The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (24 page)

" My dear boy," said he, " they have already sold one copy. It is a good omen."

I pressed his hand silently. I was too much moved to speak, but I was saying to myself: " There is some one in Paris who has taken out three francs from his purse to buy the production of your brain, some one who is reading you and passing judgment upon you. Who can it be? I should like to know him soon." Alas ! to my misfortune, J was soon to know this terrible person.

'^he day after the appearance of my book, I was lunching at the table d'hote, next the fierce thinker, when Jacques, much out of breath, rushed into the room.

" Great news ! " said he, dragging me out " I am leaving this evening, at seven o'clock, with the Marquis. We are going to Nice, to see his sister who is dying. Don't worry about money; the Marquis has doubled my salary. I can send you a hundred francs a month. Well, what is the matter with you? You are quite pale. Come, Daniel, don't be a baby. Go back in there again, finish your lunch and drink half a bottle of Bordeaux to cheer you up. I am going to say goodbye to Pierrotte, then to inform the printer, and order some copies sent to the reviewers. I have n't a minute. We '11 meet at our room at five o'clock."

I watched him stride down the Rue Saint-Benoit, and then returned to the restaurant; but I could neither eat nor drink, and it was the thinker who emptied the half bottle of Bordeaux. The idea that in a few hours my Mother Jacques would be far away oppressed me. It was in vain that I thought of my book, and of the black eyes ; nothing could distract me from the thought that Jacques was to leave me, and that I should be alone, quite alone in Paris, my own master, and responsible for all my actions.

He joined me at the hour named. Though much moved himself, he affected the greatest cheerfulness until the last moment. Until the last

moment, also, he showed his generous soul and the wonderful strength of his love for me. He thought only of me, of my comfort, of my life. Under pretence of packing his trunk, he inspected my linen and clothes.

" Your shirts are in this corner, do you see, Daniel, and your handkerchiefs beside them, behind the cravats."

And I said:

" You are not packing your trunk, Jacques; you are looking over my wardrobe."

When the trunk was packed and the wardrobe arranged, we sent for a cab, and set off for the station.

On the way, Jacques gave me injunctions of all kinds.

" Write often, and send me all the criticisms that appear of your book, particularly Gustave Planche's. I mean to make a cardboard book and paste them all inside. It will be the golden book of the Eyssette family. By the way, you know the washerwoman comes Tuesdays. Try not to be dazzled by success. It is evident that you will have very great success, and success is extremely dangerous in Paris. I am thankful that Camille will be here to keep you from temptation, and, above all, Daniel, I ask of you to go there often, and not make the black eyes cry."

At this moment we passed in front of the Jardin des Plantes. Jacques laughed.

" Do you remember," said he, " how we passed here, one night, four or five months ago? There 's

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a difference between that Daniel and this one, is n't there? Ah, you 've made a great advance in four months! "

He really believed, dear Jacques, that I had made a great advance; and I, too, poor idiot, was convinced of it.

We reached the station. The Marquis was already there, and, from a distance, I saw the odd little man, with a head like a white hedgehog, hopping up and down the waiting-room.

" Quick, quick, good-bye," said Jacques, and, taking my head in his large hands, he kissed me three or four times with all his might, and then ran to join his tormenter.

As I saw him go, I experienced a strange sen-sation.

All at once, I felt smaller, punier, shyer, and more childish, just as if my brother had carried away from me the marrow of my bones, my strength, my boldness, and half my stature. The crowd around me frightened me, and I became Little What's-His-Name again.

Night was falling: slowly by the longest road, along the most deserted quays, Little What 's-His-Name regained his tower. The idea of finding the room empty, made him horribly sad. He would have liked to stay outside till morning, but he had to go in.

As he passed the lodge, the porter cried: " Monsieur Eyssette, there is a letter for you." It was a little note of satin texture, elegant and perfumed; the handwriting was a woman's, finer

and more feline than that of the black eyes. Whose could it be? He broke the seal quickly, and read on the stairs by the gas-light:

To THE Gentleman who is my Neighbor:

The Pastoral Comedy has been upon my table since yesterday ; but the inscription is wanting. It will be very kind if you come to write it this evening, and take a cup of tea. It is between artists, you know.

IRMA BOREL.

And lower down:

The Lady of the First Floor.

The lady of the first floor ! When Little What's-His-Name read this signature, a great quiver ran all through him. He saw her as she had appeared to him one morning, coming downstairs in a whirlwind of velvet, beautiful, cold, and imposing, with the little white scar in the corner of her mouth. When he thought that such a woman had bought his book, his heart leapt with pride.

He paused a moment on the staircase, considering whether he should go up to his room or stop on the first floor; then, suddenly, Jacques' injunction returned to his memory: " Above all, Daniel, don't make the black eyes cry." A secret presentiment warned him that if he went to see the lady of the first floor, the black eyes would cry, and Jacques would be pained. Therefore, Little What's-His-Name put the letter resolutely in his pocket, and said to himself: " I will not go."

CHAPTER X.

IRMA BOREL.

It was the White-Cuckoo who opened the door for him, for—is there need for me to say it? — five minutes after swearing he would not go, the vain Little What's-His-Name rang at Irma Borel's apartment. When the negress saw him, she grinned like a good-natured ogre, and beckoned with her big, shiny black hand for him to follow. After traversing two or three very stately rooms, they stopped before a mysterious little door through which could be heard, more than half stifled by the thickness of the hangings, hoarse cries, sobs, imprecations, and convulsive laughter. The negress rapped, and without waiting for an answer, introduced Little What 's-His-Name.

Alone in a rich boudoir, padded with mauve silk, and blazing with light, Irma Borel was walking up and down with long steps, declaiming. A full, sky-blue peignoir, covered with lace, floated about her like a cloud. One of the sleeves of the peignoir, gathered up to the shoulder, showed a snowy arm of incomparable whiteness, brandishing a mother-of-pearl paper-cutter that served as a dae<^er. The other hand, lost in folds of lace, held an open book.

Little What 's-His-Name paused, dazzled. The lady of the first floor had never seemed so lovely to him before. In the first place, she was less pale than at their former meeting. Her cheek was fresh and pink, on the contrary, but of a somewhat subdued pink, so that, on this evening, she looked like a pretty almond-blossom, and the little white scar at the corner of her lip appeared all the whiter. Then her hair, that he had not seen the first time, farther improved her by softening what was rather haughty and almost hard in her face. Her hair was blond, pale blond, as if powdered; she had a mass of it, and it was very fine, like a golden mist round her head.

When the lady saw Little What 's-His-Name, she stopped short in her declamation. She threw her paper-knife and book on the divan behind her, drew down the sleeve of her peignoir with an adorable gesture, and came forward to meet her guest, gayly offering her hand.

" Good-evening, Sir Neighbor," said she with a charming smile; "you have caught me in full tragic fury. I am learning the part of Clytemnes-tra; it's exciting, is n't it? "

She made him sit beside her on the divan, and they began to talk.

"You are interested in dramatic art, Madame?" (He did not dare call her " neighbor.")

" Oh ! it's a fancy of mine, you know, just as I have been interested in sculpture and music. Still, I think it is serious this time. I am coming out in the Theatre-Fran^ais."

As she spoke, an enormous bird with a yellow tuft, making a great noise with its wings, alit on Little What 's-His-Name's curly head.

" Don't be afraid," said the lady, laughing at his bewilderment, " it is my cockatoo, a dear creature I brought with me from the Marquise Islands."

She took the bird, caressed it, said a few Spanish words to it, and put it back on a gilded perch at the other end of the room. Little What's-His-Name opened his eyes wide. The negress, the cockatoo, the Theatre-Fran^ais, the Marquise Islands!

" What an extraordinary woman! " said he to himself in admiration.

The lady sat down beside him again, and they continued their conversation. The Pastoral Comedy was their first subject. The lady had read it over several times since the previous evening; she knew some of the verses by heart and recited them with enthusiasm. Little What 's-His-Name's vanity had never been so flattered before. She wanted to know how old he was, where he came from, how he lived, if he went into society, and if he were in love. He answered all these questions with the greatest frankness, so that, at the end of an hour, the lady of the first floor knew all about Mother Jacques, about the story of the Eyssette family, and the poor hearth the children had sworn to rebuild. Not one word, however of Mdlle. Pier-rotte; there was mention made only of a young lady in fashionable society who was dying of love for Little What's-His-Name, and of a cruel

father — poor Pierrette ! — who thwarted their passion.

In the midst of these confidences some one entered the room. It was an old sculptor, with white hair, who had given the lady lessons at the time when she was interested in modelling.

" I wager," said he in an undertone, looking mischievously at Little What 's-His-Name, " I wager this is your Neapolitan coral-fisher."

"You are right," she answered, laughing; and turning toward the coral-fisher who appeared much surprised at being thus designated: " Don't you remember," said she, " the morning we met? You were going with your neck bare, and your breast open; your hair was in disorder, and you carried a stoneware pitcher in your hand; it seemed to me that you were one of those little coral-fishers one sees in the Bay of Naples. I told my friends of it in the evening, but we had no idea then that the little coral-fisher was a great poet, and that the Pastoral Comedy was at the bottom of the stoneware pitcher."

You may fancy how charmed Little What's-His-Name was to find himself treated with respectful admiration. As he was modestly bowing and smiling, the White-Cuckoo introduced a newcomer, who proved to be no other than the great Baghavat, the Indian poet of the table-d'hote. Baghavat entered, and went straight to the lady, holding out a book with a green cover.

" I bring you back your butterflies," said he. " What an odd kind of literature! "

A gesture from the lady cut him short. He understood that the author was present, and glanced in his direction with a constrained smile. There was a moment of silence and embarrassment, to which the arrival of a third personage made a happy diversion. The latter was a professor of elocution, a hideous little humpback, with a pallid face, red wig, and bad teeth that he showed when he smiled. It seems that, without his hump, the humpback would have been the greatest actor of his time; but his infirmity not permitting him to go upon the stage, he consoled himself with teaching, and talking against all the actors of the time.

As soon as he appeared, the lady called to

him :

" Have you seen the Jewess? How did she do

to-night? "

The Jewess was the great actress Rachel, then at the height of her glory.

'• She does worse every time," said the professor, shrugging his shoulders. '' That girl has nothing to recommend her. She is a goose, a real goose."

" A real goose," answered his pupil ; and after her, the two others repeated with conviction: " A real goose."

A minute later they begged the lady to recite

something.

Without waiting to be asked twice, she rose, took the mother-of-pearl paper-knife, pushed back the sleeve of her peignoir and began to declaim.

Well or ill? Little What's-His-Name would have been much perplexed as to what to say. Dazzled by that snowy arm, fascinated by that golden hair so wildly tossed about, he looked without listening. When the lady finished, he applauded louder than anybody, and declared in his turn that Rachel was but a goose, a real goose.

He dreamt all night of that snowy arm and that golden mist; and when day came, and he wanted to sit down at the rhyming-table, the enchanted arm returned to pluck him by the sleeve. Then, no longer able to rhyme, and not wishing to go out, he began to write to Jacques, and tell him of the lady of the first floor.

Ah, dear Jacques, what a woman ! She knows everything, she is skilled in everything. She has written sonnets, she has painted pictures. On her mantelpiece there is a pretty Columbine in terra-cotta that she modelled herself. She has been acting in tragedy for the last three months, and already plays much better than the famous Rachel. — It certainly seems as if Rachel were no better than a goose. — In short, dear Jacques, such a woman as you have never dreamt of She has seen everything, she has been everywhere. All at once, she says to you: " When I was at St. Petersburg;" then, another minute, she tells you she prefers the bay of Rio to that of Naples. She has a cockatoo that she has brought from the Marquise Islands, and a negress that she took with her from Port-au-Prince as she was passing through.

But, in fact, you know the negress ; she is our neighbour, the White-Cuckoo. In spite of her fierce appear-

ance, the White-Cuckoo is an excellent woman, quiet, discreet, and devoted, speaking only in proverbs like the good Sancho, When the people in the house try to pump her about her mistress, as to whether she is married, or whether there is a M. Borel anywhere, or if she is as rich as she is said to be, the White-Cuckoo answers in her dialect: " Zaffai cabrite pas zaffai mouton " (The kid has no concern in the sheep's business); or again: "C'est soulie qui connait si bas tini trou " (the shoe knows if there are holes in the stockings). She has a hundred such, and the tattlers never have the last word with her. By the way, do you know whom I met, in the drawing-room of the lady of the first floor? The Hindoo poet of the table d'hote, the great Baghavat himself. He seems much in love with her, and writes beautiful poems in which he compares her alternately to a condor, a lotos, or a buffalo ; but the lady pays small attention to his homage. Besides, she must be accustomed to it; all the artists that visit her — and I can answer for it that they are many and famous — are in love with her.