A Chair on the Boulevard Part 10

"It was evidently the good kind fairies that led me to the place Dancourt. I would ask you to step over the way and have a bock, but my finances forbid."

"Your finances need cause no drought--Adolphe will be paymaster!"

declared Tricotrin gaily, shouldering his ma.n.u.script. "Come, let us adjourn and give the Reveillon its due!"

Pet.i.tpas suppressed a moan. "By all means," he a.s.sented; "I was about to propose it myself. I am a real bohemian, you know, and think nothing of ordering several bocks at once."

"Are you sure he is all you say?" whispered Pitou to Tricotrin, with misgiving.

"A shade embarra.s.sed, that is all," p.r.o.nounced the poet. And then, as the trio moved arm-in-arm toward the cafe, a second solitary figure emerged from the obscurity of the square.

"Bless my soul!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tricotrin; "am I mistaken, or--Look, look, Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the painter, whose plight I mentioned to you!"

"Yet another?" gasped Pet.i.tpas, panic-stricken.

"Sst! He, Goujaud! Come here, you vagrant, and be entertaining!"

"Well met, you fellows!" sighed Goujaud. "Where are you off to?"

"We are going to give Miranda a drink," said the poet; "she is drier than ever. Let there be no strangers--my brother Adolphe, my brother Theodose! What is your secret woe, Theo? Your face is as long as this Spaniard's novel, Adolphe, have you a recipe in your pocket for the hump?"

"Perhaps monsieur Goujaud will join us in a gla.s.s of beer?" said Pet.i.tpas very coldly.

"There are more unlikely things than that!" affirmed the painter; and when the cafe was entered, he swallowed his bock like one who has a void to fill. "The fact is," he confided to the group, "I was about to celebrate the Reveillon on a bench. That insolent landlord of mine has kicked me out."

"And you will not get inside," said Tricotrin, "'not you, nor I, nor any other of your vagabond friends. So there!' I had the privilege of conversing with your concierge earlier in the evening."

"Ah, then, you know all about it. Well, now that I have run across you, you can give me a shakedown in your attic. Good business!"

"I discern only one drawback to the scheme," said Pitou; "we haven't any attic. It must be something in the air--all the landlords seem to have the same complaint."

"But if you decide in the bench's favour, after all, you may pillow your curls on Miranda," put in Tricotrin. "She would be exhilarating company for him, Adolphe, hein? What do you think?" He murmured aside, "Give him a dig in the ribs and say, 'You silly a.s.s, _I_ can fix you up all right!' That's the way we issue invitations in Montmartre."

The clerk's countenance was livid; his tongue stuck to his front teeth.

At last, wrenching the words out, he groaned, "If monsieur Goujaud will accept my hospitality, I shall be charmed!" He was not without a hope that his frigid bearing would beget a refusal.

"Ah, my dear old chap!" shouted Goujaud without an instant's hesitation, "consider it done!" And now there were to be three suppers, three beds, and three little breakfasts, distorting the account!

Pet.i.tpas sipped his bock faintly, affecting not to notice that his guests' gla.s.ses had been emptied. With all his soul he repented the impulse that had led to his predicament. Amid the throes of his mental arithmetic he recognised that he had been deceived in himself, that he had no abiding pa.s.sion for bohemia. How much more pleasing than to board and lodge this disreputable collection would have been the daily round of amus.e.m.e.nts that he had planned! Even now--he caught his breath--even now it was not too late; he might pay for the drinks and escape! Why shouldn't he run away?

"Gentlemen," cried Pet.i.tpas, "I shall go and fetch a cab for us all.

Make yourselves comfortable till I come back!"

When the cafe 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 CAFe 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 Cafe 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 habituee 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 circ.u.mstances are, in fact, somewhat unusual. I would mention, however, that the apartment is a s.p.a.cious 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 a.s.sure 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 c.r.a.pe 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 embarra.s.sment.

"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 a.s.sented. "To have lost one who was beloved--"

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