The Adventures of a Modest Man Page 7

  CHAPTER IV

  WHEREIN A MODEST MAN IS BULLIED AND A LITERARY MAN PRACTICES STYLE

  "What was your first impression of Paris, Mr. Van Twiller?" inquired theyoung man from East Boston, as I was lighting my cigar in the corridorof the Hotel des Michetons after breakfast.

  "The first thing I noticed," said I, "was the entire United Stateswalking down the Boulevard des Italiens."

  "And your second impression, sir?" he asked somewhat uncertainly.

  "The entire United States walking back again." He lighted a cigaretteand tried to appear cheerful. He knew I possessed two daughters. A manin possession of such knowledge will endure much.

  Presently the stout young man from Chicago came up to request a lightfor his cigar. "See Paris and die, eh?" he observed with odiousaffability.

  "I doubt that the city can be as unhealthy as that," I said coldly.

  Defeated, he joined forces with the young man from East Boston, and theyretired to the terrace to sit and hate me.

  My daughter Alida, my daughter Dulcima, and I spent our first day inParis "_ong voitoor_" as the denizen of East Boston informed me later.

  "What is your first impression, Alida?" I asked, as our taxi rolledsmoothly down the Avenue de l'Opera.

  "Paris? An enormous blossom carved out of stone!--a huge architecturalRenaissance rose with white stone petals!"

  I looked at my pretty daughter with pride.

  "That is what Mr. Van Dieman says," she added conscientiously.

  My enthusiasm cooled at once.

  "Van Dieman exaggerates," I said. "Dulcima, what do you find tocharacterize Paris?"

  "The gowns!" she cried. "Oh, papa! did you see that girl driving pastjust now?"

  I opened my guidebook in silence. I _had_ seen her.

  The sunshine flooded everything; the scent of flowers filled the softair; the city was a garden, sweet with green leaves, embroidered withgreen grass--a garden, too, in architecture, carved out in silvery grayfoliage of stone. The streets are as smooth and clean as a steamer'sdeck, with little clear rivulets running in gutters that seem asinviting as country brooks. It did not resemble Manhattan.

  Paris!

  Paris is a big city full of red-legged soldiers.

  Paris is a forest of pink and white chestnut blossoms under which theinhabitants sit without their hats.

  Paris is a collection of vistas; at the end of every vista is a mistymasterpiece of architecture; on the summit of every _monument_ is amasterpiece of sculpture.

  Paris is a city of several millions of inhabitants, every inhabitantholding both hands out to you for a tip.

  Paris is a park, smothered in foliage, under which asphalted streetslead to Paradise.

  Paris is a sanitarium so skillfully conducted that nobody can tell thepatients from the physicians; and all the inmates are firmly convincedthat the outside world is mad.

  I looked back at the gilded mass of the Opera--that great pile of stoneset lightly there as the toe of a ballet-girl's satin slipper----

  "What are you thinking, papa?" asked Alida.

  "Nothing," I said hastily, amazed at my own frivolity. "Notice," said I,"the exquisite harmony of the sky-line. Here in Paris the Governmentregulates the height of buildings. Nothing inharmonious can be built;the selfishness and indifference of private ownership which in New Yorkerects skyscrapers around our loveliest architectural remains, the CityHall, would not be tolerated here, where artistic _ensemble_ is asnecessary to people as the bread they eat."

  "Dear me, where have I read that?" exclaimed Alida innocently.

  I said nothing more.

  We were now passing through that wing of the Louvre which faces theCarousal, and we turned sharply to the right under the little arc, andstraight past the Tuileries Gardens, all blooming with tulips andhyacinths, past the quaint weather-stained statues of an epoch as deadas its own sculptors, past the long arcades of the Rivoli, under whichhuman spiders lurk for the tourist of Cook, and out into the Place de laConcorde--the finest square in the world.

  The sun glittered on the brass inlaid base on which towered themonolyth. The splashing of the great fountains filled the air with afresh sweet sound. Round us, in a vast circle, sat the "Cities ofFrance," with "Strasburg" smothered in crepe and funeral wreaths, eachstill stone figure crowned with battlemented crowns and bearing thecarved symbols of their ancient power on time-indented escutcheons, allof stone.

  The fresh wet pavement blazed in the sunshine; men wheeled handcartsfilled with violets or piled high with yellow jonquils and silveryhyacinths.

  Violet, white, and yellow--these are the colors which Paris wears inspringtime, twined in her chaplet of tender green.

  I said this aloud to Dulcima, who replied that they were wearing blue inParis this spring, and that she would like to know how soon we weregoing to the dressmakers.

  Now at last we were rolling up the Champs Elysees, with the Arc deTriomphe, a bridge of pearl at the end of the finest vista in the world.Past us galloped gay cavalry officers, out for a morning canter in theBois de Boulogne; past us whizzed automobiles of every hue, shape andspecies.

  Past us, too, trotted shoals of people well diluted by our fellowcountrymen, yet a truly Parisian crowd for all that. Hundreds ofuniforms dotted the throngs; cuirassiers in short blue stable jackets,sabres hooked under their left elbows, little _piou-piou_ lads, in baggyred trousers and shakos bound with yellow; hussars jingling along,wearing jackets of robin's-egg blue faced with white; chasseurs aCheval, wearing turquoise blue braided with black; then came the priestsin black, well groomed as jackdaws in April; policemen in sombreuniforms, wearing sword bayonets; gendarmes off duty--for the RepublicanGuard takes the place of the Gendarmerie within the walls of Paris;smart officers from the Fontainebleau artillery school, in cherry-redand black; Saint-Cyr soldiers in crude blues and reds, with the blueshako smothered under plumes; then Sisters, in their dark habits andwhite coifs, with sweet, serene faces looking out on the sinful worldthey spend their lives in praying for.

  "Dulcima," I said, "what particular characteristic strikes you when youwatch these passing throngs of women?"

  "Their necks; every Parisienne is a beauty from behind--such exquisitenecks and hair."

  "Their ankles," added Alida innocently; "they are the best-shod women inthe world!"

  I had noticed something of the sort; in fact, there is no escape for aman's eyes in Paris. Look where he will, he is bound to bring up againsttwo neat little shoes trotting along demurely about their own frivolousbusiness. One cannot help wondering what that business may be or wherethose little polished shoes are going so lightly, tap! tap! across thepolished asphalt. And there are thousands on thousands of such shoes,passing, repassing, twinkling everywhere, exquisite, shapely, gay littleshoes of Paris, pattering through boulevard and avenue, square, andstreet until the whole city takes the cadence, keeping time, day andnight, to the little tripping feet of the Parisienne--bless her, heartand sole!

  "Of what are you thinking, papa?" asked Alida.

  "Nothing, child, nothing," I muttered.

  We left our taxi and mounted to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Theworld around us was bathed in a delicate haze; silver-gray and emeraldthe view stretched on every side from the great Basilica on Montmartreto the silent Fortress of Mont-Valerien; from the vast dome of thePantheon, springing up like a silver bubble in the sky, to the dullgolden dome of the Invalides, and the dome of the Val-de-Grace.

  Spite of the Sainte Chapel, with its gilded lace-work, spite of thebizarre Tour Saint-Jacques, spite of the lean monster raised by MonsieurEiffel, straddling the vase Esplanade in the west, the solid twin towersof Notre-Dame dominated the spreading city by their sheermajesty--dominated Saint-Sulpice, dominated the Trocadero, dominatedeven the Pantheon.

  "From those towers," said I, "Quasimodo looked down and saw the slimbody of Esmeralda hanging on the gibbet."

  "What became of her goat?" asked Alida, who was fond of pets.

  "That rem
inds me," began Dulcima, "that now we are safely in Paris wemight be allowed to ask papa about that----"

  "There is a steamer which sails for New York to-morrow," I said calmly."Any mention of that pig will ensure us staterooms in half an hour."

  Considerably subdued, the girls meekly opened their Baedekers andpatronized the view, while I lighted a cigar and mused.

  It was my second cigar that morning. Certainly I was a changed man--butwas it a change for the better? Within me I felt something stirring--Iknew not what.

  It was that long-buried germ of gayety, that latent uncultivated andembryotic germ which lies dormant in all Anglo-Saxons; and usually diesdormant or is drowned in solitary cocktails at a solemn club.

  Certainly I was changing. Van Dieman was right. Doubtless any changecould not be the worse for a man who has not sufficient intelligence totake care of his own pig.

  "There is," said Dulcima, referring to her guidebook, "a cafe near herein the Bois de Boulogne, called the Cafe des Fleurs de Chine. I shouldso love to breakfast at a Chinese cafe."

  "With chopsticks!" added Alida, soulfully clasping her gloved hands.

  "Your Cafe Chinois is doubtless a rendezvous for Apaches," I said, "butwe'll try it if you wish."

  I am wondering, now, just what sort of a place that cafe is, set like ajewel among the green trees of the Bois. I know it is expensive, but notvery expensive; I know, also, that the dainty young persons who sippedmint on the terrace appeared to disregard certain conventionalitieswhich I had been led to believe were never disregarded in France.

  The safest way was to pretend a grave abstraction when their bright eyeswandered toward one; and I did this, without exactly knowing why I did.

  "I wish," said I to Dulcima, "that Van Dieman were here. He understandsall this surface life one sees in the parks and streets."

  "Do you really wish that Mr. Van Dieman were here?" asked Alida, softlycoloring.

  I looked at her gravely.

  "Because," she said, "I believe he is coming about the middle of May."

  "Oh, he is, is he?" I said, without enthusiasm. "Well, we shalldoubtless be in the Rhine by the middle of May."

  "My gowns couldn't be finished until June any way," said Dulcima, layingher gloved fingers on Alida's chair.

  So they were allies, then.

  "I didn't know you had ordered any gowns," I said superciliously.

  "I haven't--yet," she said coolly.

  "Neither have I," began Alida; but I refused to hear any more.

  "When you are at your modistes you may talk gowns until you faint away,"said I; "but now let us try to take an intelligent interest in thisfamous and ancient capital of European civilization and liberty----"

  "Did you notice that girl's gown?" motioned Alida to Dulcima.

  I also looked. But it was not the beauty of the gown that I found soremarkable.

  "I wonder," thought I--"but no matter. I wish that idiot Van Dieman werehere."

  * * * * *

  That evening, after my daughters had retired, I determined to sit uplater than I ought to. The reckless ideas which Paris inspired in me,alarmed me now and then. But I was game.

  So I seated myself in the moonlit court of the hotel and lighted anunwise cigar and ordered what concerns nobody except the man whoswallowed it, and, crossing my legs, looked amiably around.

  Williams sat at the next table.

  "Hello, old sport," he said affably.

  "Williams," I said, "guess who I was thinking about a moment ago."

  "A girl?"

  "No, of course not. I was thinking of Jim Landon. What ever became ofhim?"

  "Jim? Oh, he's all right."

  "Successful?"

  "Very. You ought to have heard of him over there; but I suppose youdon't keep up with art news."

  "No," I admitted, ashamed--"it's rather difficult to keep up withanything on Long Island. Does Jim Landon live here?"

  "In Normandy, with his wife."

  "Oh, he got married. Was it that wealthy St. Louis girl who----"

  "No; she married into the British Peerage. No, Landon didn't do anythingof that sort. Quite the contrary."

  "He--he didn't marry his model, did he?"

  "Yes--in a way."

  "In a way?"

  Williams summoned a waiter who shifted his equipment to my table.

  "It's rather an unusual story," he said. "Would you care to hear it?"

  "Does it portray, with your well known literary skill, the confusion ofa parent?" I inquired cautiously. "If it does, don't tell it."

  "It doesn't."

  "Oh. Nobody puts it all over the old man?"

  "No, not in this particular instance. Shall I begin?"

  "Shoot," I said.

  He began with his usual graceful gesture:

  * * * * *

  Landon was dead broke.

  As it had not been convenient for him to breakfast that morning, he wasirritable. The mockery of handsome hangings and antique furniture in theouter studio increased his irritation as he walked through it into therough, inner workshop, which was hung with dusty casts and dreary withclay and plaster.

  Here Ellis found him, an hour later, smoking a cigarette to deceive hisappetite, and sulkily wetting down the clay bust of a sheep-faced oldlady--an order of the post-mortem variety which he was executing from agruesome photograph.

  "How," inquired Ellis, "is the coy Muse treating you these palmy, balmydays?"

  Landon swore and squirted a spongeful of water over the old lady's sidecurls.

  "My! my! As bad as that?" commented Ellis, raising his eyebrows. "Ithought you expected to be paid for that tombstone."

  "Man, I've been eating, drinking, and sleeping on that tombstone allwinter. Last night I gnawed off the 'Hic Jacet' and washed it down withthe date. There's nothing left."

  "You've--ah--breakfasted, dear friend?"

  "That's all right----"

  "_Have_ you?"

  "No. But there's a man from Fourth Avenue coming to buy some of thatsuperfluous magnificence in the show studio. Besides, I'll be paid forthis old lady in a day or two-- Where are you going?"

  "Out," said Ellis, briefly.

  Landon, left alone, threw a bit of wet clay at the doorknob, stoodirresolutely, first on one foot, then on the other; then with a heartyscowl at the sheep-faced old lady washed her complacent face with adripping sponge.

  * * * * *

  "Williams!" I interrupted violently, "how do you know all thosedetails?"

  "My Lord, man!" he retorted; "I write for a living. I've got to knowthem."

  "Go on, then," I said.

  He went on:

  * * * * *

  A few moments later Ellis came in with rolls, milk and fruit.

  "That's very decent of you," said Landon, but the other cut him short,excitedly.

  "Jim, who is the divinity I just met in your hallway? Yours?"

  "What divinity?"

  "Her hair," said Ellis, a little wildly, "is the color of Tuscan gold;her eyes, ultra marine; and the skin of her is just pure snow with abrushful of carmine across the lips--and the Great Sculptor Himself musthave moulded her body----"

  Landon shrugged and buttered a roll. "You let her alone," he said.

  "Reveal to me instantly her name, titles, and quality!" shouted Ellis,unsheathing a Japanese sword.

  "Her name," said Landon, "is O'Connor; her quality is that of ashopgirl. She is motherless and alone, and inhabits a kennel across thehall. Don't make eyes at her. She'll probably believe whatever the firstgentlemanly blackguard tells her."

  Ellis said: "Why may I not--in a delicately detached and gaylyimpersonal, yet delightfully and evasively irrational manner, calculatedto deceive nobody----"

  "That would sound very funny in the Latin Quarter. This is New York." Herose, frowning. Presently he picked up the sponge. "Better let a lonelyheart alone,
unless you're in earnest," he said, and flung the spongeback into a bucket of water, dried his hands, and looked around.

  "Have you sold any pictures yet?"

  "Not one. I thought I had a Copper King nailed to the easel, but Fateseparated us on a clinch and he got away and disappeared behind the barsof his safe deposit. How goes the market with you?"

  "Dead. I can live on my furniture for a while."

  "I thought you were going in on that competition for the Department ofPeace at Washington."

  "I am, if I have enough money left to hire a model."

  Ellis rose, twirled his walking-stick meditatively, glanced at hiscarefully brushed hat, and placed it gravely on his head.

  "Soon," he said cheerfully, "it will be time for straw hats. But whereI'm going to get one I don't know. Poverty used to be considered funnyin the Quarter; but it's no idle jest in this town. Well--I'll let yourbest girl alone, Jim, if you feel that way about it."

  They laughed and shook hands.

  In the corridor Ellis looked hard at the closed door opposite, and hisvolatile heart gave a tortured thump; he twirled his stick and saunteredout into Stuyvesant Square.