A Chair on The Boulevard by Leonard Merrick

L >> Leonard Merrick >> A Chair on The Boulevard

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

When the café closed, messieurs Tricotrin, Goujaud, and Pitou crept
forlornly across the square and disposed themselves for slumber on the
bench.

"Well, there is this to be said," yawned the poet, "if the little
bounder had kept his word, it would have been an extraordinary
conclusion to our adventures--as persons of literary discretion, we can
hardly regret that a story did not end so improbably.... My children,
Miranda, good-night--and a Merry Christmas!"

THE CAFÉ OF THE BROKEN HEART

On the last day of the year, towards the dinner-hour, a young and
attractive woman, whose costume proclaimed her a widow, entered the
Café of the Broken Heart. That modest restaurant is situated near the
Cemetery of Mont-martre. The lady, quoting from an announcement over
the window, requested the proprietor to conduct her to the "Apartment
reserved for Those Desirous of Weeping Alone."

The proprietor's shoulders became apologetic. "A thousand regrets,
madame," he murmured; "the Weeping Alone apartment is at present
occupied."

This visibly annoyed the customer.

"It is the second anniversary of my bereavement," she complained, "and
already I have wept here twice. The woe of an habituée should find a
welcome!"

Her reproof, still more her air of being well-to-do, had an effect on
Brochat. He looked at his wife, and his wife said hesitatingly:

"Perhaps the young man would consent to oblige madame if you asked him
nicely. After all, he engaged the room for seven o'clock, and it is not
yet half-past six."

"That is true," said Brochat. "Alors, I shall see what can be arranged!
I beg that madame will put herself to the trouble of sitting down while
I make the biggest endeavours."

But he returned after a few minutes to declare that the young man's
sorrow was so profound that no reply could be extracted from him.

The lady showed signs of temper. "Has this person the monopoly of
sorrowing on your premises?" she demanded. "Whom does he lament? Surely
the loss of a husband should give me prior claim?"

"I cannot rightly say whom the gentleman laments," stammered Brochat;
"the circumstances are, in fact, somewhat unusual. I would mention,
however, that the apartment is a spacious one, as madame doubtless
recalls, and no further mourners are expected for half an hour. If in
the meantime madame would be so amiable as to weep in the young man's
presence, I can assure her that she would find him too stricken to
stare."

The widow considered. "Well," she said, after the pause, "if you can
guarantee his abstraction, so be it! It is a matter of conscience with
me to behave in precisely the same way each year, and, rather than miss
my meditations there altogether, I am willing to make the best of him."

Brochat, having taken her order for refreshments--for which he always
charged slightly higher prices on the first floor--preceded her up the
stairs. The single gas-flame that had been kindled in the room was very
low, and the lady received but a momentary impression of a man's figure
bowed over a white table. She chose a chair at once with her back
towards him, and resting her brow on her forefinger, disposed herself
for desolation.

It may have been that the stranger's proximity told on her nerves, or
it may have been that Time had done something to heal the wound.
Whatever the cause, the frame of mind that she invited was slow in
arriving, and when the bouillon and biscottes appeared she was not
averse from trifling with them. Meanwhile, for any sound that he had
made, the young man might have been as defunct as Henri IV; but as she
took her second sip, a groan of such violence escaped him that she
nearly upset her cup.

His abandonment of despair seemed to reflect upon her own
insensibility; and, partly to raise herself in his esteem, the lady a
moment later uttered a long-drawn, wistful sigh. No sooner had she done
so, however, than she deeply regretted the indiscretion, for it
stimulated the young man to a howl positively harrowing.

An impatient movement of her graceful shoulders protested against these
demonstrations, but as she had her back to him, she could not tell
whether he observed her. Stealing a glance, she discovered that his
face was buried in his hands, and that the white table seemed to be
laid for ten covers. Scrutiny revealed ten bottles of wine around it,
the neck of each bottle embellished with a large crape bow. Curiosity
now held the lady wide-eyed, and, as luck would have it, the young man,
at this moment, raised his head.

"I trust that my agony does not disturb you, madame?" he inquired,
meeting her gaze with some embarrassment.

"I must confess, monsieur," said she, "that you have been carrying it
rather far."

He accepted the rebuke humbly. "If you divined the intensity of my
sufferings, you would be lenient," he murmured. "Nevertheless, it was
dishonest of me to moan so bitterly before seven o'clock, when my claim
to the room legally begins. I entreat your pardon."

"It is accorded freely," said the lady, mollified by his penitence.
"She would be a poor mourner who quarrelled with the affliction of
another."

Again she indulged in a plaintive sigh, and this time the young man's
response was tactfully harmonious.

"Life is a vale of tears, madame," he remarked, with more solicitude
than originality.

"You may indeed say so, monsieur," she assented. "To have lost one who
was beloved--"

"It must be a heavy blow; I can imagine it!"

He had made a curious answer. She stared at him, perplexed.

"You can 'imagine' it?"

"Very well."

"But you yourself have experienced such a loss, monsieur?" faltered the
widow nervously. Had trouble unhinged his brain?

"No," said the young man; "to speak by the clock, my own loss has not
yet occurred."

A brief silence fell, during which she cast uneasy glances towards the
door.

He added, as if anxious that she should do him justice: "But I would
not have you consider my lamentations premature."

"How true it is," breathed the lady, "that in this world no human soul
can wholly comprehend another!"

"Mine is a very painful history," he warned her, taking the hint; "yet
if it will serve to divert your mind from your own misfortune, I shall
be honoured to confide it to you. Stay, the tenth invitation, which an
accident prevented my dispatching, would explain the circumstances
tersely: but I much fear that the room is too dark for you to decipher
all the subtleties. Have I your permission to turn up the gas?"

"Do so, by all means, monsieur," said the lady graciously. And the
light displayed to her, first, as personable a young man as she could
have desired to see; second, an imposing card, which was inscribed as
follows:

MONSIEUR ACHILLE FLAMANT, ARTIST,

Forewarns you of the

DEATH OF HIS CAREER

The Interment will take place at the
Café of the Broken Heart
on December 31st.

_Valedictory N.B.--A sympathetic costume
Victuals will be appreciated.
7 p.m._

"I would call your attention to the border of cypress, and to the tomb
in the corner," said the young man, with melancholy pride. "You may
also look favourably on the figure with the shovel, which, of course,
depicts me in the act of burying my hopes. It is a symbolic touch that
no hope is visible."

"It is a very artistic production altogether," said the widow,
dissembling her astonishment. "So you are a painter, monsieur Flamant?"

"Again speaking by the clock, I am a painter," he concurred; "but at
midnight I shall no longer be in a position to say so--in the morning I
am pledged to the life commercial. You will not marvel at my misery
when I inform you that the existence of Achille Flamant, the artist,
will terminate in five hours and twenty odd minutes!"

"Well, I am commercial myself," she said. "I am madame Aurore, the
Beauty Specialist, of the rue Baba. Do not think me wanting in the
finer emotions, but I assure you that a lucrative establishment is not
a calamity."

"Madame Aurore," demurred the painter, with a bow, "your own business
is but a sister art. In your atelier, the saffron of a bad complexion
blooms to the fairness of a rose, and the bunch of a lumpy figure is
modelled to the grace of Galatea. With me it will be a different pair
of shoes; I shall be condemned to perch on a stool in the office of a
wine-merchant, and invoice vintages which my thirty francs a week will
not allow me to drink. No comparison can be drawn between your lot and
my little."

"Certainly I should not like to perch," she confessed.

"Would you rejoice at the thirty francs a week?"

"Well, and the thirty francs a week are also poignant. But you may
rise, monsieur; who shall foretell the future? Once I had to make both
ends meet with less to coax them than the salary you mention. Even when
my poor husband was taken from me--heigho!" she raised a miniature
handkerchief delicately to her eyes--"when I was left alone in the
world, monsieur, my affairs were greatly involved--I had practically
nothing but my resolve to succeed."

"And the witchery of your personal attractions, madame," said the
painter politely.

"Ah!" A pensive smile rewarded him. "The business was still in its
infancy, monsieur; yet to-day I have the smartest clientèle in Paris. I
might remove to the rue de la Paix to-morrow if I pleased. But, I say,
why should I do that? I say, why a reckless rental for the sake of a
fashionable address, when the fashionable men and women come to me
where I am?"

"You show profound judgment, madame," said Flamant. "Why, indeed!"

"And you, too, will show good judgment, I am convinced," continued
madame Aurore, regarding him with approval. "You have an air of
intellect. If your eyebrows were elongated a fraction towards the
temples--an improvement that might be effected easily enough by regular
use of my Persian Pomade--you would acquire the appearance of a born
conqueror."

"Alas," sighed Flamant, "my finances forbid my profiting by the tip!"

"Monsieur, you wrong me," murmured the specialist reproachfully. "I was
speaking with no professional intent. On the contrary, if you will
permit me, I shall take joy in forwarding a pot to you gratis."

"Is it possible?" cried Flamant: "you would really do this for me? You
feel for my sufferings so much?"

"Indeed, I regret that I cannot persuade you to reduce the sufferings,"
she replied. "But tell me why you have selected the vocation of a
wine-merchant's clerk."

"Fate, not I, has determined my cul-de-sac in life," rejoined her
companion. "It is like this: my father, who lacks an artistic soul,
consented to my becoming a painter only upon the understanding that I
should gain the Prix de Rome and pursue my studies in Italy free of any
expense to him. This being arranged, he agreed to make me a minute
allowance in the meanwhile. By a concatenation of catastrophes upon
which it is unnecessary to dwell, the Beaux-Arts did not accord the
prize to me; and, at the end of last year, my parent reminded me of our
compact, with a vigour which nothing but the relationship prevents my
describing as 'inhuman'. He insisted that I must bid farewell to
aspiration and renounce the brush of an artist for the quill of a
clerk! Distraught, I flung myself upon my knees. I implored him to
reconsider. My tribulation would have moved a rock--it even moved his
heart!"

"He showed you mercy?"

"He allowed me a respite."

"It was for twelve months?"

"Precisely. What rapid intuitions you have!--if I could remain in
Paris, we should become great friends. He allowed me twelve months'
respite. If, at the end of that time, Art was still inadequate to
supply my board and lodging, it was covenanted that, without any more
ado, I should resign myself to clerical employment at Nantes. The
merchant there is a friend of the family, and had offered to
demonstrate his friendship by paying me too little to live on. Enfin,
Fame has continued coy. The year expires to-night. I have begged a few
comrades to attend a valedictory dinner--and at the stroke of midnight,
despairing I depart!"

"Is there a train?"

"I do not depart from Paris till after breakfast to-morrow; but at
midnight I depart from myself, I depart psychologically--the Achille
Flamant of the Hitherto will be no more."

"I understand," said madame Aurore, moved. "As you say, in my own way I
am an artist, too, there is a bond between us. Poor fellow, it is
indeed a crisis in your life!... Who put the crape bows on the
bottles? they are badly tied. Shall I tie them properly for you?"

"It would be a sweet service," said Flamant, "and I should be grateful.
How gentle you are to me--pomade, bows, nothing is too much for you!"

"You must give me your Nantes address," she said, "and I will post the
pot without fail."

"I shall always keep it," he vowed--"not the pomade, but the pot--as a
souvenir. Will you write a few lines to me at the same time?"

Her gaze was averted; she toyed with her spoon. "The directions will be
on the label," she said timidly.

"It was not of my eyebrows I was thinking," murmured the man.

"What should I say? The latest quotation for artificial lashes, or a
development in dimple culture, would hardly be engrossing to you."

"I am inclined to believe that anything that concerned you would
engross me."

"It would be so unconventional," she objected dreamily.

"To send a brief message of encouragement? Have we not talked like
confidants?"

"That is queerer still."

"I admit it. Just now I was unaware of your existence, and suddenly you
dominate my thoughts. How do you work these miracles, madame? Do you
know that I have an enormous favour to crave of you?"

"What, another one?"

"Actually! Is it not audacious of me? Yet for a man on the verge of
parting from his identity, I venture to hope that you will strain a
point."

"The circumstances are in the man's favour," she owned. "Nevertheless,
much depends on what the point is."

"Well, I ask nothing less than that you accept the invitation on the
card that you examined; I beg you to soothe my last hours by remaining
to dine."

"Oh, but really," she exclaimed. "I am afraid--"

"You cannot urge that you are required at your atelier so late. And as
to any social engagement, I do not hesitate to affirm that my
approaching death in life puts forth the stronger claim."

"On me? When all is said, a new acquaintance!"

"What is Time?" demanded the painter. And she was not prepared with a
reply.

"Your comrades will be strangers to me," she argued.

"It is a fact that now I wish they were not coming," acknowledged the
host; "but they are young men of the loftiest genius, and some day it
may provide a piquant anecdote to relate how you met them all in the
period of their obscurity."

"My friend," she said, hurt, "if I consented, it would not be to garner
anecdotes."

"Ah, a million regrets!" he cried; "I spoke foolishly."

"It was tactless."

"Yes--I am a man. Do you forgive?"

"Yes--I am a woman. Well, I must take my bonnet off!"

"Oh, you are not a woman, but an angel! What beautiful hair you have!
And your hands, how I should love to paint them!"

"I have painted them, myself--with many preparations. My hands have
known labour, believe me; they have washed up plates and dishes, and
often the dishes had provided little to eat."

"Poor girl! One would never suspect that you had struggled like that."

"How feelingly you say it! There have been few to show me sympathy. Oh,
I assure you, my life has been a hard one; it is a hard one now, in
spite of my success. Constantly, when customers moan before my mirrors,
I envy them, if they did but know it. I think: 'Yes, you have a double
chin, and your eyes have lost their fire, and nasty curly little veins
are spoiling the pallor of your nose; but you have the affection of
husband and child, while _I_ have nothing but fees.' What is my
destiny? To hear great-grandmothers grumble because I cannot give them
back their girlhood for a thousand francs! To devote myself to making
other women beloved, while _I_ remain loveless in my shop!"

"Honestly, my heart aches for you. If I might presume to advise, I
would say, 'Do not allow the business to absorb your youth--you were
meant to be worshipped.' And yet, while I recommend it, I hate to think
of another man worshipping you."

"Why should you care, my dear? But there is no likelihood of that; I am
far too busy to seek worshippers. A propos an idea has just occurred to
me which might be advantageous to us both. If you could inform your
father that you would be able to earn rather more next year by
remaining in Paris than by going to Nantes, would it be satisfactory?"

"Satisfactory?" ejaculated Flamant. "It would be ecstatic! But how
shall I acquire such information?"

"Would you like to paint a couple of portraits of me?"

"I should like to paint a thousand."

"My establishment is not a picture-gallery. Listen. I offer you a
commission for two portraits: one, present day, let us say, moderately
attractive--"

"I decline to libel you."

"O, flatterer! The other, depicting my faded aspect before I discovered
the priceless secrets of the treatment that I practise in the rue Baba.
I shall hang them both in the reception-room. I must look at least a
decade older in the 'Before' than in the 'After,' and it must, of
course, present the appearance of having been painted some years ago.
That can be faked?"

"Perfectly."

"You accept?" "I embrace your feet. You have saved my life; you have
preserved my hopefulness, you have restored my youth!"

"It is my profession to preserve and restore."

"Ah, mon Dieu!" gasped Flamant in a paroxysm of adoration. "Aurore, I
can no longer refrain from avowing that--"

At this instant the door opened, and there entered solemnly nine young
men, garbed in such habiliments of woe as had never before been seen
perambulating, even on the figures of undertakers. The foremost bore a
wreath of immortelles, which he laid in devout silence on the dinner-table.

"Permit me," said Flamant, recovering himself by a stupendous effort:
"monsieur Tricotrin, the poet--madame Aurore."

"Enchanted!" said the poet, in lugubrious tones. "I have a heavy cold,
thank you, owing to my having passed the early hours of Christmas Day
on a bench, in default of a bed. It is superfluous to inquire as to the
health of madame."

"Monsieur Goujaud, a colleague."

"Overjoyed!" responded Goujaud, with a violent sneeze.

"Goujaud was with me," said Tricotrin.

"Monsieur Pitou, the composer."

"I ab hodoured. I trust badabe is dot dervous of gerbs? There is
nothing to fear," said Pitou.

"So was Pitou!" added Tricotrin.

"Monsieur Sanquereau, the sculptor; monsieur Lajeunie, the novelist,"
continued the host. But before he could present the rest of the
company, Brochat was respectfully intimating to the widow that her
position in the Weeping Alone apartment was now untenable. He was
immediately commanded to lay another cover.

"Madame and comrades," declaimed Tricotrin, unrolling a voluminous
manuscript, as they took their seats around the pot-au-feu, "I have
composed for this piteous occasion a brief poem!"

"I must beseech your pardon," stammered Flamant, rising in deep
confusion; "I have nine apologies to tender. Gentlemen, this touching
wreath for the tomb of my career finds the tomb unready. These
affecting garments which you have hired at, I fear, ruinous expense,
should be exchanged for bunting; that immortal poem with which our
friend would favour us has been suddenly deprived of all its point."

"Explain! explain!" volleyed from nine throats.

"I shall still read it," insisted Tricotrin, "it is good."

"The lady--nay, the goddess--whom you behold, has showered commissions,
and for one year more I shall still be in your midst. Brothers in art,
brothers in heart, I ask you to charge your glasses, and let your
voices ring. The toast is, 'Madame Aurore and her gift of the New
Year!'"

"Madame Aurore and her gift of the New Year!" shrieked the nine young
men, springing to their feet.

"In a year much may happen," said the lady tremulously.

And when they had all sat down again, Flamant was thrilled to find her
hand in his beneath the table.

THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET

It was thanks to Touquet that she was able to look so chic--the little
baggage!--yet of all her suitors Touquet was the one she favoured
least. He was the costumier at the corner of the rue des Martyrs, and
made a very fair thing of the second-hand clothes. It was to Touquet's
that the tradesmen of the quarter turned as a matter of course to hire
dress-suits for their nuptials; it was in the well-cleaned satins of
Touquet that the brides' mothers and the lady guests cut such imposing
figures when they were photographed after the wedding breakfasts; it
was even Touquet who sometimes supplied a gown to one or another of the
humble actresses at the Théâtre Montmartre, and received a couple of
free tickets in addition to his fee. I tell you that Touquet was not a
person to be sneezed at, though he had passed the first flush of youth,
and was never an Adonis.

Besides, who was she, this little Lisette, who had the impudence to
flout him? A girl in a florist's, if you can believe me, with no
particular beauty herself, and not a son by way of dot! And yet--one
must confess it--she turned a head as swiftly as she made a
"buttonhole"; and Pomponnet, the pastrycook, was paying court to her,
too--to say nothing of the homage of messieurs Tricotrin, the poet, and
Goujaud, the painter, and Lajeunie, the novelist. You would never have
guessed that her wages were only twenty francs a week, as you watched
her waltz with Tricotrin at the ball on Saturday evening, or as you saw
her enter Pomponnet's shop, when the shutters were drawn, to feast on
his strawberry tarts. Her costumes were the cynosure of the boulevard
Rochechouart!

And they were all due to Touquet, Touquet the infatuated, who lent the
fine feathers to her for the sake of a glance, or a pressure of the
hand--and wept on his counter afterwards while he wondered whose arms
might be embracing her in the costumes that he had cleaned and pressed
with so much care. Often he swore that his folly should end--that she
should be affianced to him, or go shabby; but, lo! in a day or two she
would make her appearance again, to coax for the loan of a smart
blouse, or "that hat with the giant rose and the ostrich plume"--and
Touquet would be as weak as ever.

Judge, then, of his despair when he heard that she had agreed to marry
Pomponnet! She told him the news with the air of an amiable gossip when
she came to return a ball-dress that she had borrowed.

"Enfin," she said--perched on the counter, and swinging her remorseless
feet--"it is arranged; I desert the flowers for the pastry, and become
the mistress of a shop. I shall have to beg from my good friend
monsieur Touquet no more--not at all! I shall be his client, like the
rest. It will be better, hein?"

Touquet groaned. "You know well, Lisette," he answered, "that it has
been a joy to me to place the stock at your disposal, even though it
was to make you more attractive in the eyes of other men. Everything
here that you have worn possesses a charm to me. I fondle the garments
when you bring them back; I take them down from the pegs and dream over
them. Truly! There is no limit to my weakness, for often when a client
proposes to hire a frock that you have had, I cannot bear that she
should profane it, and I say that it is engaged."

"You dear, kind monsieur Touquet," murmured the coquette; "how
agreeable you are!"

"I have always hoped for the day when the stock would be all your own,
Lisette. And by-and-by we might have removed to a better position--
even down the hill. Who knows? We might have opened a business in the
Madeleine quarter. That would suit you better than a little cake-shop
up a side street? And I would have risked it for you--I know how you
incline to fashion. When I have taken you to a theatre, did you choose
the Montmartre--where we might have gone for nothing--or the Moncey?
Not you!--that might do for other girls. _You_ have always
demanded the theatres of the Grand Boulevard; a cup of coffee at the
Café de la Paix is more to your taste than a bottle of beer and
hard-boiled eggs at The Nimble Rabbit. Heaven knows I trust you will be
happy, but I cannot persuade myself that this Pomponnet shares your
ambitions; with his slum and his stale pastry he is quite content."

"It is not stale," she said.

"Well, we will pass his pastry--though, word of honour, I bought some
there last week that might have been baked before the Commune; but to
recur to his soul, is it an affinity?"

"Affinities are always hard up," she pouted.

"Zut!" exclaimed Touquet; "now your mind is running on that monsieur
Tricotrin--by 'affinities' I do not mean hungry poets. Why not have
entrusted your happiness to _me_? I adore you, I have told you a
thousand times that I adore you. Lisette, consider before it is too
late! You cannot love this--this obscure baker?"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18