With Those Who Wait Part 11

The concierges and the servants began arranging chairs and camp stools around the furnace; the different tenants introduced themselves and their guests. Almost every one was still about when the signal was given, and this cellar where the electric lamps burned brightly soon took on the aspect of a drawing-room, in spite of all. One lone man, however, stood disconsolate, literally suffocating beneath a huge cavalry cape, hooked tight up to his throat. As the perspiration soon began rolling from his forehead, a friend seeking to put him at his ease, suggested he open up his cloak.

The gentleman addressed cast a glance over the a.s.sembled group, broadened out into a smile, and exclaimed--

"I can't. Only got my night shirt underneath."

The hilarity was general, and the conversation presently became bright and sparkling with humorous anecdotes.

The officers held their audience spellbound with fear and admiration; the women talked hospital and dress, dress and hospital, finally jesting about the latest restrictions. One lady told the story of a friend who engaged a maid, on her looks and without a reference, the which maid shortly became a menace because of her propensity for dropping and breaking china.

One day, drawn towards the pantry by the sound of a noise more terrible than any yet experienced, she found the girl staring at a whole pile of plates--ten or a dozen--which had slipped from her fingers and lay in thousands of pieces on the floor.

The lady became indignant and scolded.

"Ah, if Madame were at the front, she'd see worse than that!" was the consoling response.

"But we're not at the front, I'll have you understand, and what's more neither you nor I have ever been there, my girl."

"I beg Madame's pardon, but my last place was in a hospital at Verdun, as Madame will see when my papers arrive."

General laughter was cut short by the sound of two explosions.

"They're here. They've arrived. It will soon be over now," and like commentaries were added.

A servant popped the cork of a champagne bottle, and another pa.s.sed cakes and candied fruit.

An elderly man who wore a decoration, approached the officers.

"Gentlemen," said he, "excuse me for interrupting, but do any of you know the exact depth to which an aeroplane bomb can penetrate?"

The officers gave him a few details, which, however, did not seem to satisfy the old fellow. His anxiety became more and more visible.

"I wouldn't worry, sir, if I were you. There's absolutely no danger down here."

"Thank you for your a.s.surance, Messieurs," said he, "but I'm not in the least anxious about my personal safety. It's my drawings and my collection of porcelains that are causing me such concern. I thought once that I'd box them all up and bring them down here. But you never can tell what dampness or change of temperature might do to a water colour or a gouache. Oh! my poor Fragonards! My poor Bouchers!

Gentlemen, never, never collect water colours or porcelains! Take it from me!"

At that moment the bugle sounded--"All's well," and as we were preparing to mount the stairs, the old man accosted the officers anew, asking them for the t.i.tles of some books on artillery and fortification.

"That all depends to what use you wish to apply them."

"Ah, it's about protecting my collection. I simply must do something!

I can't send them to storage, they wouldn't be any safer there, and even if they were I'd die of anxiety so far away from my precious belongings."

"Good-nights" were said in the vestibule, and the gathering dispersed just as does any group of persons after a theatre or an ordinary reception. But once in the street, it was absolutely useless to even think of a taxi. People were pouring from every doorway, heads stuck out of every window.

"Where did they fall? Which way?"

In the total obscurity, the sound of feet all hurrying in the same direction, accompanied by shouts of recognition, even ripples of laughter, seemed strangely gruesome, as the caravan of curious hastened towards the scene of tragedy.

"No crowds allowed. Step lively," called the _sergeants-de-ville_, at their wits' end. "Better go back home, they might return. Step lively, I say!"

It happened thus the first few visits, but presently the situation became less humorous. One began to get accustomed to it. Then one commenced to dislike it and protest.

Seated by the studio fire, we were both plunged deep in our books.

"_Allons_!" exclaimed H. "Do you hear the _pompiers_? The Gothas again!"

We stiffened up in our chairs and listened. The trumpets sounded shrilly on the night air of our tranquil Parisian quarter.

"Right you are. That means down we go! They might have waited until I finished my chapter, hang them! There's no electricity in our cellar,"

and I cast aside my book in disgust.

Taking our coats and a steamer rug we prepared to descend. In the court-yard the clatter of feet resounded.

The cellar of our seventeenth century dwelling being extremely deep and solidly built, was at once commandeered as refuge for one hundred persons in case of bombardment, and we must needs share it with some ninety odd less fortunate neighbours.

"Hurry up there. Hurry up, I say," calls a sharp nasal voice.

That voice belonged to Monsieur Leddin, formerly a clock maker, but now of the _Service Auxiliare_, and on whom devolved the policing of our entire little group, simply because of his uniform.

His observations, however, have but little effect. People come straggling along, yawning from having been awakened in their first sleep, and almost all of them is hugging a bundle or parcel containing his most precious belongings.

It is invariably an explosion which finally livens their gait, and they hurry into the stairway. A slight jam is thus produced.

"No pushing there! Order!" cries another stentorian voice, belonging to Monsieur Vidalenc, the coal dealer.

"Here! here!" echo several high pitched trebles. "_Tres bien, tres bien_. Follow in line--what's the use of crowding?"

Monsieur Leddin makes another and still shriller effort, calling from above:

"Be calm now. Don't get excited."

"Who's excited?"

"You are!"

"Monsieur Leddin, you're about as fit to be a soldier as I to be an Archbishop," sneered the butcher's wife. "You'd do better to leave us alone and hold your peace."

General hilarity, followed by murmurs of approval from various other females, which completely silenced Monsieur Leddin, who never reopened his mouth during the entire evening, so that one could not tell whether he was nursing his offended dignity or hiding his absolute incompetence to a.s.sume authority.

Places were quickly found on two or three long wooden benches, and a few chairs provided for the purpose, some persons even spreading out blankets and camping on the floor.

The raiment displayed was the typical negligee of the Parisian working cla.s.s; a dark coloured woollen dressing gown, covered over with a shawl or a cape, all the attire showing evidence of having been hastily donned with no time to think of looking in the mirror.

An old lantern and a kerosene lamp but dimly lighted the groups which were shrouded in deep velvety shadows.

Presently a man, a man that I had never seen before, a man with a long emaciated face and dark pointed beard, rose in the background, holding a blanket draped about him by flattening his thin white hand against his breast. The whole scene seemed almost biblical, and instantly my mind evoked Rembrandt's masterpiece--the etching called 'The Hundred Florin Piece,' which depicts the crowds seated about the standing figure of our Saviour and listening to His divine words.