"How pretty Alice has grown, mother! quite lovely, I think! and so nice; but she was always as nice as she could be!"
So observed Little Billee to his mother that evening as they sat in the garden and watched the crescent moon sink to the Atlantic.
"Ah! my darling Willie! If you could only guess how happy you would make your poor old mammy by growing fond of Alice.... And Blanche, too! what a joy for her!"
"Good heavens! mother.... Alice is not for the likes of me! She's for some splendid young Devon squire, six foot high, and acred and whiskered within an inch of his life!..."
"Ah, my darling Willie! you are not of those who ask for love in vain.... If you only knew how she believes in you! She almost beats your poor old mammy at that!"
And that night he dreamed of Alice—that he loved her as a sweet good woman should be loved; and knew, even in his dream, that it was but a dream; but, oh! it was good! and he managed not to wake; and it was a night to be marked with a white stone! And (still in his dream) she had kissed him, and healed him of his brain-trouble forever. But when he woke next morning, alas! his brain-trouble was with him still, and he felt that no dream kiss would ever cure it—nothing but a real kiss from Alice's own pure lips!
And he rose thinking of Alice, and dressed and breakfasted thinking of her—and how fair she was, and how innocent, and how well and carefully trained up the way she should go—the beau ideal of a wife.... Could she possibly care for a shrimp like himself?
For in his love of outward form he could not understand that any woman who had eyes to see should ever quite condone the signs of physical weakness in man, in favor of any mental gifts or graces whatsoever.
Little Greek that he was, he worshipped the athlete, and opined that all women without exception—all English women especially—must see with the same eyes as himself.
He had once been vain and weak enough to believe in Trilby's love (with a Taffy standing by—a careless, unsusceptible Taffy, who was like unto the gods of Olympus!)—and Trilby had given him up at a word, a hint—for all his frantic clinging.
She would not have given up Taffy, pour si peu, had Taffy but lifted a little finger! It is always "just whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad!" with the likes of Taffy ... but Taffy hadn't even whistled! Yet still he kept thinking of Alice—and he felt he couldn't think of her well enough till he went out for a stroll by himself on a sheep-trimmed down. So he took his pipe and his Darwin, and out he strolled into the early sunshine—up the green Red Lane, past the pretty church, Alice's father's church—and there, at the gate, patiently waiting for his mistress, sat Alice's dog—an old friend of his, whose welcome was a very warm one.
Little Billee thought of Thackeray's lovely poem in Pendennis:
Then he and the dog went on together to a little bench on the edge of the cliff—within sight of Alice's bedroom window. It was called "the Honeymooners' Bench."
"That look—that look—that look! Ah—but Trilby had looked like that, too! And there are many Taffys in Devon!"
He sat himself down and smoked and gazed at the sea below, which the sun (still in the east) had not yet filled with glare and robbed of the lovely sapphire-blue, shot with purple and dark green, that comes over it now and again of a morning on that most beautiful coast.
There was a fresh breeze from the west, and the long, slow billows broke into creamier foam than ever, which reflected itself as a tender white gleam in the blue concavities of their shining shoreward curves as they came rolling in. The sky was all of turquoise but for the smoke of a distant steamer—a long thin horizontal streak of dun—and there were little brown or white sails here and there, dotting; and the stately ships went on....
Little Billee tried hard to feel all this beauty with his heart as well as his brain—as he had so often done when a boy—and cursed his insensibility out loud for at least the thousand and first time.
Why couldn't these waves of air and water be turned into equivalent waves of sound, that he might feel them through the only channel that reached his emotions! That one joy was still left to him—but, alas! alas! he was only a painter of pictures—and not a maker of music!
He recited "Break, break, break," to Alice's dog, who loved him, and looked up into his face with sapient, affectionate eyes—and whose name, like that of so many dogs in fiction and so few in fact, was simply Tray. For Little Billee was much given to monologues out loud, and profuse quotations from his favorite bards.
Everybody quoted that particular poem either mentally or aloud when they sat on that particular bench—except a few old-fashioned people, who still said,
or people of the very highest culture, who only quoted the nascent (and crescent) Robert Browning; or people of no culture at all, who simply held their tongues—and only felt the more!
Tray listened silently.
"Ah, Tray, the best thing but one to do with the sea is to paint it. The next best thing to that is to bathe in it. The best of all is to lie asleep at the bottom. How would you like that?
Tray's tail became as a wagging point of interrogation, and he turned his head first on one side and then on the other—his eyes fixed on Little Billee's, his face irresistible in its genial doggy wistfulness.
"Tray, what a singularly good listener you are—and therefore what singularly good manners you've got! I suppose all dogs have!" said Little Billee; and then, in a very tender voice, he exclaimed,
"Alice, Alice, Alice!"
And Tray uttered a soft, cooing, nasal croon in his head register, though he was a barytone dog by nature, with portentous, warlike chest-notes of the jingo order.
"Tray, your mistress is a parson's daughter, and therefore twice as much of a mystery as any other woman in this puzzling world!
"Tray, if my heart weren't stopped with wax, like the ears of the companions of Ulysses when they rowed past the sirens—you've heard of Ulysses, Tray? he loved a dog—if my heart weren't stopped with wax, I should be deeply in love with your mistress; perhaps she would marry me if I asked her—there's no accounting for tastes!—and I know enough of myself to know that I should make her a good husband—that I should make her happy—and I should make two other women happy besides.
"As for myself personally, Tray, it doesn't very much matter. One good woman would do as well as another, if she's equally good-looking. You doubt it? Wait till you get a pimple inside your bump of—your bump of—wherever you keep your fondnesses, Tray.
"For that's what's the matter with me—a pimple—just a little clot of blood at the root of a nerve, and no bigger than a pin's point!
"That's a small thing to cause such a lot of wretchedness, and wreck a fellow's life, isn't it? Oh, curse it, curse it, curse it—every day and all day long!
"And just as small a thing will take it away, I'm told!
"Ah! grains of sand are small things—and so are diamonds! But diamond or grain of sand, only Alice has got that small thing! Alice alone, in all the world, has got the healing touch for me now; the hands, the lips, the eyes! I know it—I feel it! I dreamed it last night! She looked me well in the face, and took my hand—both hands—and kissed me, eyes and mouth, and told me how she loved me. Ah! what a dream it was! And my little clot melted away like a snow-flake on the lips, and I was my old self again, after many years—and all through that kiss of a pure woman.
"I've never been kissed by a pure woman in my life—never! except by my dear mother and sister; and mothers and sisters don't count, when it comes to kissing.
"Ah! sweet physician that she is, and better than all! It will all come back again with a rush, just as I dreamed, and we will have a good time together, we three!...
"But your mistress is a parson's daughter, and believes everything she's been taught from a child, just as you do—at least, I hope so. And I like her for it—and you too.
"She has believed her father—will she ever believe me, who think so differently? And if she does, will it be good for her?—and then, where will her father come in?
"Oh! it's a bad thing to live, and no longer believe and trust in your father, Tray! to doubt either his honesty or his intelligence. For he (with your mother to help) has taught you all the best he knows, if he has been a good father—till some one else comes and teaches you better—or worse!
"And, then, what are you to believe of what good still remains of all that early teaching—and how are you to sift the wheat from the chaff?...
"Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! I, for one, will never seek to undermine thy faith in any father, on earth or above it!
"Yes, there she kneels in her father's church, her pretty head bowed over her clasped hands, her cloak and skirts falling in happy folds about her: I see it all!
"And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman—great heart and slender brain—forever enslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free ... that dear, weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I've had to paint so often, and know so well by heart! and love ... ah, how I love it! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know the fulness of that pure love.
"There she kneels and pours forth her praise or plaint, meekly and duly. Perhaps it's for me she's praying!
"She believes her poor little prayer will be heard and answered somewhere up aloft. The impossible will be done. She wants what she wants so badly, and prays for it so hard.
"She believes—she believes—what doesn't she believe, Tray?
"The world was made in six days. It is just six thousand years old. Once it all lay smothered under rain-water for many weeks, miles deep, because there were so many wicked people about somewhere down in Judee, where they didn't know everything! A costly kind of clearance! And then there was Noah, who wasn't wicked, and his most respectable family, and his ark—and Jonah and his whale—and Joshua and the sun, and what not. I remember it all, you see, and, oh! such wonderful things that have happened since! And there's everlasting agony for those who don't believe as she does; and yet she is happy, and good, and very kind; for the mere thought of any live creature in pain makes her wretched!
"After all, if she believes in me, she'll believe in anything; let her!
"Indeed, I'm not sure that it's not rather ungainly for a pretty woman not to believe in all these good old cosmic taradiddles, as it is for a pretty child not to believe in Little Red Riding-hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and Morgiana and the Forty Thieves; we learn them at our mother's knee, and how nice they are! Let us go on believing them as long as we can, till the child grows up and the woman dies and it's all found out.
"Yes, Tray, I will be dishonest for her dear sake. I will kneel by her side, if ever I have the happy chance, and ever after, night and morning, and all day long on Sundays if she wants me to! What will I not do for that one pretty woman who believes in me? I will respect even that belief, and do my little best to keep it alive forever. It is much too precious an earthly boon for me to play ducks and drakes with....
"So much for Alice, Tray—your sweet mistress and mine.
"But, then, there's Alice's papa—and that's another pair of sleeves, as we say in France.
"Ought one ever to play at make-believe with a full-grown man for any consideration whatever—even though he be a parson, and a possible father-in-law? There's a case of conscience for you!
"When I ask him for his daughter, as I must, and he asks me for my profession of faith, as he will, what can I tell him? The truth?
"But, then, what will he say? What allowances will he make for a poor little weak-kneed, well-meaning waif of a painter-fellow like me, whose only choice lay between Mr. Darwin and the Pope of Rome, and who has chosen once and forever—and that long ago—before he'd ever even heard of Mr. Darwin's name.
"Besides, why should he make allowances for me? I don't for him. I think no more of a parson than he does of a painter-fellow—and that's precious little, I'm afraid.
"What will he think of a man who says:
"'Look here! the God of your belief isn't mine and never will be—but I love your daughter, and she loves me, and I'm the only man to make her happy!'
"He's no Jephthah; he's made of flesh and blood, although he's a parson—and loves his daughter as much as Shylock loved his.
"Tell me, Tray—thou that livest among parsons—what man, not being a parson himself, can guess how a parson would think, an average parson, confronted by such a poser as that?
"Does he, dare he, can he ever think straight or simply on any subject as any other man thinks, hedged in as he is by so many limitations?
"He is as shrewd, vain, worldly, self-seeking, ambitious, jealous, censorious, and all the rest, as you or I, Tray—for all his Christian profession—and just as fond of his kith and kin!
"He is considered a gentleman—which perhaps you and I are not—unless we happen to behave as such; it is a condition of his noble calling. Perhaps it's in order to become a gentleman that he's become a parson! It's about as short a royal road as any to that enviable distinction—as short almost as her Majesty's commission, and much safer, and much less expensive—within reach of the sons of most fairly successful butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers.
"While still a boy he has bound himself irrevocably to certain beliefs, which he will be paid to preserve and preach and enforce through life, and act up to through thick and thin—at all events, in the eyes of others—even his nearest and dearest—even the wife of his bosom.
"They are his bread and butter, these beliefs—and a man mustn't quarrel with his bread and butter. But a parson must quarrel with those who don't believe as he tells them!
"'SO MUCH FOR ALICE, TRAY'"
"'SO MUCH FOR ALICE, TRAY'"
"Yet a few years' thinking and reading and experience of life, one would suppose, might possibly just shake his faith a little (just as though, instead of being parson, he had been tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief), and teach him that many of these beliefs are simply childish—and some of them very wicked indeed—and most immoral.
"It is very wicked and most immoral to believe, or affect to believe, and tell others to believe, that the unseen, unspeakable, unthinkable Immensity we're all part and parcel of, source of eternal, infinite, indestructible life and light and might, is a kind of wrathful, glorified, and self-glorifying ogre in human shape, with human passions, and most inhuman hates—who suddenly made us out of nothing, one fine day—just for a freak—and made us so badly that we fell the next—and turned us adrift the day after—damned us from the very beginning—ab ovo—ab ovo usque ad malum—ha, ha!—and ever since! never gave us a chance!
"All-merciful Father, indeed! Why, the Prince of Darkness was an angel in comparison (and a gentleman into the bargain).
"Just think of it, Tray—a finger in every little paltry pie—an eye and an ear at every key-hole, even that of the larder, to catch us tripping, and find out if we're praising loud enough, or grovelling low enough, or fasting hard enough—poor god-forsaken worms!
"And if we're naughty and disobedient, everlasting torment for us; torture of so hideous a kind that we wouldn't inflict it on the basest criminal, not for one single moment!
"Or else, if we're good and do as we are bid, an eternity of bliss so futile, so idle, and so tame that we couldn't stand it for a week, but for thinking of its one horrible alternative, and of our poor brother for ever and ever roasting away, and howling for the drop of water he never gets.
"Everlasting flame, or everlasting dishonor—nothing between!
"Isn't it ludicrous as well as pitiful—a thing to make one snigger through one's tears? Isn't it a grievous sin to believe in such things as these, and go about teaching and preaching them, and being paid for it—a sin to be heavily chastised, and a shame? What a legacy!
"They were shocking bad artists, those conceited, narrow-minded Jews, those poor old doting monks and priests and bigots of the grewsome, dark age of faith! They couldn't draw a bit—no perspective, no chiaro-oscuro; and it's a woful image they managed to evolve for us out of the depths of their fathomless ignorance, in their zeal to keep us off all the forbidden fruit we're all so fond of, because we were built like that! And by whom? By our Maker, I suppose (who also made the forbidden fruit, and made it very nice—and put it so conveniently for you and me to see and smell and reach, Tray—and sometimes even pick, alas!).
"And even at that it's a failure. Only the very foolish little birds are frightened into good behavior. The naughty ones laugh and wink at each other, and pull out its hair and beard when nobody's looking, and build their nests out of the straw it's stuffed with (the naughty little birds in black, especially), and pick up what they want under its very nose, and thrive uncommonly well; and the good ones fly away out of sight; and some day, perhaps, find a home in some happy, useful father-land far away, where the Father isn't a bit like this. Who knows?
"And I'm one of the good little birds, Tray—at least, I hope so. And that unknown Father lives in me whether I will or no, and I love Him whether He be or not, just because I can't help it, and with the best and bravest love that can be—the perfect love that believeth no evil, and seeketh no reward, and casteth out fear. For I'm His father as much as He's mine, since I've conceived the thought of Him after my own fashion!
"And He lives in you too, Tray—you and all your kind. Yes, good dog, you king of beasts, I see it in your eyes....
"Ah, bon Dieu Père, le Dieu des bonnes gens! Oh! if we only knew for certain, Tray! what martyrdom would we not endure, you and I, with a happy smile and a grateful heart—for sheer love of such a father! How little should we care for the things of this earth!
"But the poor parson?
"He must willy-nilly go on believing, or affecting to believe, just as he is told, word for word, or else good-bye to his wife and children's bread and butter, his own preferment, perhaps even his very gentility—that gentility of which his Master thought so little, and he and his are apt to think so much—with possibly the Archbishopric of Canterbury at the end of it, the bâton de maréchal that lies in every clerical knapsack.
"What a temptation! one is but human!
"So how can he be honest without believing certain things, to believe which (without shame) one must be as simple as a little child; as, by-the-way, he is so cleverly told to be in these matters, and so cleverly tells us—and so seldom is himself in any other matter whatever—his own interests, other people's affairs, the world, the flesh, and the devil! And that's clever of him too....
"And if he chooses to be as simple as a little child, why shouldn't I treat him as a little child, for his own good, and fool him to the top of his little bent for his dear daughter's sake, that I may make her happy, and thereby him too?
"And if he's not quite so simple as all that, and makes artful little compromises with his conscience—for a good purpose, of course—why shouldn't I make artful little compromises with mine, and for a better purpose still, and try to get what I want in the way he does? I want to marry his daughter far worse than he can ever want to live in a palace, and ride in a carriage and pair with a mitre on the panels.
"If he cheats, why shouldn't I cheat too?
"If he cheats, he cheats everybody all round—the wide, wide world, and something wider and higher still that can't be measured, something in himself. I only cheat him!
"If he cheats, he cheats for the sake of very worldly things indeed—tithes, honors, influence, power, authority, social consideration and respect—not to speak of bread and butter! I only cheat for the love of a lady fair—and cheating for cheating, I like my cheating best.
"So, whether he cheats or not, I'll—
"Confound it! what would old Taffy do in such a case, I wonder?...
"Oh, bother! it's no good wondering what old Taffy would do.
"Taffy never wants to marry anybody's daughter; he doesn't even want to paint her! He only wants to paint his beastly ragamuffins and thieves and drunkards, and be left alone.
"Besides, Taffy's as simple as a little child himself, and couldn't fool any one, and wouldn't if he could—not even a parson. But if any one tries to fool him, my eyes! don't he cut up rough, and call names, and kick up a shindy, and even knock people down! That's the worst of fellows like Taffy. They're too good for this world and too solemn. They're impossible, and lack all sense of humor. In point of fact, Taffy's a gentleman—poor fellow! et puis voilà!
"I'm not simple—worse luck; and I can't knock people down—I only wish I could! I can only paint them! and not even that 'as they really are!' ... Good old Taffy!...
"Faint heart never won fair lady!
"Oh, happy, happy thought—I'll be brave and win!
"I can't knock people down, or do doughty deeds, but I'll be brave in my own little way—the only way I can....
"I'll simply lie through thick and thin—I must—I will—nobody need ever be a bit the wiser! I can do more good by lying than by telling the truth, and make more deserving people happy, including myself and the sweetest girl alive—the end shall justify the means: that's my excuse, my only excuse! and this lie of mine is on so stupendous a scale that it will have to last me for life. It's my only one, but its name is Lion! and I'll never tell another as long as I live.
"And now that I know what temptation really is, I'll never think any harm of any parson any more ... never, never, never!"
So the little man went on, as if he knew all about it, had found it all out for himself, and nobody else had ever found it out before! and I am not responsible for his ways of thinking (which are not necessarily my own).
It must be remembered, in extenuation, that he was very young, and not very wise: no philosopher, no scholar—just a painter of lovely pictures; only that and nothing more. Also, that he was reading Mr. Darwin's immortal book for the third time, and it was a little too strong for him; also, that all this happened in the early sixties, long ere Religion had made up her mind to meet Science half-way, and hobnob and kiss and be friends. Alas! before such a lying down of the lion and the lamb can ever come to pass, Religion will have to perform a larger share of the journey than half, I fear!
Then, still carried away by the flood of his own eloquence (for he had never had such an innings as this, no such a listener), he again apostrophized the dog Tray, who had been growing somewhat inattentive (like the reader, perhaps), in language more beautiful than ever:
"Oh, to be like you, Tray—and secrete love and good-will from morn till night, from night till morning—like saliva, without effort! with never a moment's cessation of flow, even in disgrace and humiliation! How much better to love than to be loved—to love as you do, my Tray—so warmly, so easily, so unremittingly—to forgive all wrongs and neglect and injustice so quickly and so well—and forget a kindness never! Lucky dog that you are!
"What do you think of those lines, Tray? I love them, because my mother taught them to me when I was about your age—six years old, or seven! and before the bard who wrote them had fallen; like Lucifer, son of the morning! Have you ever heard of Lord Byron, Tray? He too, like Ulysses, loved a dog, and many people think that's about the best there is to be said of him nowadays! Poor Humpty Dumpty! Such a swell as he once was! 'Not all the king's horses, nor all the—'"
Here Tray jumped up suddenly and bolted—he saw some one else he was fond of, and ran to meet him. It was the vicar, coming out of his vicarage.
A very nice-looking vicar—fresh, clean, alert, well tanned by sun and wind and weather—a youngish vicar still; tall, stout, gentlemanlike, shrewd, kindly, wordly, a trifle pompous, and authoritative more than a trifle; not much given to abstract speculation, and thinking fifty times more of any sporting and orthodox young country squire, well-inched and well-acred (and well-whiskered), than of all the painters in Christendom.
"'When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war,'" thought Little Billee; and he felt a little uncomfortable. Alice's father had never loomed so big and impressive before, or so distressingly nice to look at.
"Welcome, my Apelles, to your ain countree, which is growing quite proud of you, I declare! Young Lord Archie Waring was saying only last night that he wished he had half your talent! He's crazed about painting, you know, and actually wants to be a painter himself! The poor dear old marquis is quite sore about it!"
With this happy exordium the parson stopped and shook hands; and they both stood for a while, looking seaward. The parson said the usual things about the sea—its blueness; its grayness; its greenness; its beauty; its sadness; its treachery.
"Who indeed!" answered Little Billee, quite agreeing. "I vote we don't, at all events." So they turned inland.
The parson said the usual things about the land (from the country-gentleman's point of view), and the talk began to flow quite pleasantly, with quoting of the usual poets, and capping of quotations in the usual way—for they had known each other many years, both here and in London. Indeed, the vicar had once been Little Billee's tutor.
And thus, amicably, they entered a small wooded hollow. Then the vicar, turning of a sudden his full blue gaze on the painter, asked, sternly:
"What book's that you've got in your hand, Willie?"
"A—a—it's the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. I'm very f-f-fond of it. I'm reading it for the third time.... It's very g-g-good. It accounts for things, you know."
Then, after a pause, and still more sternly:
"What place of worship do you most attend in London—especially of an evening, William?"
Then stammered Little Billee, all self-control forsaking him:
"I d-d-don't attend any place of worship at all, morning, afternoon, or evening. I've long given up going to church altogether. I can only be frank with you; I'll tell you why...."
And as they walked along the talk drifted on to very momentous subjects indeed, and led, unfortunately, to a serious falling out—for which probably both were to blame—and closed in a distressful way at the other end of the little wooded hollow—a way most sudden and unexpected, and quite grievous to relate. When they emerged into the open the parson was quite white, and the painter crimson.
"Sir," said the parson, squaring himself up to more than his full height and breadth and dignity, his face big with righteous wrath, his voice full of strong menace—"sir, you're—you're a—you're a thief, sir, a thief! You're trying to rob me of my Saviour! Never you dare to darken my door-step again!"
"Sir," said Little Billee, with a bow, "if it comes to calling names, you're—you're a—no; you're Alice's father; and whatever else you are besides, I'm another for trying to be honest with a parson; so good-morning to you."
And each walked off in an opposite direction, stiff as pokers; and Tray stood between, looking first at one receding figure, then at the other, disconsolate.
"'YOU'RE A THIEF, SIR!'"
"'YOU'RE A THIEF, SIR!'"
And thus Little Billee found out that he could no more lie than he could fly. And so he did not marry sweet Alice after all, and no doubt it was ordered for her good and his. But there was tribulation for many days in the house of Bagot, and for many months in one tender, pure, and pious bosom.
And the best and the worst of it all is that, not very many years after, the good vicar—more fortunate than most clergymen who dabble in stocks and shares—grew suddenly very rich through a lucky speculation in Irish beer, and suddenly, also, took to thinking seriously about things (as a man of business should)—more seriously than he had ever thought before. So at least the story goes in North Devon, and it is not so new as to be incredible. Little doubts grew into big ones—big doubts resolved themselves into downright negations. He quarrelled with his bishop; he quarrelled with his dean; he even quarrelled with his "poor dear old marquis," who died before there was time to make it up again. And finally he felt it his duty, in conscience, to secede from a Church which had become too narrow to hold him, and took himself and his belongings to London, where at least he could breathe. But there he fell into a great disquiet, for the long habit of feeling himself always en évidence—of being looked up to and listened to without contradiction; of exercising influence and authority in spiritual matters (and even temporal); of impressing women, especially, with his commanding presence, his fine sonorous voice, his lofty brow, so serious and smooth, his soft, big, waving hands, which soon lost their country tan—all this had grown as a second nature to him, the breath of his nostrils, a necessity of his life. So he rose to be the most popular Unitarian preacher of his day, and pretty broad at that.
But his dear daughter Alice, she stuck to the old faith, and married a venerable High-Church archdeacon, who very cleverly clutched at and caught her and saved her for himself just as she stood shivering on the very brink of Rome; and they were neither happy nor unhappy together—un ménage bourgeois, ni beau ni laid, ni bon ni mauvais. And thus, alas! the bond of religious sympathy, that counts for so much in united families, no longer existed between father and daughter, and the heart's division divided them. Ce que c'est que de nous! ... The pity of it!
And so no more of sweet Alice with hair so brown.
BEHOLD our three musketeers of the brush once more reunited in Paris, famous, after long years.
In emulation of the good Dumas, we will call it "cinq ans après." It was a little more.
Taffy stands for Porthos and Athos rolled into one, since he is big and good-natured, and strong enough to "assommer un homme d'un coup de poing," and also stately and solemn, of aristocratic and romantic appearance, and not too fat—not too much ongbong-pwang, as the Laird called it—and also he does not dislike a bottle of wine, or even two, and looks as if he had a history.
The Laird, of course, is d'Artagnan, since he sells his pictures well, and by the time we are writing of has already become an Associate of the Royal Academy; like Quentin Durward, this d'Artagnan was a Scotsman:
And Little Billee, the dainty friend of duchesses, must stand for Aramis, I fear! It will not do to push the simile too far; besides, unlike the good Dumas, one has a conscience. One does not play ducks and drakes with historical facts, or tamper with historical personages. And if Athos, Porthos & Co. are not historical by this time, I should like to know who are!
Well, so are Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee—tout ce qu'il y a de plus historiques!
Our three friends, well groomed, frock-coated, shirt-collared within an inch of their lives, duly scarfed and scarf-pinned, chimney-pot-hatted, and most beautifully trousered, and balmorally booted, or neatly spatted (or whatever was most correct at the time), are breakfasting together on coffee, rolls, and butter at a little round table in the huge court-yard of an immense caravanserai, paved with asphalt, and covered in at the top with a glazed roof that admits the sun and keeps out the rain—and the air.
A magnificent old man as big as Taffy, in black velvet coat and breeches and black silk stockings, and a large gold chain round his neck and chest, looks down like Jove from a broad flight of marble steps—as though to welcome the coming guests, who arrive in cabs and railway omnibuses through a huge archway on the boulevard, or to speed those who part through a lesser archway opening on to a side street.
"Bon voyage, messieurs et dames!"
At countless other little tables other voyagers are breakfasting or ordering breakfast; or, having breakfasted, are smoking and chatting and looking about. It is a babel of tongues—the cheerfulest, busiest, merriest scene in the world, apparently the costly place of rendezvous for all wealthy Europe and America; an atmosphere of bank-notes and gold.
Already Taffy has recognized (and been recognized by) half a dozen old fellow-Crimeans, of unmistakable military aspect like himself; and three canny Scotsmen have discreetly greeted the Laird; and as for Little Billee, he is constantly jumping up from his breakfast and running to this table or that, drawn by some irresistible British smile of surprised and delighted female recognition: "What, you here? How nice! Come over to hear la Svengali, I suppose."
At the top of the marble steps is a long terrace, with seats and people sitting, from which tall glazed doors, elaborately carved and gilded, give access to luxurious drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, reading-rooms, lavatories, postal and telegraph offices; and all round and about are huge square green boxes, out of which grow tropical and exotic evergreens all the year round—with beautiful names that I have forgotten. And leaning against these boxes are placards announcing what theatrical or musical entertainments will take place in Paris that day or night; and the biggest of these placards (and the most fantastically decorated) informs the cosmopolite world that Madame Svengali intends to make her first appearance in Paris that very evening, at nine punctually, in the Cirque des Bashibazoucks, Rue St. Honoré!
"AN ATMOSPHERE OF BANK-NOTES AND GOLD"
"AN ATMOSPHERE OF BANK-NOTES AND GOLD"
Our friends had only arrived the previous night, but they had managed to secure stalls a week beforehand. No places were any longer to be got for love or money. Many people had come to Paris on purpose to hear la Svengali—many famous musicians from England and everywhere else—but they would have to wait many days.
The fame of her was like a rolling snowball that had been rolling all over Europe for the last two years—wherever there was snow to be picked up in the shape of golden ducats.
Their breakfast over, Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee, cigar in mouth, arm in arm, the huge Taffy in the middle (comme autrefois), crossed the sunshiny boulevard into the shade, and went down the Rue de la Paix, through the Place Vendôme and the Rue Castiglione to the Rue de Rivoli—quite leisurely, and with a tender midriff-warming sensation of freedom and delight at almost every step.
Arrived at the corner pastry-cook's, they finished the stumps of their cigars as they looked at the well-remembered show in the window; then they went in and had, Taffy a Madeleine, the Laird a baba, and Little Billee a Savarin—and each, I regret to say, a liqueur-glass of rhum de la Jamaïque.
After this they sauntered through the Tuileries Gardens, and by the quay to their favorite Pont des Arts, and looked up and down the river—comme autrefois!
It is an enchanting prospect at any time and under any circumstances; but on a beautiful morning in mid-October, when you haven't seen it for five years, and are still young! and almost every stock and stone that meets your eye, every sound, every scent, has some sweet and subtle reminder for you—
Let the reader have no fear. I will not attempt to describe it. I shouldn't know where to begin (nor when to leave off!).
Not but what many changes had been wrought; many old landmarks were missing. And among them, as they found out a few minutes later, and much to their chagrin, the good old Morgue!
They inquired of a gardien de la paix, who told them that a new Morgue—"une bien jolie Morgue, ma foi!"—and much more commodious and comfortable than the old one, had been built beyond Notre Dame, a little to the right.
"Messieurs devraient voir ça—on y est très bien!"
But Notre Dame herself was still there, and la Sainte Chapelle, and Le Pont Neuf, and the equestrian statue of Henri IV. C'est toujours ça!
And as they gazed and gazed, each framed unto himself, mentally, a little picture of the Thames they had just left—and thought of Waterloo Bridge, and St. Paul's, and London—but felt no homesickness whatever, no desire to go back!
And looking down the river westward there was but little change.
On the left-hand side the terraces and garden of the Hôtel de la Rochemartel (the sculptured entrance of which was in the Rue de Lille) still overtopped the neighboring houses and shaded the quay with tall trees, whose lightly falling leaves yellowed the pavement for at least a hundred yards of frontage—or backage, rather; for this was but the rear of that stately palace.
"A LITTLE PICTURE OF THE THAMES"
"A LITTLE PICTURE OF THE THAMES"
"I wonder if l'Zouzou has come into his dukedom yet?" said Taffy.
And Taffy the realist, Taffy the modern of moderns, also said many beautiful things about old historical French dukedoms; which, in spite of their plentifulness, were so much more picturesque than English ones, and constituted a far more poetical and romantic link with the past; partly on account of their beautiful, high-sounding names!
"Amaury de Brissac de Roncesvaulx de la Rochemartel-Boisségur was a generous mouthful! Why, the very sound of it is redolent of the twelfth century! Not even Howard of Norfolk can beat that!"
For Taffy was getting sick of "this ghastly thin-faced time of ours," as he sadly called it (quoting from a strange and very beautiful poem called "Faustine," which had just appeared in the Spectator—and which our three enthusiasts already knew by heart), and beginning to love all things that were old and regal and rotten and forgotten and of bad repute, and to long to paint them just as they really were.
"Ah! they managed these things better in France, especially in the twelfth century, and even the thirteenth!" said the Laird. "Still, Howard of Norfolk isn't bad at a pinch—fote de myoo!" he continued, winking at Little Billee. And they promised themselves that they would leave cards on Zouzou, and, if he wasn't a duke, invite him to dinner; and also Dodor, if they could manage to find him.
Then along the quay and up the Rue de Seine, and by well-remembered little mystic ways to the old studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts.
Here they found many changes: A row of new houses on the north side, by Baron Haussmann—the well-named; a boulevard was being constructed right through the place; but the old house had been respected, and, looking up, they saw the big north window of their good old abode blindless and blank and black but for a white placard in the middle of it with the words: "À louer. Un atelier, et une chambre à coucher."
They entered the court-yard through the little door in the porte cochère, and beheld Madame Vinard standing on the step of her loge, her arms akimbo, giving orders to her husband—who was sawing logs for firewood, as usual at that time of the year—and telling him he was the most helpless log of the lot.
She gave them one look, threw up her arms, and rushed at them, saying, "Ah, mon Dieu! les trois Angliches!"
And they could not have complained of any lack of warmth in her greeting, or in Monsieur Vinard's.
"Ah! mais quel bonheur de vous revoir! Et comme vous avez bonne mine, tous! Et Monsieur Litrebili, donc! il a grandi!" etc., etc. "Mais vous allez boire la goutte avant tout—vite, Vinard! Le ratafia de cassis que Monsieur Durien nous a envoyé la semaine dernière!"
And they were taken into the loge and made free of it—welcomed like prodigal sons; a fresh bottle of black-currant brandy was tapped, and did duty for the fatted calf. It was an ovation, and made quite a stir in the quartier.
Le Retour des trois Angliches—cinq ans après!
She told them all the news: about Bouchardy; Papelard; Jules Guinot, who was now in the Ministère de la Guerre; Barizel, who had given up the arts and gone into his father's business (umbrellas); Durien, who had married six months ago, and had a superb atelier in the Rue Taitbout, and was coining money; about her own family—Aglaë, who was going to be married to the son of the charbonnier at the corner of the Rue de la Canicule—"un bon mariage; bien solide!" Niniche, who was studying the piano at the Conservatoire, and had won the silver medal; Isidore, who, alas! had gone to the bad—"perdu par les femmes! un si joli garçon, vous concevez! ça ne lui a pas porté bonheur, par exemple!" And yet she was proud! and said his father would never have had the pluck!
"À dix-huit ans, pensez donc!
"And that good Monsieur Carrel; he is dead, you know! Ah, messieurs savaient ça? Yes, he died at Dieppe, his natal town, during the winter, from the consequences of an indigestion—que voulez-vous! He always had the stomach so feeble!... Ah! the beautiful interment, messieurs! Five thousand people, in spite of the rain! Car il pleuvait averse! And M. le Maire and his adjunct walking behind the hearse, and the gendarmerie and the douaniers, and a bataillon of the douzième chasseurs-à-pied, with their music, and all the sapper-pumpers, en grande tenue with their beautiful brass helmets! All the town was there, following: so there was nobody left to see the procession go by! q'c'était beau! Mon Dieu, q'c'était beau! c'que j'ai pleuré, d'voir ça! n'est-ce-pas, Vinard?"
"Dame, oui, ma biche! j'crois ben! It might have been Monsieur le Maire himself that one was interring in person!"
"Ah, ça! voyons, Vinard; thou'rt not going to compare the Maire of Dieppe to a painter like Monsieur Carrel?"
"Certainly not, ma biche! But still, M. Carrel was a great man all the same, in his way. Besides, I wasn't there—nor thou either, as to that!"
"Mon Dieu! comme il est idiot, ce Vinard—of a stupidity to cut with a knife! Why, thou might'st almost be a Mayor thyself, sacred imbecile that thou art!"
And an animated discussion arose between husband and wife as to the respective merits of a country mayor on one side and a famous painter and member of the Institute on the other, during which les trois Angliches were left out in the cold. When Madame Vinard had sufficiently routed her husband, which did not take very long, she turned to them again, and told them that she had started a magasin de bric-à-brac, "vous verres ça!"
Yes, the studio had been to let for three months. Would they like to see it? Here were the keys. They would, of course, prefer to see it by themselves, alone; "je comprends ça! et vous verrez ce que vous verrez!" Then they must come and drink once more again the drop, and inspect her magasin de bric-à-brac.
So they went up, all three, and let themselves into the old place where they had been so happy—and one of them for a while so miserable!
It was changed indeed.
Bare of all furniture, for one thing; shabby and unswept, with a pathetic air of dilapidation, spoliation, desecration, and a musty, shut-up smell; the window so dirty you could hardly see the new houses opposite; the floor a disgrace!
All over the walls were caricatures in charcoal and white chalk, with more or less incomprehensible legends; very vulgar and trivial and coarse, some of them, and pointless for trois Angliches.
"'AH! THE BEAUTIFUL INTERMENT, MESSIEURS!'"
"'AH! THE BEAUTIFUL INTERMENT, MESSIEURS!'"
But among these (touching to relate) they found, under a square of plate-glass that had been fixed on the wall by means of an oak frame, Little Billee's old black-and-white-and-red chalk sketch of Trilby's left foot, as fresh as if it had been done only yesterday! Over it was written: "Souvenir de la Grande Trilby, par W. B. (Litrebili)." And beneath, carefully engrossed on imperishable parchment, and pasted on the glass, the following stanzas: