The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (15 page)

Whip up, stage-driver ! Sound, trumpet! Good old stage, roll on with all your speed, and carry off Little What's-His-Name with your three horses at a gallop. Carry him quickly to his native place, so that he may embrace his mother at his Uncle Baptiste's, and then turn his face toward Paris, to rejoin as soon as possible Eyssette (Jacques) in his room in the Latin Quarter.

CHAPTER XIV.

MY UNCLE BAPTISTE.

My Uncle Baptiste, my mother's brother, was a strange type of man. Neither kind nor unkind, and married early to a great grenadier of a v/oman, both thin and miserly, of whom he was afraid, this elderly child had but one passion in the world; the passion for coloring pictures. For some forty years he had lived surrounded by paint, paintbrushes, and paint-saucers, and spent his time coloring the pictures of illustrated papers. The house was full of old Ilhistrations, old Charivaris, old Magazins pittoresqiies, and old maps, all brightly painted. In his poor days, when my aunt refused him money to buy illustrated papers, my uncle had even taken to coloring books. It is an historical fact that I have held in my hand a Spanish grammar which my uncle had illuminated from one end to the other, the adjectives in blue, and the nouns in pink.

It was in the company of this old maniac and his ferocious wife that my mother had been forced to live for six months. The unfortunate woman spent all her days in her brother's room, striving to make herself useful to him. She wiped the brushes, and poured water into the saucers. The

saddest of all was that, since our ruin, my uncle Baptiste felt profound disdain for my father, and my poor mother was condemned, from morning till night to hear him say: " Eyssette is not serious-minded. Eyssette is not serious-minded." Ah, the old fool! And to see with what a sententious air of conviction he said that while he illuminated his Spanish grammar! Since then I have often in my life met with men who think themselves of great weight, and yet spend their time coloring Spanish grammars and finding fault with others for not being serious-minded.

I never knew until later all these details about my uncle and the dreary life my mother led with him; yet, as soon as I arrived at the house I understood that, whatever she said, my mother could not be happy. When I entered they had just sat down to table for dinner. Mme. Eyssette sprang up with joy as she saw me, and, as you may imagine, she hugged her Little What's-His-Name with all her might. Nevertheless, my poor mother looked embarrassed; she spoke little, always in a sweet low voice with a tremor in it, and looked down in her plate. It grieved me to see her in her scant black gown.

The reception I had from my uncle and aunt was very cold. My aunt asked me, with alarm, if I had dined. I hastened to say that I had, and my aunt breathed more freely; she had trembled a moment for her dinner, A pretty dinner ! — chickpeas and codfish.

My uncle Baptiste asked me if I were on a vaca-

tion. I replied that I had left the school, and was on my way to Paris to join my brother Jacques, who had found a good place for me. I invented this story to reassure my poor mother about my future, and also to appear serious-minded in my uncle's eyes.

My aunt opened her eyes when she heard that Little What 's-His-Name had a good place.

" Daniel," said she, " you must make your mother go to Paris. The poor dear woman is pining, so far away from her children ; and then, you understand, it is an expense for us to keep her, and your uncle cannot always be the milch-cow of the family."

"The fact is," said my uncle, with his mouth full, "that I am the milch-cow"

The expression milch-cow had enchanted him, and he repeated it several times with the same gravity.

The dinner lasted long, as with old people. My mother ate little, said a few words to me, and cast stolen glances at me ; my aunt was watching her.

" Look at your sister," said she to her husband; " the joy of seeing Daniel again takes her appetite away. Yesterday she took two pieces of bread; to-day, only one."

Ah, dear mother! how I should have liked to carry you off that evening; how I should have liked to snatch you away from that pitiless milch-cow and his wife; but alas! I was going myself at a venture, with just enough to pay my journey, and I knew that Jacques' room could not be big enough

to hold us all three. Still, if I could only have spoken to you, and kissed you at my ease ; but no, they never left us one moment alone. Immediately after dinner my uncle went back to his Spanish grammar, my aunt polished the silver, and both spied us out of the corners of their eyes. The hour came for me to go, without our being able to say anything to each other.

So it was that Little What 's-His-Name's heart was very full as he left his uncle's house ; and as he walked along alone in the shade of the broad avenue that leads to the station, he swore solemnly, two or three times, to behave henceforward like a man, and to think of nothing but rebuilding the hearth.

PART II. CHAPTER I.

MY INDIA-RUBBERS.

Even if I should live as long as my uncle Baptiste, who must now be as old as an old baobab tree in Central Africa, I shall never forget my first journey to Paris in a third-class carriage.

It was late in February, and still very cold. Outside, a gray sky, wind and sleet, bare hills, inundated meadows, and long rows of dead vines ; inside, drunken sailors singing, big peasants sleeping with their mouths open like dead fish, little old women with their baskets, children, nurses, all the paraphernalia of a third-class carriage, with its smell of pipe-smoke, brandy, sausage made with garlic, and mouldy straw. I think I am back there again.

On starting I had established myself in a corner by a window, so that I might see the sky; but after we had gone about five miles, a soldiers' hospital nurse took my seat, under pretext of being opposite his wife, and there was Little What 's-His-Name, too timid to complain, condemned to ride five hundred miles between this big, odious man, who smelt of flax-seed, and a great drum-major of a peasant woman, who snored all the time, with her head on her shoulder.

The journey lasted two days. I spent these two days in the same place, motionless between my two tormentors, my head rigid, and my teeth set. As I had neither money nor provisions, I ate nothing all the way. It is long to go two days without eating. It is true that I still had a two-franc piece, but I kept it carefully, lest when I should arrive in Paris I should not find Jacques at the station ; and, in spite of my hunger, I had the resolution not to spend any of it. The worst was that they were eating a great deal round me in the carriage. Under my legs there was a beast of a basket, very heavy, whence my neighbor, the hospital nurse, constantly drew sausages of various kinds, which he shared with his wife. The proximity of this basket made me very miserable, above all, the second day. However, it was not from hunger that I suffered most during that terrible journey. I had left Sarlande without shoes, having nothing on my feet except some little thin india-rubbers, that had done very well for me at the school, when I made my rounds in the dormitory. India-rubbers are very good things, but in winter, in a third-class carriage — O God! how cold I was ! It was enough to make me cry. At night, when everybody was asleep, I took my feet noiselessly in my hands, and held them for whole hours, trying to warm them. Ah, if Mme. Eyssette had seen me!

And yet, in spite of the hunger that tortured his stomach, in spite of the cruel cold that drew tears from him, Little What 's-His-Name was very

happy, and for nothing in the world would he have given up his seat, the half-seat he occupied between the peasant-woman and the hospital nurse. At the end of all these sufferings, there was Jacques, there was Paris.

In the night of the second day, toward three o'clock in the morning, I was waked with a start. The train had stopped; all the people in the carriage were astir.

I heard the hospital nurse say to his wife:

" Here we are."

"Where?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.

" At Paris, of course."

I rushed toward the door. There were no houses to be seen; nothing but bare country, a few gas jets, and here and there a great heap of coal on the ground; then, farther off, in the distance, a great red light, and a confused murmur, like the sound of the sea. A man went along, from door to door, with a little lantern, crying: " Paris! Paris! Tickets !" Involuntarily, I drew in my head in an impulse of terror. It was Paris.

Ah, great cruel city! what good reason Little What's-His-Name had to fear you!

Five minutes later we entered the station. Jacques had been there for an hour. I saw him a long way off, with his tall figure somewhat bent, and his long arms telegraphing me signs behind the grating. With a bound I was upon him.

*' Jacques ! my dear brother! "

" Ah, my dear boy ! "

And our two souls clasped each other with all the strength of our arms. Unfortunately, stations are not designed for these sweet embraces. There is a luggage-room, but there is no room for the outpourings of affection, no room for souls. The crowd jostled us and walked over us.

" Move on, move on !" cried the men of the octroi.

Jacques whispered to me: " Let us go. Tomorrow I will send for your trunk."

And, arm in arm, our hearts as light as our purses, we set out for the Latin Quarter.

I have often tried since to recall the exact impression Paris made upon me that night; but things, like men, the first time we see them, take on a particular appearance that we can never discover in them again. I have never been able to reconstruct the Paris I saw on my arrival. It is like a misty city that I might have passed through as a child, years ago, and to which I have never returned since.

I remember a wooden bridge over a black river, then a long deserted quay, and an immense garden running along the quay. We stopped for a moment in front of the garden. Through the bars of the grating that fenced it in, I could see dimly, huts, grass, pools of water, and trees sparkling with hoar-frost.

" It is the Jardin des Plantes." said Jacques. " In it there are many polar bears, lions, boa-constrictors, and hippopotami."

In fact, I could smell the wild beasts, and now

and then a shrill cry or a hoarse roar came from the darkness.

Pressing close against my brother, I looked hard through the gratings, and confounding in the same sentiment of terror the unknown Paris, in which I had arrived at night, and this mysterious garden, it seemed to me I had landed in a great black cave, full of wild beasts that were about to fall upon me. Fortunately, I was not alone; I had Jacques to protect me. Oh, Jacques, Jacques ! Why have I not had you always?

We walked on for a long, long time through interminable dark streets; then, all at once, Jacques stopped in a little square where there was a church.

" Here we are at Saint-Germain-des-Pr6s," said he. " Our room is up there."

"What, Jacques? In the clock-tower?"

" Yes, in the clock-tower. It is a very convenient place for knowing the time."

Jacques exaggerated a little. He lived in the house next the church, in a little attic, on the fifth or sixth story, and his window opened opposite the clock-tower, just at the height of the dial.

As I entered I cried with joy: " A fire ! how delightful ! " And I ran straight to the fireplace to hold up my feet to the flame, at the risk of melting my india-rubbers. Then only Jacques perceived the strangeness of my foot-gear. It made him laugh a great deal.

" My dear boy," said he, " a whole crowd of celebrated men come to Paris in sabots, and boast

of it. You can say you came here in india-rubbers, and that is much more original. In the meantime, put on these slippers of mine, and let's begin on the pasty."

Saying this, the kind Jacques moved up in front of the fire a little table that was standing, all set, in the corner.

CHAPTER II.

SENT BY THE CURE OF SAINT-NIZIER.

O God ! how happy we were that night in Jacques' room ! What cheerful, bright reflections the fire made on our table-cloth! And that old sealed wine, how it smelt of violets ! And what a beautiful crust of burnished gold the pasty had ! Ah, they make no more such pasties now, and you will never drink any more such wines, poor Eyssette!

Opposite me, on the other side of the table, Jacques filled my glass, and every time I looked up, I saw his eyes, tender as a mother's, smiling gently at me. I was so happy to be there that it positively put me into a fever, I talked and talked.

" Do eat," said Jacques, as he piled up my plate; but I kept on talking instead of eating. Then, to make me keep quiet, he began to chatter himself, and related at length, without pausing for breath, all that he had done for more than a year, since we had seen each other.

" When you went away," said he, — and he always said the saddest things with a divine smile of resignation, — " when you went away the house became altogether gloomy. Our father did not

work any more; he spent his time in the shop, cursing the Revolutionists, and shouting to me that I was an ass, which did not improve matters. There were notes protested every morning, and visits from the sheriff's officer every few days. Every ring at the bell made our hearts jump. Oh, you went away at the right time !

" After a few months of this terrible existence, my father went to Brittany in the employ of a company of wine-merchants, and my mother to Uncle Baptiste's. I saw them both off. You may think how much I cried. As soon as their backs were turned all our poor furniture was sold; yes, my dear, sold in the street, before my eyes, in front of our door; and I tell you it is very hard to see your house going to pieces like that. You don't know beforehand how all the things of wood or cloth we have in our houses become part of ourselves. And when they took off the linen-press, the one you remember, that has pink cupids on the panels, I wanted to run after the person who bought it, and scream to have him arrested. You can understand, can't you?

" Out of all our furniture, I kept only a chair, a mattress, and a broom ; the broom was very useful to me, as you will see. I deposited these treasures in a corner of our house in the Rue Lanterne, the rent of which was still paid for two months to come; and there I was, quite alone, occupying that large, bare, cold, curtainless apartment. Oh, my dear fellow, how gloomy it was! Every evening, when I came back from my office, it was a new