A Chair on the Boulevard Part 33

And, on the honour of an historian, he brought one! Before they left she had given a commission for his portrait at a thousand francs, and purchased two landscapes, for which a thousand francs more would be paid on the morrow. When Sanquereau, and Lajeunie, and Tricotrin, and Pitou arrived, expecting the worst, they were amazed to discover the Children waltzing round the attic to the music of their own voices.

What _hurras_ rang out when the explanation was forthcoming; what loans were promised to the guests, and what a gay quadrille was danced!

It was not until the last figure had concluded that Julien and Juliette recognised that, although they would be wealthy in the morning, they were still penniless that night.

"Helas! but we have no supper after all," groaned Julien.

"Pardon, it is here, monsieur!" shouted madame Cochard, who entered behind a kingly feast. "_Comment_, shall the artist honoured by madame la comtesse de Grand Ecusson have no supper? Pot-au-feu, monsieur; leg of mutton, monsieur; little tarts, monsieur; dessert, monsieur; and for each person a bottle of good wine!"

And the justice that was done to it, and the laughter that pealed under the slates! The Children didn't forget that it was all due to the dog.

Juliette raised her gla.s.s radiantly.

"Gentlemen," she cried, "I ask you to drink to the Fairy Poodle!"

LITTLE-FLOWER-OF-THE-WOOD

Janiaud used to lie abed all day, and drink absinthe all night. When he contrived to write his poetry is a mystery. But he did write it, and he might have written other things, too, if he had had the will. It was often said that his paramount duty was to publish a history of modern Paris, for the man was an encyclopaedia of unsuspected facts. Since he can never publish it now, however, I am free to tell the story of the Cafe du Bon Vieux Temps as he told it to an English editor and me one night on the terrace of the cafe itself. It befell thus:

When we entered that shabby little Montmartre restaurant, Janiaud chanced to be seated, at a table in a corner, sipping his favourite stimulant. He was deplorably dirty and suggested a scarecrow, and the English editor looked nervous when I offered an introduction. Still, Janiaud was Janiaud. The offer was accepted, and Janiaud discoursed in his native tongue. At midnight the Editor ordered supper. Being unfamiliar with the Cafe du Bon Vieux Temps in those days, I said that I would drink beer. Janiaud smiled sardonically, and the waiter surprised us with the information that beer could not be supplied.

"What?"

"After midnight, nothing but champagne," he answered.

"Really? Well, let us go somewhere else," I proposed.

But the Editor would not hear of that. He had a princely soul, and, besides, he was "doing Paris."

"All the same, what does it mean?" he inquired of Janiaud.

Janiaud blew smoke rings. "It is the rule. During the evening the bock-drinker is welcomed here as elsewhere; but at midnight--well, you will see what you will see!"

And we saw very soon. The bourgeoisie of Montmartre had straggled out while we talked, and in a little while the restaurant was crowded with a rackety crew who had driven up in cabs. Everybody but ourselves was in evening-dress. Where the coppers had been counted carefully, gold was scattered. A s.p.a.ce was cleared for dancing, and mademoiselle Nan Joliquette obliged the company with her latest comic song.

The Editor was interested. "It is a queer change, though! Has it always been like this?"

"Ask Janiaud," I said; _I_ don't know."

"Oh, not at all," replied Janiaud; "no, indeed, it was not always like this! It used to be as quiet at midnight as at any other hour. But it became celebrated as a supper-place; and now it is quite the thing for the ardent spirits, with money, to come and kick up their heels here until five in the morning."

"Curious, how such customs originate," remarked the Editor. "Here we have a restaurant which is out of the way, which is the reverse of luxurious, and which, for all that, seems to be a gold mine to the proprietor. Look at him! Look at his white waistcoat and his ma.s.sive watch-chain, his air of prosperity."

"How did he come to rake it in like this, Janiaud--you know everything?" I said.

The poet stroked his beard, and glanced at his empty gla.s.s. The Editor raised a bottle.

"I cannot talk on Clicquot," demurred Janiaud. "If you insist, I will take another absinthe--they will allow it, in the circ.u.mstances. Sst, Adolphe!" The waiter whisked over to us. "Monsieur pays for champagne, but I prefer absinthe. There is no law against that, hein?"

Adolphe smiled tolerantly.

"Shall we sit outside?" suggested the Editor. "What do you think? It's getting rather riotous in here, isn't it?"

So we moved on to the terrace, and waited while Janiaud prepared his poison.

"It is a coincidence that you have asked me for the history of the Bon Vieux Temps tonight," he began, after a gulp; "if you had asked for it two days earlier, the climax would have been missing. The story completed itself yesterday, and I happened to be here and saw the end.

"Listen: Dupont--the proprietor whom monsieur has just admired--used to be chef to a family on the boulevard Haussmann. He had a very fair salary, and probably he would have remained in the situation till now but for the fact that he fell in love with the parlourmaid. She was a sprightly little flirt, with ambitions, and she accepted him only on condition that they should withdraw from domestic service and start a business of their own. Dupont was of a cautious temperament; he would have preferred that they should jog along with some family in the capacities of chef and housekeeper. Still, he consented; and, with what they had saved between them, they took over this little restaurant-- where monsieur the Editor has treated me with such regal magnificence.

It was not they who christened it--it was called the Cafe du Bon Vieux Temps already; how it obtained its name is also very interesting, but I have always avoided digressions in my work--that is one of the first principles of the literary art."

He swallowed some more absinthe.

"They took the establishment over, and they conducted it on the lines of their predecessor--they provided a dejeuner at one franc fifty, and a dinner at two francs. These are side-shows of the Bon Vieux Temps to-day, but, in the period of which I speak, they were all that it had to say for itself--they were its foundation-stone, and its cupola. When I had two francs to spare, I used to dine here myself.

"Well, the profits were not dazzling. And after marriage the little parlourmaid developed extravagant tastes. She had a pa.s.sion for theatres. I, Janiaud, have nothing to say against theatres, excepting that the managers have never put on my dramas, but in the wife of a struggling restaurateur a craze for playgoing is not to be encouraged.

Monsieur will agree? Also, madame had a fondness for dress. She did little behind the counter but display new ribbons and trinkets. She was very stupid at giving change--and always made the mistake on the wrong side for Dupont. At last he had to employ a cousin of his own as dame- de-comptoir. The expenses had increased, and the returns remained the same. In fine, Dupont was in difficulties; the Bon Vieux Temps was on its last legs.

"Listen: There was at that time a dancer called 'Little-Flower-of-the- Wood'; she was very chic, very popular. She had her appartement in the avenue Wagram, she drove to the stage-doors in her coupe, her photographs were sold like confetti at a carnival. Well, one afternoon, when Dupont's reflections were oscillating between the bankruptcy court and the Morgue, he was stupefied to receive a message from her--she bade him reserve a table for herself and some friends for supper that night!

"Dupont could scarcely credit his ears. He told his wife that a practical joker must be larking with him. He declared that he would take no notice of the message, that he was not such an a.s.s to be duped by it. Finally, he proposed to telegraph to Little-Flower-of-the-Wood, inquiring if it was genuine.

"Monsieur, as an editor, will have observed that a woman who is incapable in the daily affairs of life, may reveal astounding force in an emergency? It was so in this case. Madame put her foot down; she showed unsuspected commercial apt.i.tude. She firmly forbade Dupont to do anything of the sort!

"'What?' she exclaimed. 'You will telegraph to her, inquiring? Never in this life! You might as well advise her frankly not to come. What would such a question mean? That you do not think the place is good enough for her! Well, if _you_ do not think so, neither will _she_-- she will decide that she had a foolish impulse and stay away!

"'Mon Dieu! do you dream that a woman accustomed to the Cafe de Paris would choose to sup in an obscure little restaurant like ours?' said Dupont, fuming. 'Do you dream that I am going to buy partridges, and peaches, and wines, and heaven knows what other delicacies, in the dark? Do you dream that I am going to ruin myself while every instinct in me protests? It would be the act of a madman!'

"'My little cabbage,' returned madame, 'we are so near to ruin as we are, that a step nearer is of small importance. If Little-Flower-of- the-Wood should come, it might be the turning-point in our fortunes-- people would hear of it, the Bon Vieux Temps might become renowned.

Yes, we shall buy partridges, and peaches--and bonbons, and flowers also, and we shall hire a piano! And if our good angel should indeed send her to us, I swear she shall pa.s.s as pleasant an evening as if she had gone to Maxim's or the Abbaye!

"Bien! She convinced him. For the rest of the day the place was in a state of frenzy. Never before had such a repast been seen in its kitchen, never before had he cooked with such loving care, even when he had been preparing a dinner of ceremony on the boulevard Haussmann.

Madame herself ran out to arrange for the piano. The floor was swept.

The waiter was put into a clean shirt. Dupont shed tears of excitement in his saucepans.

"He served the two-franc dinner that evening with eyes that watched nothing but the clock. All his consciousness now was absorbed by the question whether the dancer would come or not. The dinner pa.s.sed somehow--it is to be a.s.sumed that the customers grumbled, but in his suspense Dupont regarded them with indifference. The hours crept by. It was a quarter to twelve--twelve o'clock. He trembled behind the counter as if with ague. Now it was time that she was here! His face was blanched, his teeth chattered in his head. What if he had been hoaxed after all? Half-past twelve! The sweat ran down him. Terror gripped his heart. A vision of all the partridges wasted convulsed his soul. Hark! a carriage stopped. He tottered forward. The door opened-- she had come!

"Women are strange. Little-Flower-of-the-Wood, who yawned her pretty head off at Armenonville, was enraptured with the Bon Vieux Temps. The rest of the party took their tone from her, and everything was p.r.o.nounced 'fun,' the coa.r.s.e linen, the dirty ceiling, the admiring stares of the bock-drinkers. The lady herself declared that she had 'never enjoyed a supper so much in her life,' and the waiter--it was not Adolphe then--was dumfounded by a louis tip.

"Figure yourself the exultation of madame! 'Ah,' she chuckled, when they shut up shop at sunrise, 'what did I tell you, my little cabbage?'

Monsieur, as an editor, will have observed that a woman who reveals astounding force in an emergency may triumph pettily when the emergency is over?

"'It remains to be seen whether they will come any more, however,' said Dupont. 'Let us go to bed. Mon Dieu, how sleepy I am!' It was the first occasion that the Bon Vieux Temps had been open after two o'clock in the morning.

"It was the first occasion, and for some days they feared it might be the last. But no, the dancer came again! A few eccentrics who came with her flattered themselves on having made a 'discovery.' They boasted of it. Gradually the name of the Bon Vieux Temps became known. By the time that Little-Flower-of-the-Wood had had enough, there was a supper clientele without her. Folly is infectious, and in Paris there are always people catching a fresh craze. Dupont began to put up his prices, and levied a charge on the waiter for the privilege of waiting at supper. The rest of the history is more grave ... _Comment_, monsieur? Since you insist--again an absinthe!"

Janiaud paused, and ran his dirty fingers through his hair.

"This man can talk!" said the Editor, in an undertone.