Another handsome type, Bodin! Flut! What a man!”

Mimi paused suddenly, and searched his cloudy face with her earnest, tender little eyes.

“Pierrot,” she said, softly, “what hast thou? Thou art not angry with thy gosseline?”

Pierre surveyed the outline of the newspaper vender thoughtfully, touched it, here and there, with his pencil-point, squinted, and then pushed the paper toward the girl.

“Not bad,” he said, replacing his pencil in his pocket.

But Mimi had no eyes for the caricature, and merely flicked the wine-card to the ground.

“Pierrot” — she repeated.

Vauquelin plunged his hands in his pockets and looked at her.

“Well, then,” he announced, almost brutally, “we do not go to-morrow.”

“Pierre!”

It was going to be much worse than he had supposed, this little tragedy. Bon Dieu, how pretty she was, with her startled, hurt eyes, already filling with tears, and her parted lips, and her little white hand, that had flashed up to her cheek at his words! Oh, much worse than he had supposed! But she must be told: there was nothing but that. So Pierre put his elbows on the table, and his chin in his hands, and brought his face close to hers.

“Voyons!” he explained, “thou dost not believe me angry! Mais non, mais non! But listen. It is I who am the next to the last of idiots, since I have never a sou in pocket, never! And the imbecile restaurateur, whose wife I have been painting, will not return until to-morrow, and so I am not paid. Voilà!”

He placed his five-franc piece upon the table, and shrugged his shoulders.

“One full moon!” he said, and piled the three sous upon it. “And three soldiers. As I sit here, that is all, until to-morrow night. We cannot go!”

Brave little Mimi! Already she was winking back her tears, and smiling.

“But that — that is nothing!” she answered. “I do not care to go. No — but truly! Look! We shall spend the day in the studio, and breakfast on the balcony, and pretend the rue Visconti is the Seine.”

“I am an empty siphon!” said Pierre, yielding to desperation.

“Non!” said Mimi firmly.

“I am a pierced basket, a box of matches!”

''“Non! Non!”'' said Mimi, with tremendous earnestness. “Thou art Pierrot, and I love thee! Let us say no more. I shall go back and prepare the dinner, and thou shalt remain and drink a Pernod. It will give thee heart. But follow quickly. Give me the key.”

She laid her wide-spread hand on his, palm upward, like a little pink starfish.

“We go together, and I adore thee!” said Pierre, and kissed her in the sight of all men, and was not ashamed.

Caffiard leaned forward, picked up the fallen wine-card, pretended to consult it, and ponderously arose. As Pierre was turning the key in the door of the little apartment, they heard a sound of heavy breathing, and the deus ex machina came lumbering up the winding stair.

“Monsieur is seeking some one?” asked the painter politely.

There was no breath left in Caffiard. He was only able, by way of reply, to point at the top button of Pierre’s coat, and nod helplessly: then, as Mimi ran ahead to light the gas, he labored along the corridor, staggered through the curtained doorway, stumbled over a rattan stool, was rescued by Pierre, and, finally, established upon the divan, very red and gasping.

For a time there was silence, Pierre and Mimi busying themselves in putting the studio to rights, with an instinctive courtesy which took no notice of their visitor’s snorts and wheezes; and Caffiard taking note of his surroundings with his round, blinking eyes. Opposite him, against the wall, reposed the portrait of the restaurateur’s wife, as dry and pasty as a stale cream cheese upon the point of crumbling, and on an easel was another — that of Monsieur Pantin, the rich shirt-maker of the boulevard St. Germain — on which Pierre was at work. A veritable atrocity this, with a green background which trespassed upon Monsieur Pantin’s hair, and a featureless face, gaunt and haggard with yellow and purple undertones. There was nothing in either picture to refute one’s natural suspicion that soap had been the medium employed. Caffiard blinked harder still as his eyes rested upon the portraits, and he secretly consulted the crumpled wine-card in his hand. Then he seemed to recover his breath by means of a profound sigh.

“Monsieur makes caricatures?” he inquired.

“Ah, monsieur,” said Pierre, “at times, and for amusement only. I am a portraitist.” And he pointed proudly to the picture against the wall.

For they are all alike, these painters — proudest of what they do least well!

“Ah! Then,” said Caffiard, with an air of resignation, “I must ask monsieur’s pardon, and descend. I am not interested in portraits. When it comes to caricatures” —

“They are well enough in their way,” put in Pierre, “but as a serious affair — to sell, for instance — well, monsieur comprehends that one does not debauch one’s art!”

Oh, yes, they are all alike, these painters!

“What is serious, what is not serious?” answered Caffiard. “It is all a matter of opinion. One prefers to have his painting glued to the wall of the Salon, next the ceiling, another to have his drawing on the front page of La Blague.”

“Oh, naturally La Blague,” protested Pierre.

“I am its editor,” said Caffiard superbly.

“Eigh!” exclaimed Pierre. For Mimi had cruelly pinched his arm. Before the sting had passed, she was seated at Caffiard’s side, tugging at the strings of a great portfolio.

“Are they imbeciles, these painters, monsieur?” she was saying. “Now you shall see. This great baby is marvelous, but marvelous, with his caricatures. Not Léandre himself — it is I who assure you, monsieur! — and to hear him, one would think — but thou tirest me, Pierrot! — With his portraits! No, it is too much!”

She spread the portfolio wide, and began to shuffle through the drawings it contained.

Caffiard’s eyes glistened as he saw them. Even in her enthusiasm, Mimi had not overshot the mark. They were marvelous indeed, these caricatures, mere outlines for the most part, with a dot, here and there, of red, or a little streak of green, which lent them a curious, unusual charm. The subjects were legion. Here was Loubet, with a great band of crimson across his shirt bosom, here Waldeck-Rousseau, with eyes as round and prominent as agate marbles, or Yvette, with a nose on which one might have hung an overcoat, or Chamberlain, all monocle, or Wilhelmina, growing out of a tulip’s heart, and as pretty as an old print, with her tight-fitting Dutch cap and broidered bodice. And then a host of types — cochers, grisettes, flower women, camelots, Heaven knows what not! — the products of half a hundred idle hours, wherein great-hearted, foolish Pierre had builded better than he knew!

Caffiard selected five at random, and then, from a waistcoat pocket that clung as closely to his round figure as if it had been glued thereto, produced a hundred-franc note.

“I must have these for La Blague, monsieur,” he said. “Bring me two caricatures a week at my office in the rue St. Joseph, and you shall be paid at the same rate. It is not much, to be sure. But you will have ample time left for your — for your portrait-painting, monsieur!”

For a moment the words of Caffiard affected Pierre and Mimi as the stairs had affected Caffiard. They stared at him, opening and shutting their mouths and gasping, like fish newly landed. Then, suddenly, animated by a common impulse, they rushed into each other’s arms, and set out, around the studio, in a mad waltz, which presently resolved itself into an impromptu can-can, with Mimi skipping like a fairy, and Pierre singing: “Hi! Hi!! !!!” and snapping at her flying feet with a red-bordered handkerchief. After this Mimi kissed Caffiard twice: once on the top of his bald head, and once on the end of his stubby nose. It was like being brushed by the floating down of a dandelion. And, finally, nothing would do but that he must accompany them upon the morrow; and she explained to him in detail the plan which had so nearly fallen through, and the deus ex machina did not betray by so much as a wink that he had heard the entire story only half an hour before.

But, in the end, he protested. But she was insane, the little one, completely! Had he then the air of one who gave himself into those boats there, name of a pipe? But let us be reasonable, voyons! He was not young like Pierre and Mimi — one comprehended that these holidays did not recommence when one was sixty. What should he do, he demanded of them, trailing along, as one might say, he and his odious fatness? Ah, non! For la belle jeunesse was la belle jeunesse, there was no means of denying it, and it was not for a species of dried sponge to be giving itself the airs of a fresh flower. “But no! But no!” said Caffiard, striving to rise from the divan. “In the morning I have my article to do for the Figaro, and I am going with Caran to Longchamp, en auto, for the races in the afternoon. But no! But no!”

It was plain that Caffiard had known Mimi no more than half an hour. One never said, “But no! But no!” to Mimi, unless it was for the express purpose of having one’s mouth covered by the softest little pink palm to be found between the Seine and the Observatoire, — which, to do him justice, Caffiard was quite capable of scheming to bring about, if only he had known! He had accepted the little dandelion-down kisses in a spirit of philosophy, knowing well that they were given not for his sake but for Pierre’s. But now his protests came to an abrupt termination, for Mimi suddenly seated herself on his lap, and put one arm around his neck.

It was nothing short of an achievement, this. Even Caffiard himself had not imagined that such a thing as his lap was still extant. Yet here was Mimi, actually installed thereon, with her cheek pressed against his, and her breath, which was like clover, stirring the ends of his moustache. But she was smiling at Pierre, the witch! Caffiard could see it out of the corner of his eye.

“Mais non!” he repeated, but more feebly.

“Mais non! Mais non! Mais non!” mocked Mimi. “Great farceur! Will you listen, at least? Eh b’en, voilà! Here is my opinion. As to insanity, if for any one to propose a day in the country is insanity, well then, yes? — I am insane! Soit! And, again, if you wish to appear serious, — in Paris, that is to say — soit, également! But when you speak of odious fatness, you are a type of monsieur extremely low of ceiling, do you know! Moreover, you are going. Voilà! It is finished. As for Caran, let him go his way and draw his caricatures — though they are not like Pierre’s, all the world knows! — and, without doubt, his auto will refuse to move beyond the porte Dauphine, yes, and blow up, bon Dieu! when he is in the act of mending it. One knows these boxes of vapors, what they do. And as for the Figaro, b’en, flut! Evidently it will not cease to exist for lack of your article — eh, l’ami? And it is Mimi who asks you, — Mimi, do you understand, who invites you to her fête. And you would refuse her — toi!”

“But no! But no!” said Caffiard hurriedly. And meant it.

At this point Pierre wrapped five two-sou pieces in a bit of paper, and tossed them, out of a little window across the hallway, to a street-singer whimpering in the court below. Pierre said that they weighed down his pockets. They were in the way, the clumsy doublins, said wonderful, spendthrift Pierre!

For the wide sky of the Quartier is forever dotted with little clouds, scudding, scudding, all day long. And when one of these passes across the sun, there is a sudden chill in the air, and one walks for a time in shadow, though the comrade over there, across the way, is still in the warm and golden glow. But when the sun has shouldered the little cloud aside again, ah, that is when life is good to live, and goes gayly, to the tinkle of glasses and the ripple of laughter, and the ring of silver bits. And when the street-singer in the court receives upon his head a little parcel of coppers that are too heavy for the pocket, and smiles to himself, who knows but what he understands?

For what is also true of the Quartier is this — that, in sunshine or shadow, one finds a soft little hand clasping his, firm, warm, encouraging and kindly, and hears a gay little voice that, in foul weather, chatters of the bright hours which it is so sweet to remember, and, in fair, says never a word of the storms which it is so easy to forget!

The veriest bat might have foreseen the end, when once Mimi had put her arm around the neck of Caffiard. Before the deus ex machina knew what he was about, he found his army of objections routed, horse, foot, and dragoons, and had promised to be at the gare St. Lazare at eleven the following morning.

And what a morning it was! Surely the bon Dieu must have loved Mimi an atom better than other mortals, for in the blue-black crucible of the night he fashioned a day as clear and glowing as a great jewel, and set it, blazing with warm light and vivid color, foremost in the diadem of the year. And it was something to see Mimi at the carriage window, with Pierre at her side and her left hand in his, and in her right a huge bouquet — Caffiard’s contribution — while the deus ex machina himself, breathing like a happy hippopotamus, beamed upon the pair from the opposite corner. So the train slipped past the fortifications, swung through a trim suburb, slid smoothly out into the open country. It was a Wednesday, and there was no holiday crowd to incommode them. They had the compartment to themselves; and the half hour flew like six minutes, said Mimi, when at last they came to a shuddering standstill, and two guards hastened along the platform in opposite directions, one droning “Poiss-y-y-y-y!” and the other shouting “Poiss’! Poiss’! Poiss’!” as if he had been sneezing. It was an undertaking to get Caffiard out of the carriage, just as it had been to get him in. But finally it was accomplished, a whistle trilled from somewhere as if it had been a bird, another wailed like a stepped-on kitten, the locomotive squealed triumphantly, and the next minute the trio were alone in their glory.

It was a day that Caffiard never forgot. They breakfasted at once, so as to have a longer afternoon. Mimi was guide and commander-in-chief, as having been to the Esturgeon before, so the table was set upon the terrasse overlooking the Seine, and there were radishes, and little individual omelettes, and a famous matelote, which Monsieur Jarry himself served with the air of a Lucullus, and, finally, a great dish of quatre saisons, and, for each of the party, a squat brown pot of fresh cream. And, moreover, no ordinaire, but St. Emilion, if you please, with a tin-foil cap which had to be removed before one could draw the cork, and a bottle of Source Badoit as well. And Caffiard, who had dined with the Russian Ambassador on Monday and breakfasted with the Nuncio on Tuesday, and been egregiously displeased with the fare in both instances, consumed an unprecedented quantity of matelote, and went back to radishes after he had eaten his strawberries and cream: while, to cap the climax, Pierre paid the addition with a louis, — and gave all the change as a tip! But it was unheard-of!

Afterwards they engaged a boat, and, with much alarm on the part of Mimi, and satirical comment from Caffiard, and severe admonitions to prudence by Pierre, pushed out into the stream and headed for Villennes, to the enormous edification of three small boys, who hung precariously over the railing of the terrace above them, and called Caffiard a captive balloon.

They made the three kilometres at a snail’s pace, allowing the boat to drift with the current for an hour at a time, and, now and again creeping in under the willows at the water’s edge until they were wholly hidden from view, and the voice of Mimi singing was as that of some river nixie invisible to mortal eyes. She sang “Bonsoir, Madame la Lune,” so sweetly and so sadly that Caffiard was moved to tears. It was her favorite song, because — oh, because it was about Pierrot! And her own Pierrot responded with a gay soldier ballad, a chanson de route which he had picked up at the Noctambules; and even Caffiard sang — a ridiculous ditty it was, which scored the English and went to a rollicking air. They all shouted the refrain, convulsed with merriment at the drollery of the sound: —

“Qu’est ce qui quitte ses père et mère Afin de s’en aller S’faire taper dans le nez? C’est le soldat d’Angleterre! Dou-gle-di-gle-dum! Avec les ba-a-a-alles dum-dum!”

Caffiard was to leave them at Villennes after they should have taken their apéritifs. They protested, stormed at him, scolded and cajoled by turns, and called him a score of fantastic names — for by this time they knew him intimately — as they sat in Monsieur Bodin’s arbor and sipped amer-menthe, but all in vain. Pierre had Mimi’s hand, as always, and he had kissed her a half-hundred times in the course of the afternoon. Mimi had a way of shaking her hair out of her eyes with a curious little backward jerk of her head when Pierre kissed her, and then looking at him seriously, seriously, but smiling when he caught her at it. Caffiard liked that. And Pierre had a trick of turning, as if to ask Mimi’s opinion, or divine even her unspoken wishes whenever a question came up for decision — a choice of food or drink, or direction, or what-not. And Caffiard liked that.

He looked across the table at them now, dreamily, through his cigarette smoke.

“Pierrot,” he said, after he had persuaded them to let him depart in peace when the train should be due, — “Pierrot. Yes, that is it. You, with your garret, and your painting, and your songs, and your black, black sadness at one moment, and your laughter the next, and, above all, your Pierrette, your bon-bon of a Pierrette: — you are Pierrot, the spirit of Paris in powder and white muslin! Eigho! my children, what a thing it is, la belle jeunesse! Tiens! you have given me a taste of it to-day, and I thank you. I thought I had forgotten. But no, one never forgets. It all comes back, — youth, and strength, and beauty, love, and music, and laughter, — but only like a breath upon a mirror, my children, only like a wind-ripple on a pool; for I am an old man.”

He paused, looking up at the vine-leaves on the trellis-roof, and murmured a few words of Mimi’s song: —

''“Pierrette en songe va venir me voir: Bonsoir, madame la lune!”''

Then his eyes came back to her face.

“I must be off,” he said. “Why, what hast thou, little one? There are tears in those two stars!”

“C’est vrai?” asked Mimi, smiling at him and then at Pierre, and brushing her hand across her eyes, “c’est vrai? Well then, they are gone as quickly as they came. Voilà! Without his tears Pierrot is not Pierrot, and without Pierrot” —

She turned to Pierre suddenly, and buried her face on his shoulder.

“Je t’ aime!” she whispered. “Je t’aime!”


text:
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reynard the Fox

REYNARD THE FOX, a beast-epic, current in French, Dutch and German literature. The cycle of animal stories collected round the names of Reynard the Fox and Isengrim the Wolf in the 12th century seems to have arisen on the borderland of France and Flanders. Much of the material may be found in Aesop, in Physiologus, and in the 12th-century Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsus. But the difference is very great. The intention of the trouvères who recited the exploits of Reynard was, in the earlier stages, in no sense didactic. The tales, like those of “Uncle Remus,” were amusing in themselves; they were based on widely diffused folklore, and Reynard and his companions were not originally men disguised as animals. Jacob Grimm (Reinhart Fuchs, 1834) maintained their popular origin; his theories, which have been much contested, have received additional support from the researches of K. Krohn, who discovered many of the stories most characteristic of the cycle in existing Finnish folklore, where they can hardly have arrived through learned channels.

There is abundant evidence that Isengrim and Reynard were firmly established in the popular imagination in the 13th century, and even earlier. Guibert de Nogent {De Vita sua, book 3, chap. viii., printed Paris, 1651), in referring to the disturbances at Laon in 1112, says that the bishop Gaudri was accustomed to call one of his enemies Isengrim, and it is obvious from the context that the taunt was perfectly understood by the popular mind. Philip the Fair is said to have annoyed Pope Boniface III., who died in 1303, by the representation of the “Procession Renart”; and in 1204–1206 in Flanders two opposing parties were designated Isangrini and Blavotini (blue-footed). The principal names of the Reynard cycle, and the earliest in use, were German. Reynard himself (Raginohardus, strong in counsel), Bruin the Bear, Baldwin the Ass, Tibert the Cat, Hirsent the She-wolf, had German names, most of which were used as person-names in Lorraine. Whatever the sources of the stories, it was in France that the cycle obtained its greatest vogue. The Roman de Renart as printed by Méon (Paris, 4 yols., 1826) runs to over 40,000 lines, and contains a great number of detached episodes or branches, to which the trouvères gave a certain unity by attaching them to the traditionary feud between Reynard and Isengrim. This rapidly became symbolic of the triumph of craft and eloquence over brute strength. Renart was a popular epic parodying feudal institutions as represented in the romances of chivalry, and readily adapting itself to satire of the rich, of the forms of justice, and of the clergy.

The early French originals are lost, the most ancient existing fragments being in Latin. The fable of the lion's sickness and his cure by the wolf's skin occurs in the Ecbasis cujusdam captivi per Tropologiam (ed. E. Voigt; Strassburg, 1875), written by a monk of St Evre at Toul (Meurthe-et-Moselle) about 940. Ysengrimus (ed. E. Voigt; Halle, 1884), a clerical satire written by Nivard of Ghent about 1148, includes the story of

the lion's sickness and the pilgrimage of Bertiliana the Goat. Another Latin poem, Reinardus vulpes (ed. F. J. Mone; Stuttgart, 1832), contains in addition the theft of the bacon, and how Isengrim is induced to fish with his tail. A simpler version, derived probably from a French original, is Isingrînes nôt, written in German about 1180 by the Alsatian Heinrich der Glîchezäre. Only fragments of this poem are preserved, but about a quarter of a century later it was re-written with little change in the subject matter as Reinhart Fuchs (ed. J. Grimm, Berlin, 1834; and K. Reissenberger, Halle, 1886). Most later versions of Reynard have been derived, however, from the Flemish Reinaert de vos (ed. J. F. Willems, Ghent, 1836; and E. Martin, Paderborn, 1874), written about 1250 in East Flanders by Willem. Reinaert is a poem of 3474 lines. The corresponding branch of the French Roman de Renart (for which and its satirical sequels, Le Courounement Renart, Renart le nouveau, and Renart le contrefait, see ) is one of the earliest and best of the great French cycle.

The fable was, like other French works, known in England, but did not at once pass into the popular stock. Odo of Cheriton, who died in 1247, used the Reynard stories in his sermons, and many of them occur in his collection of Parabolae (ed. Hervieux, Fabulistes latins, 1884, vol. i.). The English poem of the Vox and the Wolf dates from the 13th century; and the “Nonne Preestes Tale” of Chaucer, in which, however, the fox is Rossel and the ass Brunel, is a genuine Reynard history.

Willem's Reinaert de Vos was left incomplete, and the continuation about 4000 lines in a more didactic vein was added by an unknown writer of West Flanders about 1370. The first copy printed in any language was the Dutch prose version, Hystorie van Reynaert de Vos, printed at Gouda by Gheraert Leeuw in 1479. On this Caxton based his Historye of reynart the foxe (reprinted by E. Arber, 1878), which he finished on the 6th of June 1481. As a satire on the church, especially on monks and nuns, Reynard became popular with reformers, and numerous versions followed in England and Germany. A Low German version, Reineke Fuchs, with a prose commentary by Hinrek Alckmer (Henry of Alkmaar), was issued from the Antwerp press of Gheraert Leeuw in 1487. From this rifacimento was derived the Low German Reynke de Vos (ed. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Breslau, 1834; and Friedrich Prien, Halle, 1887), which was printed at Lübeck in 1498. Michael Beuther is said to have been the translator into High German (Reiniken Fuchs, 1544); and the book was made available to the general European public in the Latin version of Hartmann Schopper, Opus Poeticum de admirabili fallacia et astutia Vulpeculae Reinikes Libras quatuor (Frankfort, 1567). The modern German version (1794) of Goethe has been often reprinted, notably in 1846 with illustrations by Wilhelm von Kaulbach.

Reynard is dealt with by Carlyle in an essay “On German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries” in the Foreign Quarterly Renew (1831). An admirable account of the Reynard cycle is given by W. J. Thorns in his edition of Caxton's version for the Percy Society (1844). Prien's edition of Reynke de Vos contains bibliographical particulars of the German, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic and English editions (cp. Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. Renart). The best edition of the Roman de Renart is by Ernest Martin (3 vols., Strassburg and Paris, 1881–1887). See also Léopold Sudre, Les Sources du roman de Renard (Paris, 1890); Jacob Grimm, Sendschreiben an C. Lachmann über Reinhart Fuchs (Leipzig, 1840); Gaston Paris, “Le Roman de Renard” in the Journal des savants (Dec. 1894 and Feb. 1895); Kaarle Krohn, Bär und Fuchs (Helsingfors, 1888), and the editions mentioned above. The story is told in modern French by Paulin Paris, Les Aventures de Maître Renart et d'Ysengrin son compère (1861), and in English by Joseph Jacobs, following a modernized text of Caxton made by “Felix Summerley” (Sir H. Cole), in The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox (1895), with a valuable introduction.